Heartbreak, Loss and Coming of Age can be interpreted in many ways. When we first discussed our July/August theme I kept thinking how these three things can be best conceptualized. In my mind Heartbreak, Loss and Coming of Age can be experienced in various levels of relationships and maturity. Heartbreak isn’t necessarily within romantic context, Loss isn’t necessarily death and Coming of Age can be having to overcome something, not just puberty.
In today’s Poetry Friday post, I’m sharing one part of a back to back poem. It’s an original that I wrote as I explored an imaginary scene of a Man in love with his friends widow. In many ways it is heartbreak and loss, but I also think the next stage to this poem would be coming of age.
This is an old poem. While I will never completely claim I am a poet, but at times I do find the words that need to be shared. Thanks Michelle of Today’s Little Ditty for hosting today’s Poetry Friday.
I hope you enjoy this little original from me, Iphigene.
————
An Unsent Letter to the Widow©
And though my letters fall short
Of poetry, of verses that adorn the landscapes
With metaphors that swoon you
To fly across oceans to my little writing desk
Please,
In the temperedness of my pen, in the hesitation
Of tongue,
Know, this letter carries
More.
I have found solace in the quietness of morning
Though I wake from troubled sleep
Of bleak darkness and voids of you
Falling down to nowhere
and my grasp
Taking nothing but air;
How can I ask of you
to soothe these nightmares,
When a child, so innocent
a child
needs you there?
I write in earnest, with heat
At thoughts of begging—
Desperation to fill the burning noon,
The winter night with the whisper
Of your voice,
The hum of your father’s song
And the sweetness of less
Bitter days. Yet, I tear my words
To pieces and fill you in
With details of a day,
Like all other days.
For though passions fill these hands
With ink . And my true letters
Blot with utter abandon page after page
Of desires to have you
Here in this tiny room of flowered dreams
And powdered fascinations. I can never
Ask of you,
This life, for you must live
For your child,
For such an innocent
child.
O Dear widow! Know
that my letters—
Civil, lukewarm and
Proper,
Mean More
So much more.
Gathering Books 
I am quite certain that you can claim yourself a poet, Iphigene. Your writing pulls at my heart.
LikeLike
Thank you Michelle. I suppose you can say that I hold the title poet with such high regard because I love poetry and my lack of real education in writing poetry that makes me hesitate to embrace the title.
I am glad this poem pulled you.
LikeLike
Powerful, Iphigene, and haunting! Thanks for sharing it with us.
LikeLike
Hi tabatha,
I am glad that his little original poem was able to deliver. I hesitated in sharing, as I always do with originals.
Thanks for dropping by.
LikeLike
That’s poetry if I ever read poetry! Well done, Iphigene…very romantic, in the poetic sense, with phrases like “verses that adorn the landscapes / With metaphors” and “flowered dreams / And powdered fascinations.” Really enjoyed it!
LikeLike
Hi Matt,
Thanks. Your comment is encouraging. If anything, I’m glad that you enjoyed this poem and those lines. Thanks for dropping by.
LikeLike
Lovely, and so full of tender feeling and compassion.
LikeLike
Hi Tara,
THis poem was born out my imagination and I wanted to communicate the best way I can the emotions of a person in that state. To be able to express how it is to want to say more and yet can’t.
Glad you picked up on the feelings.
LikeLike
Wow! The emotion of the unrequited love and yearning is palatable. Bravo, Iphigene!
LikeLike
Thank you Bridget. I suppose as the writer of this poem I am most happy that the reader could capture what I wanted to communicate.
LikeLike
Beautiful lines. Very touching.
LikeLike
Thank you.
LikeLike
I also think you can claim the title ‘poet’ Iphigene. This is such a heart-rending collection of feelings, going forward, pulling back, uncertainty, but yearning. I feel for him, and if you say that the next is a coming of age, then for this ‘young person’, even more so sad, realizing that there is no hope. I’m so glad you shared!
LikeLike
Hi linda,
It is sad, but I also think such experiences that allow us to mature. Confronted with truth, with desire and the practical reality that he can never have the widow he must restrain himself. It is easier to profess our emotions and insist on it, but it’s another thing to respect the realities of life.
Thanks for visiting.
LikeLike
This poem led me on its waves as if I were rocking in that sea of sorrow, of heartache. Beautifully done.
LikeLike
Hi Margaret,
I am glad that you and the others were able to join the narrator in his emotional journey. It made this posting worth it.
LikeLike
I would love to read more of this story! You’ve got me hooked!
LikeLike
I’ll see if I can post it next week, as I think its Myra or Fats turn for next week’s poetry friday.
I’m glad this poem made you curious of the other side of the story.
thanks for dropping by Mary Lee
LikeLike
Pingback: [Nonfiction Monday Reading] Of Scars and Candles: Michael Rosen’s Sad Book and The Scar |
Pingback: Poetry Friday: Of Husbands, Loss and Friendship |