You wouldn't let me snap your photo.
"It would steal my soul," you said.
So I burned you on my retina,
and you stole my heart instead.
You couldn't give me your promise.
You couldn't choose only one.
I saw that Nowhere Train
coming down the track
and knew that we were done.
I caught a train through the mountains
and set out for the sea.
I carried your memory in my heart,
and set your spirit free.
You vanished into the past
in a file called When We Were Young.
But I have always pondered
the blackbird song we might have sung.
***
Great final line!
ReplyDeleteLove this .... feel better!
ReplyDeleteI love the memory and the song carried so beautifully in the lines here Sherry. It is lovely! I do hope you are feeling better soon.
ReplyDeleteI think you are being too hard on this. I like it! Feel better soon, Sherry.
ReplyDeleteThe turn around from what the narrator wanted is well rhymed, and then she gives him a much more generous freedom! I love: ". . . So I burned you on my retina," and the last stanza. I identify with the file and the wondering.
ReplyDeleteWhat a perfect poem! The kindness of the release, the lingering curiosity...it just danced right through me. :)
ReplyDeleteThe nostalgia for moments like these is bittersweet, but also sustaining, because without remembering our youth, I think age would just erase our past joy completely.
ReplyDeleteHow lovely and wistful, Sherry. Love the rhythm of this too.
ReplyDeleteOh Sherry. This tugs at the heart. A friend died several years ago and I carried her ashes to a spot on the mountains she loved and scattered them. This brings that to mind. Your last stanza is stellar. If this is how you write when you don't feel well then.... Feel better soon dear.
ReplyDelete"I saw that Nowhere Train / coming down the track" - Great! and the last line is perfect.
ReplyDeleteSome stunning turns-of-phrase in this piece, that capture in words - such things of-the-heart - that can be so allusive to put to page. Wonderful lines, set in a haunting cadence … a heavenly poem.
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