RR Lyrae: Matter
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon
from ] Open Interval [
He still exists as flesh; it's the idea
that's dissipated--: husband: -- what was he?
But a word I loved? There is no panacea
for missing syllables: his body: we
all know what matter's mostly made of --: space
obtains--: One day I realized I believe--:
the space in everything is God: that force
of present absence: pen: expanse: I grieve--
] old fashioned: distance: squinting it into view [
between body and name--in here!--I'm loose
as love is--: nebulous--: what good
this pointillism--: our eyes won't do--:
Sometimes the absences in us seem so profuse,
I wonder we don't pass through wood.
Click here to see a video of Lyrae reading.
4 comments:
I don't whether or not I'd want to be a writer or a poet or teacher of same and regularly be swimming in these kinds of wrenching observations...especially when I was grieving...on the other hand...who am I kidding? My work brings this sort of thing to be mostly every day, in a different sort of package.
Heartbreaking and yet there's some containment in the punctuation.
I have to add that I have in the past described myself as being like swiss cheese, over the loss of what I believed about a certain relationship...at some level I believe that God is in the absences but at some level I don't, and that's where the pain can seep in. Not just for me but for anyone.
I really like this! Going to try to find time to find it in the library today... really want to see it on the page. Thanks for sharing it.
I didn't see the poem as wrenching until you pointed it out that way. On one level it's a relief to encounter an acknowledgment of absence(s). And you're right--there is containment in that punctuation, especially as that punctuation is personal and invented. Still it's a poem of losing someone, in more ways than one.
Post a Comment