LOSS

There, but Not

The almost-were, who never formed; the ones not breathing,
voice unheard; the safely launched then quickly gone, or with
us long and snatched away.
Death came and took them, one by one; the how--it hurt;
the loss--much more, as memories spill, of those we knew,
or not yet knew ...
the ache’s the same.

They came to us, as if on loan, not really ours to keep
(as if love can be harnessed, owned).  They visit now
through shadows' mist.  The ache subsides, then crashes
forth; retreats, returns--a shriek, a moan, and when
grief's spent, no words at all;
not even words unsaid.
    
We settle down into the now,  but with us still, the
There-but-Nots--within, without; not there, yet
There; we hold their place, that empty space inside we keep
for them (and only them) to fill, our loved, beloved
lost ones--gone,
still there.


A very special thanks to the eight poets below for their kind and gracious permission to share these deeply personal poems of loss, grief, memories, reflections, and above all ... Love.  All but two of them have written about a personal loss as a parent; two were written about the loss of someone else's child/children but because of the profound effect it had on these poets, their verses have been included here as well.  The focus in this small collection is not on the fact of death but on the depth of the sense of loss of certain special beings, or almost-beings, who are no longer with us.

~ ~ Editor, Salamander Cove

Photo courtesy of Jonathan
at Beeps & Chirps

Here

not here
is
the  one
truth

~ ~ Chris Agee

From Next to Nothing, Salt Publishing, 2009.   Copyright Chris Agee, 
quoted with permissiom from Salt Publishing.

It

never
gets done
it sits
on the desk
covered in dust
the notebook
of "Memories"
I'm unable
to face

~ ~ Chris Agee

From Next to Nothing,  Salt Publishing, 2009.     With permission.  

Miscarriage

Little yolk, fly-speck, web
unworked, detail without name,
unlatch yourself from me, go.
In your small submersible,
your thousands of cells have stopped
beating. I felt their tappings
like braille on a quaking bog: a faint print,
then none. Go, almost thing,
the sundews have opened
their sticky pink mitts to catch
your brothers, and soon
the cranberries will float red
on the harvesting pond.
(This, too, will come to an end.)

~ ~ Anna Ross

Published in Memorious #8, August 2007, and in Hawk Weather, Finishing Line Press, 2009.

After the Miscarriage

It’s the first three drinks you’ve had in months
and you want to shop. We go to Hanson’s
end-of-year sale. All their log furniture is marked

half-off. We pick two Adirondack chairs, a plant stand,
table wide enough for a stack of books, maybe a cocktail
or two, something to drink while we sit in the living room

tonight and watch bugs bang around the lamps. First
you want to try out a spruce bench carved
in Southwestern sunset motif with armrest wings.

We sit and wait for it to lift us through the ceiling,
above the roof and deep into cactus country. Imagine
how good it will feel to drift forever

and never think about missing something. But that’s
too much. We head back toward the nursery sets,
climb in their biggest crib and sleep.


~ ~ Dave Jarecki

in the end
you still
live
in me
like clouds
in a vernal pond
whose sky
has vanished

~ ~ Chris Agee

From Next to Nothing,  Salt Publishing, 2009.    With permission. 

Stillbirth

On a platform, I heard someone call out your name:
No, Laetitia, no.
It wasn’t my train—the doors were closing,
but I rushed in, searching for your face.

But no Laetitia. No.
No one in that car could have been you,
but I rushed in, searching for your face:
no longer an infant. A woman now, blond, thirty-two.

No one in that car could have been you.
Laetitia-Marie was the name I had chosen.
No longer an infant. A woman now, blond, thirty-two:
I sometimes go months without remembering you.

Laetitia-Marie was the name I had chosen:
I was told not to look. Not to get attached—
I sometimes go months without remembering you.
Some griefs bless us that way, not asking much space.

I was told not to look. Not to get attached.
It wasn’t my train—the doors were closing.
Some griefs bless us that way, not asking much space.
On a platform, I heard someone calling your name.

~ ~ Laure-Anne Bosselaar

  Published in A New Hunger, Ausable Press, March, 2007.  

Still Life

(for Emma)
Wednesday, 28 January 2009


Still, a breath away from life,
a heartbeat away from breath,
still my baby lies

her frozen hand
reaching out
to receive

the gift that was
no longer
mine to give.

Still, everything is still,
until I cry her cry and
shatter that stillness

forever.

~ ~ Jim Murdoch

Published in  This Is Not About What You Think   (Fandango Virtual, 2010).  

To Friends Not Knowing What to Say

To  J.V.P., B. Jan. 24, 2006 D. Jan. 27, 2006


It is mine
               to bear, this sack
                                          of dust, broken
rhythms of night’s
                            covered drum.
The wind has something
                                      to tell me.
Look how it tugs
                           at my sleeve.
In a dream,
                   I disown the alphabet,
unsaying each letter
                               in a song.
Who can repair
                         the questions
to make them hold
                              water or bones?
The drum renounces
                                 its echo.
Bagpipes offer us
                            the reed’s endless song.
Beside the river
                         two children are gasping
at a paper boat
                         swamped by stones.

~ ~ Robert Peake

Published in Iota, No. 85 (2009). 

As Ever

fresh and new-minted
the face
I love
in the gloom
of every dawn-dusk

~ ~ Chris Agee

From Next to Nothing,  Salt Publishing, 2009.    With permission. 

Other Mothers' Children

In Near Eastern places once held sacred
The sky is bright with rocket glare and
Other mothers’ children stare unseeing
From shattered hovels, no sweet, wet
Baby kisses from blistered lips with songs unsung
No family portraits to dust and treasure, just bodies
Some other mothers’ children rotting in the dust
Frozen moments of horror framed in blood
Limbs cracked and broken, bellies torn
Faces purpled, hearts stopped
Collateral damage, primary pain.

~ ~ Jamie Dedes

Published in Poets Against the War, February 2010. 

I heard

tell
of Mrs Kelly
seen
often
in Derry City's
cemetery
on a cold night
with blankets
to keep
her son
warm
and know now
I have not
remembered
enough.

                                         Dublin, 3 October 2003

Michael Kelly, aged 17,  murdered 30 January 1972

~ ~ Chris Agee
From Next to Nothing,  Salt Publishing, 2009.    With permission.  

Dark, dark the day when you I cannot see ...

Grief knows no hierarchies.

~ ~ Charles Bernstein

Excerpted from the Eulogy on December 31, 2008, for his daughter, Emma Bee Bernstein.

All the Whiskey in Heaven


Not for all the whiskey in heaven
Not for all the flies in Vermont.
Not for all the tears in the basement
Not for a million trips to Mars

Not if you paid me in diamonds
Not if you paid me in pearls
Not if you gave me your pinky ring
Not if you gave me your curls

Not for all the fire in hell
Not for all the blue in the sky
Not for an empire of my own
Not even for peace of mind

No, never, I’ll never stop loving you
Not till my heart beats its last
And even then in my words and my songs
I will love you all over again

~ ~ Charles Bernstein

From All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010). Copyright @ 2010 by Charles Bernstein. Posted here with permission.

Love

You will never return.  Hope means nothing
And nothing will alter it.  Love means something

Though:  you still exist for me.  Like the Big Dipper
Between the void of the two cypress, or a day moon

Against the shimmering stavelines of the heart's pylan.

~ ~ Chris Agee

From Next to Nothing,  Salt Publishing, 2009.    With permission.  

The morning moon

in blue
Omega
like the dead
here
and not here
real
and not real
banished by
the daily
afternoon
pure and bright
ready for exit
at the moment's
gate
the last poem
always unwritten


~ ~ Chris Agee

From Next to Nothing,  Salt Publishing, 2009.    With permission.