Definitely messy and not the chocolate-heart valentine one might expect. But there’s a blueberry’s worth of hope, too. Thanks for your very kind words!
Skyscraper Love Story
The phone rang,
singing its little tune
and, all unthinking, I answered it,
only to hear the most unexpected music;
not the drone of some unseen salesman,
but the sweet melody
of your voice.
Misgiving
ran throughout my old frame
as I listened to explanations,
convoluted situational conditions,
and much-too-profuse apologies
to break our appointment
yet again.
You never
utter
There is so much that is unknown and unknowable to us now, I agree. My student’s family was bitterly split in a divorce. They didn’t talk to one another, and so I really do wonder if anyone in his so-called family remembers him now. Thanks for your thoughts, and for reading.
Thank you, tim. Thank you for joining me in remembering the young man I knew early in my teaching. Through this poem, I’m able to grieve his departure from life. His presence remains in my memory, still young, still able to face the world. Life is indeed relentless.
Thank you for your response to this set. That it evoked memories means a lot to me, even though they were sad-colored ones. I can’t help thinking about my former student to wonder what I might have said or done better, if only I had known. I hope your nests find new occupants this spring!
This particular student comes back to my mind, over and over. He is definitely one for whom I wonder what if? He had no safe nest, apparently - not at school, not at home, and not after he graduated, either. I feel I failed him in that. Thank you very much for your thoughtful response.
Still Remembered
The hummingbirds pause
on a barren ash tree branch,
only to forget.
~ ~ ~
A few minutes ago
I stood staring at a wooden coathanger,
of all things.
On it, in faded magic marker,
is written the name of a student I once taught,
decades ago.
I still remember him:
thin faced, sharp featured, blond
and shorter than his peers;
a scrapper,
as one of his classmates called him.
The
Great A-level marks, and burgeoning independence; Liam seems to go from strength to strength. Yet we know what’s ahead: a cheerless room in a rundown flophouse.
I also wondered whether Loy would be as well off as some thought. He’s sufficiently ingenious to figure out how to get an identity, but he and Kee need to survive a strange world which (in our own hindsight) seems increasingly hostile. Thanks very much for your very encouraging comments. World creation in this kind of way isn’t entirely easy for me. So much has changed in the seven years since this story was written!
I am rapt in your elegaic poem to that barn and that place and your time in it. You bring us to warm, dappled shadows in a hay mow, and all the boyhood adventure and delight to be found in it. This poem is a ray of sunlight on a cold, grey afternoon.
I feel awful that I somehow missed responding to your lovely and very kind comment on this story. I’m very glad that Robert and Ed’s tale resonated in some way with your own experience. I hope your new year brings you greater joy and peace. Thanks again.