Place

The phenomenology of place

Being with you
is being in the same country with you,
living in one country with you.
However I am alone now,
you are everywhere in the country,
you become everything;
the passages, the buildings,
the monuments, the ruins;
the trees, the fields, the rivers,
and the mountains;
the language that belongs here;
the voice from the passer-bys;
the accents they speak;
you diffuse into them.
However I am alone now,
as far as I live in
the same country with you
I am being with you
everyday.

Walking through this city
I remember I used to
turn around and smile
when I heard your voice
calling my name keenly
through the stranger sea.
Every time I heard
I learned it by heart.
But many times now
I hear many familiar voices
say my name as they used to
and I still turn around and smile
only every time when I do
the only voice that I do miss
in the familiar stranger sea
is yours.

I do not wish to go across
the borders of this country
however we are separated
by the passages, the buildings,
the monuments, the ruins;
the trees, the fields, the rivers,
and the mountains
that make borders and counties;
by imagining you living on
the other side of the same country,
however we are separated,
on this side of the country,
every time I glance,
every time I look upon
the same sky we share
I fall for you.

There are many places
we said we wanted to go to
together when we were young
but it's only that hill I managed
to walk up - by myself.
Many nights I reached its top
to watch its unchanging valley
where it kept a wish of mine
that we might come together
to walk this hill and
going to a place where
we could rest our head
like the house I return to
every night with
my fatigued body.

Now I don't go to that hill
anymore because I am old
and you are gone far away,
only I will try to look for it
from my window or others'
where I can see many hills,
houses, fields, ruins, and
trees, and I cannot find
that hill of course, but
only look in the distance
and all these distances
become the place I run to
when the dark rises, when I want
your ghost to come
to warm my winter sky
and watch
my summer stars.

Reviews

[Travis Lawrence]

The imagery is great, and the bond between you and her and the country is strong. I like your style, it's soft and dreamy, with simple structure but deep context. There is so much memory in this piece, it's almost difficult for the reader to know how deep it goes. Well done!

[Glen Madigan]

You have an apt way to describe everything in your poem. Keep up the good work and great poetry. Well done