The girls in the back seat
make their animals
do interpretive dance
to the tune of Colvin’s “Suicide Alley.”
They’re not listening
and the words
dance with the animals
and will not settle on ears
or come to rest
anywhere near their hearts
but if it were just
the one, my own,
she would be
still,
looking out the window,
active,
holding her Bella,
listening
and I would have to be ready
for her questing questions
about the meanings of words
and i would have to tell her what it means
to take one’s own life and
I would have to tell her that
nobody knows what it means
to take one’s own life.
I still don’t know
what it means
not to.
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A Prayer Like Gravity 
if only you could
protect them from such knowledge
the rest of their lives
if only they could
know and accept such knowledge
without feeling pain
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Yes, and thank you–but….
She is an astonishingly wise little girl, and so is perhaps a little more well-prepared for such knowledge than most.
And these things
are all things
that we must
at some time
learn.
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O yes!
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Thank you!
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I’ve quivered and felt inadequate to present each of such lessons as they’ve come up with our kids. But they are essential lessons to learn with family close.
I lost my first true love to suicide when I was 16. His was my first lesson about suicide.
hold my
own hand
alone
move to
escape
the pain
gun will
silence
my heart
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I remember that chapter of your story, Alice. It is one of the most difficult things for us to fit in to our schema of our lives and the world.
It can become
not like a loss that
doesn’t go away,
but more like a loss
that won’t stop coming back.
Peace–
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Oooo. THIS poem of yours is quite fine and inspirational. Here is a response (couldn’t resist…again). 🙂
again
change comes
again
knocks carrying
red roses
chocolates
again
sharp steel
parts my ribs
again
then change
takes away
roses and sweets
again
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No words
but a hug.
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Yes. ((HUG))
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This is terrific on so many levels, but that surprise at the end is what really got me.
Really well written and really well expressed. I’m going to share this, if you don’t mind. 🙂
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Thank you so much Jeremy. The end surprised me as well. Once again, this was a piece that I worked on for some time before those last lines fell upon me and snicked into place almost as I was creating the post. I love it when that happens.
I have been wrapped up lately in the idea (I think I got it from David Biespeil’s “The Poet’s Journey” essays?) that, ideally, the reader of a poem is sharing in the discoveries that the poet had in the writing of the poem. As the poem was being written. I am fascinated by this idea and thrilled when I feel it happening and yes, super-gratified (even vindicated?) when the experience is reflected back to me by a reader, especially an attentive one such as your good self!
Again, thank you so much!
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It is my pleasure, John. Believe me.
I love the idea of shared discoveries in poetry. I think it’s true that that happens with really good and attentive readers of poetry. It can really thrilling to read someone’s work, as I did yours, and be caught by the writer’s discoveries. That’s exactly what happened in this case. 🙂
A great poem you have here. Truly.
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Reblogged this on The Sand County and commented:
This poem is simply terrific. I can relate to it as a father, a lover of music and art, a contemplative person and someone also caught by the wonder of sorrow and the sorrow of wonder. I think this poem is truly special.
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“…caught by the wonder of sorrow and the sorrow of wonder.”
Holy Wow. That’s such an awesome phrase. So encompasses what I feel poetry can (and should?) be.
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