How to
Remember
Your
Future
-for Marion D
The moment we sleep
the snow reverses
direction
and falls upwards
unburying all
we thought was
here and gone.
How do we dare
to live without
the Beloved,
when we are
too alone
not to return
to ourselves?
At night
we are
the other,
with all
their
startling
lessons.
We/they
try bringing
an inconceivable
awareness to every
ordinary exchange,
but even
with the words
long gone,
the urgency
remains.
Someone ought
to come from
the future
to warn us, no,
inform us:
There is no time!
We are
sleepwalkers
with one foot
on dry land
and the other
dipping it’s toe
into the
snowy stream
of a flurry of stars.
At least you will
still have
agency.
Then
why not
make use
of the Beloved's
absence
by becoming
like a yogi
more awake?
Of course
knowing
we’re dreaming
gives us
an edge.
It begs
the question:
When or where
does one stop
so as to learn
how best
to move on?
That would
explain why
in every
dream it feels
we are
disabled
for simply
straddling
two places
at one time.
Last night I tried
waking you.
“Can’t you see
I’m here!”
I said, so
close to your
face I felt
your
fractured weather
and you mine.
Existing like we do
in the stew
of alI we are,
hungry
and full
at the same
time,
what if it
were
possible
to reassemble
pure wonder,
if we make
of our molecules
an unimagined
bridge,
that is?
With most of life
behind us,
of course
we feel
unmoored;
amputees
mourning
the loss
of a dream
like a limb.
Oh, but
for it to
become
possible
to regain
our
use again.
On the
other side,
youthful
things
are a cruelty
as they
can’t help
but taunt
us with
the absence
of their beauty.
I refuse to
live life
in such
a stalemate!
Don’t leave me
un-lived-in
like a husk,
barely alive
yet unsheathed,
drying by sunlight
like a starfish pinned
to a board,
all five points
a nod to
the Beloved
twice removed
from the
same sea.
Such amputations
forge us into
new avenues.
We’ll want to
make use of
this world again
even if we
have to live
by trying.
Peter Valentyne
February 1st, 2021
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2 comments:
Peter, this is such a beautiful poem! I really “love” the images of the first stanza. It says so much. The whole poem does. A loss of a loved one is never easy. If allowed, over time, the love and memories can help propel and strengthen the bereaved to continue to live and receive the gifts of life, remembering that there is a future. Life is never stagnant, but, rather, an evolution, like the ebb and flow of a stream. Knowledge of this journey, as time moves on, provides hope and comfort to the bereaved, like a warm, friendly blanket.✍️👏
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