I don't know how to do this now. So, here goes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyXYPsDsOHY

I have forgotten how to post here, but my daughter does not like me posting things about myself on facebook that she feels make her sad and are too personal. So, I am back. I don't know for how long, And, I want to post a song, but I have forgotten how to do any of this.

Loss

I was telling Wes how it seems strange how much movies find a way to interject themselves into what we go through. This weekend, in the loss of a loved one, I was listening to all of the voices speaking, the children laughing and playing, the food being prepared and eaten, watching faces lifted in laughter and tears rolling down cheeks, & I thought about this scene in the movie Philadelphia where friends and loved ones had gathered together to remember the loved one they has lost to death. Had I not heard this song nor seen this movie, I don't know where my mind would have gone at that moment. I am not sure how I feel about that. To a novel or poem, to a previous experience, to thoughts of mortality and the loss so hard to articulate? I don't know. Grief takes us so many places. Memories flood over us and we are awash and filled with the colors of loss, of having loved deeply, of carrying on, or summer and watermelon or fireworks or the brilliant blue sky above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eks9GPnyJV0

Alone

There is no one. I must find what it is I seek inside myself.  I am not alone, but I am. And, I am terribly lonely.

Opening the Tawny

I had forgotten
the simple, complex
subtleties the tongue

holds in its bumps
and ridges. The nuances
of currant, vanilla, and orchards

exploding like a supernova
in the mouth. My mouth.
My tongue, exploring again,

doing the reminiscing dance,
wanting to catch your tongue
up in the whole thing. Sirens

halt the stir, wail mournful
and loud as hounds at work.
Let them leave me

in my reverie, glass to lips,
memory intact, and harsh
as the brutal ice falling outside

my window, memories
sepia-colored and clear,
Grant me the grace

to lift the port to call, again
and again, leeward and starboard
and full steam ahead beneath

the gathering stars.

One Year Ago