May I Be Familiar
Do we find you in what you’ve left or where you’ve gone.
In words you could not form, or forgot long ago.
Missing the pastels, the shades, all nuance.
With moistened hands, I pat rice into a ball and wrap it in seaweed.
By my reckoning, the word who no longer implicates.
Ritual accumulates significance in memory.
Forgotten fruit on the sill. A whisper nailed to the wall.
Honor and pride line your earthen home.
Though you never did, I pickle ginger. Make takuan.
The transparent house reflects no gaze and contains no one.
Gathering your absence, I coil it around my body.
* * *
“May I Be Familiar” is included in my mini-digital chapbook, Interval’s Night, published in 2016 by Platypus Press as #10 of their 2412 series.
O at the Edges 
Wonderful post
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much.
LikeLike
Lovely, Robert. A beautiful elegy–the rituals, the whispers, the grief.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Merril. Life is full of those rituals…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes . . .
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is such a commanding piece – so elegant, so inspired, for the startling lines that seem to both flow together with such ease, and yet sometimes contradict, a slight friction, a gentle rubbing – not quite of irritation, but rather, a simple “presence” – a reminder. And it breathes, again, between the spaces, the lines, and leaves one with the actual feeling of the weight of loss and grief. And yet, it delicately dances with the counterpane of lightness too. Very deft and sensitively written.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Pat. It took a long while to find those spaces, to learn to live with them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
yes, it often does, and like most things, they do shape-shift themselves, even as we do too … it’s as if the life dance continues on, in the relationship, even when one is departed …
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, it was startling to discover that death does not necessarily end a relationship.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Ritual accumulates significance in memory.
Forgotten fruit on the sill. A whisper nailed to the wall.”
Grand Master B of Words. !!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha! Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Another good one. Thin space imagery.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks very much, Cheryl.
LikeLike
I love this poem! We just spent a week in Edmonton, AB going through the things my father in law left behind as he passed on to the next life. So many familiar items: photos, pictures, writings, drawings he made, and many more items. All the familiar was present in this event!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Dwight. I find comfort in the ordinary. In ritual. Those familiar things.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes!
LikeLiked by 1 person
So lovely Robert!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Annika.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very moving and the poem physically moves with the ritual of remembering too. Very poignant.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rituals seem to gain significance the more I age.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“A whisper nailed to a wall” — *!gasp!* Superb! ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Carrie. Those whispers!
LikeLike