Letting Loss In

Watching the earth movers
Change the landscape
I open the window
And let loss into the room
Never-agains from every era of the past:

The line drive off the left field wall
Evil jungle shrimp
Karen’s hesitant, once might have been my wife, kiss
The garden at Tivoli
The Chocolate Bakery
WLGS at $7
That first reading of The Waves

In life’s late afternoon
There’s still a flood of light
We may see the limp balloons of the morning glory
In among the brighter flowers
But the transcendent light of evening is still ahead

There is no crisis
But once we acknowledge loss
We look too for something fresh, something new
Some flower, face, or gesture
To take into our hearts
Knowing it should outlive us
As we have the things we mourn

The concussion of the trucks
Scatters a lovely apricot dust
Softening the sunlight

Read this poem on Apple News.

cover photo courtesy of A. Yobi Blumberg.