Sunday, February 23, 2014

The fear of the fear of saying goodbye

how accurate can
the account of a story be
when it's told
by both sides involved?

it was spring.
or was it a week before it?

it was sunny.
or had it just finished raining?

it was mid afternoon.
or was it late?

you ran for the bus
never saying goodbye,
never looking back -
this we remember.

15 comments:

  1. heartbreaking.. beautiful end. and it's so true, some things we remember differently, some truths the same.

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  2. So sad and very well written.

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  3. our lives are narratives, or at least we experience them as stories we tell. but perhaps we are not what happened, but what we can recover, or remember. the self is not only narrative, but a narrative contested by other selves. (i think of kurosawa's rashomon ... and, really, all other works of literature and/or film ... is there truly any other topic?)

    the ending is powerful, this turn from disagreement to agreement, and the sadness ... and of course, there is still an opening for escape -- even if we agree on what happened, we still may read the meaning of what happened differently ....

    (i wonder if you should lose the last line? it is already said, i think ... and it would be perfect to end on the phrase "we remember")

    .

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    1. Last line lost for you. <3 Thanks for coming and reading, you know how much I adore your feedback, how important it is to me when you have time to say something because you understand what I'm talking about.

      Kiss you.

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    2. :-))

      i do understand (i think) ... and i don' forget that what you are talking about is bigger and more important than my small attempts to meet it ...please understand my words as a gesture toward the place where words fail ...

      kiss you, too:-))

      .

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  4. Yes, again. This opens the nature of narrative ...

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    Replies
    1. I loved returning to this today. It is only true within the multiple perspectives of all engaged and then, sadly, disengaged.

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  5. There are things that etch themselves into the memory.. Love that thought..

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  6. Wow... the short poems have it this week. Nice!

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  7. Anonymous2/25/2014

    Ah, lovely and bittersweet!

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  8. Very very interesting note you have here and it gives great ideas too!

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  9. It is what you choose to include that makes the poem - and what you leave out - the brevity works for you. The absolute of the missed goodbye - that is the weight of it - well put and convincing. Thank you for sharing - made me reflect.

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  10. Anonymous2/25/2014

    I guess at the end, both sides are told by silence ~

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  11. Anonymous2/26/2014

    The story in the poem feels real. I like the twist at the end.

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  12. Memory is such a tricky thing… what we hold on to in the end… and I wonder if even that part is what actually happened, or just what we needed to hold on to to survive. Beautiful poem.

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