Elegy
by: Billy Collins
I have turned over
all 52 cards
on the kitchen table.
Still, I think
you must be hiding
somewhere in the deck.
If you have ben reading my posts this past week, you know that I've been struggling with some darkness for about five or six days. Not anything new for me. I go through these blue periods regularly. Sometimes, I can pinpoint the reason for my sadness, and other times, it seems to descend out of nowhere.
This time, I know what sparked this bout of melancholia. (Again, not going into details--too personal.) However, now that it has been ongoing for so long, I think there's something a little more complex happening inside my head and heart. A kind of gray pall hovers over me.
Today, I realized that on Tuesday, June 25, my mother would have turned 93 years old. I can't believe she's been gone for almost three years now. Grief is a strange thing. I can go for weeks, sometimes months, at a time without feeling a twinge of it, and, suddenly, it returns like a black perennial in full bloom.
So, Collins' poem hits home tonight. I think that I've been dealing with my mother's loss, at least subconsciously, for a few days. Looking for her, the way Collins looks for his missing loved one in that deck of cards.
Saint Marty stopped by the cemetery today and sang "Happy Birthday" to him mom.
Belated Birthday Poem
by: Martin Achatz
Two days ago, I woke
as my mother's ghost blew
out each starry candle still
burning in the purple
meringue of morn.
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