I ... entered the poem of life, whose purpose is ... simply to witness the beauties of the world, to discover the many forms that love can take. (Barabara Blackman in 'Glass After Glass')

These poems are works in progress and may be updated without notice. Nevertheless copyright applies to all writings here and all photos (which are either my own or used with permission). Thank you for your comments. I read and appreciate them all, and reply here to specific points that seem to need it — or as I have the leisure. Otherwise I reciprocate by reading and commenting on your blog posts as much as possible.

24 May 2009

It Slips Down Suddenly

Prompt: The unexpected

It slips down suddenly
into a black pit, sliding
out of the top of my mind
and vanishing, between
one moment and the next –
a name I’ve known
for 25 years, just gone.

I know quite well
the person of that name,
his place in my history,
his place in his own.
I can picture his face and form
in front of me now, I can see
the clothes he usually wore.

But down the deep hole
where that name has fallen,
there is no pursuit
there is no retrieval,
no hook long enough
to reach and bring it up.
This crevasse is bottomless.

Is that how it happens,
so quick and easy?
Only a moment before,
something is there as always,
known and about to be said –
and then it’s an absence, as if
it had blanked out years ago.


2 comments:

  1. yep, that easily and quickly. happens to me all the time so that I have to describe that green vegetable that looks like a flower...but a word may sweep back up from the vortices as if it were alway there, like the keys, and, and.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, I thought it was a sign of age, lol - but not in your case! :)

    ReplyDelete

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