The After of Yesterday's Burn

This was going to be a love poem; and I guess, in a way, it still is …

He was my everything and nothing at all,

imprinted in my bones and haunting like a ghost,

lost within the shadows of time’s empty recall

which offers me no glimpse of what I love the most.

His laughter and his smile - neither graces my mind.

Like smoke for the saints, they have drifted away.

He cannot cross the distance that he left behind

nor whisper the words that I never heard him say.

He faded into light; and I yearn for the sun,

brushstrokes of color falling soft upon my hair.

In the quaint pulse of silence, my dreams come unspun,

unfurled in breath of prayers whispered to the air.

He left me in December, overturned in blue.

In the echo of a heartbeat, he departed;

and the cold wing of winter brushed against me too,

muting the dreams that once left me happy-hearted.

They say he was a rebel, but I’ll never know.

My lot in life is that I’ll never get the chance.

Swallowed by the earth, in a quiet yawn below,

is the man who will never teach me how to dance.

The moon leans through my window with stars in her eyes.

She waits for no one and for someone to appear,

but I have lost the will to fall for such disguise.

This mortal dust is but a pinch and that is clear.

I used to gambol on the green, bathed in the glow,

as insouciant as silk dancing on the wind.

I loved with all my heart and in my heart was Joe;

but life and love, like Joe, came to a tragic end.

From a raven’s quill I tumbled into the deep

cutting the stillness into fragments of my soul

and moved into the darkness, unashamed to weep,

casting tears until they became a steady roll.

Author's Note

A daughter’s first bonding with any man is with her father, and that imprints on her so strongly that any later relationships with men are filtered through that experience. We often repeat what we know rather than what we want: we need ‘familiar,’ even if it’s unhealthy. We subconsciously gravitate towards a man who treats us like our father. But what if your father was never there? What if your father committed suicide when you were four and left you to battle the world on your own? What if … there are so many what ifs in the distance between life and death, between what is and what will never be, between a father and a daughter. If you were I, you would understand.

Reviews

[Jimmy Yetts]

Eloquently expressed and skillfully fashioned; wonderful creation.
Tragic subject matter made art.
High-level work!

[Molafvt]

Ahhh, I see now why I found this poem so disturbing. Until I read your authors note, I thought that you were speaking about the loss of a boyfriend. i thought to myself, sad, but is a lover worth this much pain and discontentment. My first judgement of the writer, was one of desperation and immaturity, however the loss of a father by suicide, no less, is a completely different matter. This poem, like acid, ate right through my Virgo shield of critical impartiality. I was left shredded and bleeding by the side of the road and weeping along with you. This touched me hard and threw me into a head spin. Wow, is all I can say. How long ago, may I ask Linda, did this happen?

[Pax Analog]

Beautifully elegiac and touching, deeply haunted by the man who never was. You are so right re the profound imprint of father/mother re the respective genders -- even when such an imprint is defined by an aching absence. Every quatrain is meticulous, exquisite. "I used to gambol on the green, bathed in the glow,/as insouciant as silk dancing on the wind." May your heart resurrect again and again to that occasion.

[Lydia Shutter]

Heartfelt emotions in this one. Indeed, a daughter's first love is her father and she creates her self esteem according to how that father treats her. To be robbed of a relationship with a father handicaps a girl....for the rest of her life to some extent. "The moon leans through my window with stars in her eyes" What a glorious line this is. Linda, you have such talent. A moving poem with unforced rhyme throughout. I enjoyed it. Lydi**

[icelandicblue]

This is so poignant and the emotion is textured and contrasted. Never there yet imprinted in your bones leaves behind the heaviness of a ghost. As always your poem is most eloquent and soulful.

[Dean]

So much reflective of you, Linda, the poet who moves me much more even than my other favorites here. And, so gorgeously written!