Ghazal

when sadness isn't tangible

Je t'adore a l'egal de la voute nocturne. O vase de tristesse, o grande taciturne (I adore you as I adore the vault of the night sky, O vessel of sadness, O tall silent woman), Odilon Redon, 1890.

Mahdi Meshkatee shared this poignant poem about sadness, which made me think about how difficult it is for me, not to access that emotion, but to bring it out into the world in word form.

I'd like to share a poem again that I have shared here before. I wrote it almost two years ago at the end of the summer, when I was struggling with feeling sadness all around me, and even inside of me, but I couldn't make it into something tangible, as if I was somehow detached of what was going on about and within me.

Ghazal

after Rebecca Cullen

My sister called to say her spirits are raining,
but someone has swept my sky clean and it is still not raining.

My mother speaks of aches and pains in her ageing body,
but here clouds are pushed up against the eastern horizon and it is still not raining.

My father was eaten by lung carcinoma almost five years ago today,
but across the road the beach rose has grown her hips bright and plump and it is still not raining.

My doctor called about my test results and I missed the call,
but I am undulating like the bramble, following the soil I draw from, and it is still not raining.

My friends, all of them, and I, are walking on a floodplain,
but seagull-crested silos stretch blue and half-submerged in the asphalt sea and it is still not raining.

My heart is starting to know the truth of this life,
but I fell into a copse of wild poetry and it is still not raining.

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News: I'm pleased to share that a poem of mine was just published by Halfway Down The Stairs. It's called Un-titled and it found a home in their Midnight issue.

Visit their website if you’d like to read it.