“How are you?”
I say, “I’m fine.”
Sometimes I say, “I’m learning the language of time,— you see.”
Some know, and look at me with a show of some quick sketch of eternity,
Because, it’s all about time.
I am ‘I’ these days,
A pronoun solipsism,
Given by grief—-you see.
Lost is ‘we’, consumed by singularity—-
Time on my hands: A narration,
A story of bones and ash,
Simple, clean and gone ,
Long buried in the garden,
Covered with flowers whose
Spring will never come.
Done is time ahead, except in the short run—-
Time on my hands,
Time in my soul
Given to a droll, “I am fine.’
Minute by minutes past the way everyday ,
All pivoting on that one passing last breath,
Long gone by now in a sea of time.
Waves of anguish still wash upon its shore
Memoirs in foamy fragments
And bits of this and that in the frothy debris of haunting memory.
The door opens on an empty house,
filled with the perfectly simple, gone reverential.
Ghosts speak the language of singularity,
Wander in a lost world,
Sometimes howling,
Sometimes sobbing,
Often speaking the ancient tongue of bird song
In hoarse tweets and tiny bleats of sorrow.
The House is empty except for me, —– you see,
To the casual passer-by its not haunted—-except for me.
Every tomorrow plays as if, as if—alive.
Some recognize the singular me,
Really see and know I am not a ghost,
But now speak in the language of singularity.
The very old and most women know the look
For they too speak the language of time —-you see..
ah me, this is the way of grief and loss. you describe it well. from a very honest place. what was is now gone, and you are navigating a strange dreamscape. thank you for sharing such an exquisite piece of you here. love you, friend.
This is so beautiful. A full inhalation of the moment, a full exhalation of time. I think of bones and ash in the garden and realize that it is always past, present, and future in every way. Thank you for writing it down.
Beautiful thoughts. My husband’s response to how are you would not fit poetry– he says tolerable. I shake my head as they don’t really want to know when they ask and definitely give him a look as it’s not what they expect. Maybe it’s why he says it :).