National Poetry Day

This post is possibly not for the faint-hearted.  

Here we are, National Poetry Day, and I had a few ideas about maybe posting some of my favourite poems on my Facebook page throughout the day.  When I started to look them out, though, it's not where my thoughts took me after all.  Instead, I found myself browsing my current "Writing" folder on my PC.  I don't write poems often and I have been posting them here from time to time over the last 12 months.  There are three, though, that are good enough - not good per se, not my best by any means, just good enough - that I didn't post when they were new because I wasn't sure whether people would want to read them knowing it was how I felt at the time.  To some extent they chart my progress through grief and the first two, at least, belong very much in earlier times.   So maybe it's time for them to be aired.

I don't have a jolly poem to end with but that's because I haven't written one.  Jolly things have returned to my life, as you will have noticed if you've been reading this blog over the past months.

nothing is enough

any more

with no more

you

I sit here

and carry on, though,

doing things

that are enough

in themselves

for themselves

just not enough

for me

one day

there will be things

that are enough

again

I know that

the knowing means

I can survive

this time when

nothing is enough

nearly done now,

a sunset photo

representing where I am

in time and emotionally

in three interminably

long weeks

not dodging any bullets

but facing it all

cramming in the essence

of 10 summers

beautiful places

wonderful friends

immersing myself

in the place and the life

so I can leave it

now it will be something

left behind and ended

no longer to be feared or dreaded

no longer like

a kick in the guts

Specialism

So often I’ve talked of my specialism

in husbands:

Mikes, born late summer 1942.

Red beards, ex-teachers because of stress

Divorced, two children:

an older daughter with red hair,

a dark-haired son born in ‘77.

And now another thing they share:

Died, leaving me behind.