February 6, 2018
Today every song is a diary of lost dates,
moments cured in precision
and stowed away on a train to the next town,
always yearning the beyond, around that precious bend.
Or, a funeral for tomorrow, processing the improbable
present. Lights, flickering. The starling’s first peep.
All urgency dies. Outside, leaves float in the fog
as I drive away to a finite point.
Now, a whistle mourns the day’s broken
surge; never having said goodbye, you move on.
* * *
“February 6, 2018” was published in the North Dakota Quarterly in February 2019.
O at the Edges 
I really love reading your poems out aloud.
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Thank you, Joanne! They’re meant to be heard!
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Sensing that NOTHING is random in your poems, I am puzzling over this title … is this a response to something significant I’ve managed to block from awareness … ?? Or the date you wrote a poem that feels almost universal?? Each day of every year brings its own “fog” obscuring clarity – yet we depart into the fog again and again. The older I get, the more often “that precious bend” longed for is behind me, inaccessible via body or mind, just a haunt …
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It’s the day my father died. It was a foggy day, and I was in a bit of a fog…
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Thank you for sharing the specifics – a death still “recent” … interestingly, I read your poem while in a fog accepting the death of my aunt (94.88 years) … in Houston yesterday for her memorial … the last of my parents’ siblings to pass … I am now fully orphaned … and in a fog too thick to recognize a death poem in front of me …
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The fog can be both blessing and curse. I’m sorry for your loss, Jazz.
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I understand that moment of loss, and, with this, you have me feeling my own. Time standing still. The past in a fog and the future no more clear.
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I should add – my own from many years ago.
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I understand.
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The future seems more clear now, but there’s still plenty of fog.
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A whistle morns the day – beautiful lyrics. It so strange what we remember about a funeral for a loved one. We never really forget. Thanks for sharing this personal moment so vividly. Love ❤️ Joni
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Thank you, Joni. Memory, and the experience of it, is indeed strange. And wondrous!
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I’m not kidding when I say, you are one of my favorite poets. Your writing is always so well thought-out, the breaks are beautifully timed, I always find myself emersed in these stories, and I love it all.
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Thank you so much! You’ve made my day!
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Sure thing! Aww that makes me happy! ^^
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