Tag: absence
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Butchart Repose
I wrote Butchart Repose after walking through the Butchart Gardens in British Columbia. The poem began as a record of fatigue and distance—the moment when beauty becomes something you must leave behind.
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Arguing with the Dead
Arguing With the DeadBegin by calling her by name,not the one etched on the granite monument in front of you,not the one printed on the birth certificate—that temporary name another motherwas forced to dream upin the haze of post-labor fade,in the ecstasy of seeing youfor the first time—something that grew for nine monthsinside this other,and…
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There Are Places Where Children Dwell
There are places children dwell— no letters to Santa, no cookies or milk on Christmas Eve— just feathers on windowsills, pretending they’re posts from mom.There are places where children dwell who hum the first sung lullaby from their mother’s doting throat instead of prayers that ask for sleep and their souls to keep.Places where children…
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When the earth is no longer a womb
When the earth is no longer a womb,just a shriek and whistle of once uttered prayer—a long, puncturing howl of everything that was once you turned into casualties of silence, then you know that death has arrived, noiselessly, silent as a missile. All the clamor outside- it’s the hibakujumoku, (the survivor trees) insisting on life…