Days That Will Not Come Again

Where there was something and suddenly isn't
- a beach, a forest, the song of the surf,
the crash of the wave on the shore,
sunset sinking below the horizon,
and a big black laughing dog -
absence becomes a presence
that fits into a corner of our hearts.
Heart walls expand to make room
for the memories, watered with tears,
that come, unbidden, at random moments.
There is an ache, a missing, that feels somehow
stronger than the presence did,
for we are remembering Joy
from a place of less-than-joy.
We are remembering love
from a place of loss-of-the-beloved.
We are remembering companionship
and feeling the pining of our solitary soul.


Where there was something and suddenly isn't
we have to work hard to 
remember gratitude and enough-ness,
remember to look up at the sky
and trail the eagle's flight with our eyes,
to seek out riversong in place of salt and sea.
We somehow learn to make a space for sorrow
inside our aching chests,
and place our love and remembering there,
glad that we recognized joy
and fullness of soul when we had it,
though everything after has been muted,
tinted grey and sepia,
compared to those golden,
radiant, long-gone days
that will never,
     will not ever
         come again.



for Mary's prompt at dVerse, to take one line of the poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, Burning the Old Year , and write our own poem from it. The two italicized lines are Naomi's.

I wrote this poem before reading a few lines in Julia Cameron's memoir, Floor Sample,  that resonated: "Missing a place creates a slow and constant ache. The body goes into mourning as if it had lost a lover." Yes, she has it exactly right. The beauty of Clayoquot Sound has always been my lover.

Shared also with the Tuesday Platform at Real Toads