there is a sea brewing where i once stood among

there is a sea brewing where I once stood among

 

teardrops slam against my window's pain

yet my eyes are dry

all of them used up at once

so many years hence

 

but my errant heart

is underwater

sunk deeper with each passing friend

over years the window has small cracks

growing

 

and my nature

and expression

are frosting over

I press my finger

to my handkerchief

 

and it freezes 

with blue stain

as my cold eyes

watch the rain.

 

 

erin-cilberto

11/21/25

Reviews

[Eilis]

A moving piece full of the bottomless heaviness of loss after loss. One loss is difficult enough to bear but when we are barraged by losses it becomes something indescribable. Keeping up with the emotional weight and understanding how to speak about it can be so challenging. I really related to this. The last few years have felt quite surreal with the losing of many important people and the end of my thirty year marriage has made me feel so lost. I have struggled to find myself among it all and to remember how to make contact with the words that once felt so central to who I was. I felt something like that here. Every loss touches us in different ways and sometimes I find it takes a long time to understand what any of it means. I found a bit of solace here in this poem. Seeing those feelings expressed so poignantly and poetically.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Several losses of friends, marriages and now being 75...I am looking for something and yet cannot put my finger on what it is. Retired yet still teaching a little...but too much time to think. I really appreciate your response and understanding to and of this piece. Thank you, Eilis...and I am so sorry about your marriage...that is many years.
j.

[Betty Hermelee]

Hi J different ways to think about this piece... at this moment I think you are unhappy about the prospect of aging....the heart can grow cold like the rest of our parts...it can be painful to endure...specifically you might even be wrestling with the probability of AI growing into our creative juices...and what can we do about it..."And my nature and expression are frosting over"..... for sure there is melancholy, and for sure there is apprehension........always expressed so well...thanks for sharing!!!
Warmly, B

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Unhappy in the sense of losing too many friends lately...a very close one two weeks ago.
thanks for your kind words, Betty.

[Betty Hermelee]

so sorry for your loss; it seems that we are also losing friends...this is the time...
Warmly, B

[Lorry]

This piece sent me back to childhood and the day I first lost anyone meaningful in my life. It won't come as much of a shock to you but with loss always comes rain apparently. I remember the grown ups pretending they just all fancied going to church and leaving us kids behind to guess if it had anything to do with why grandpa wouldn't be coming back.
I cant go through a wet overcast day without thinking of him, my silent hero that showed me that love can be silent too. It was years later that I found out that illness was the reason he couldn't speak, but he became a master of speaking through expression and making us smile, while the grown ups seemed to busy to see his silly face pulls and smiles.
It was about that time I realised that grown ups were weird and getting old hasn't changed my view a single bit.
Very well expressed Jacob.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I miss so many now, I cannot count them all. And I still carry on...life keeps getting shorter and faster.
j.

[Curly Grace]

It’s devastatingly quiet at the end. watching rain without warmth, only cold endurance.
as always, lovely, Jacob

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you, Sarah.
j.

[Dale Pavolko]

**Strengths**
- Economy of language that still feels emotionally full
- Effective progression: tears → dryness → submersion → freezing
- The window cracks “growing” over years is subtle and devastating
- Final image of the blue frozen handkerchief lands like a blade

**Weaknesses**
- “window's pain” → obvious pun that slightly cheapens the line
- “my nature / and expression / are frosting over” is the one place the metaphor tells more than shows
- Line breaks occasionally feel arbitrary (“so many years hence” wants more air)

[Soren]

There is a sad melancholic tint to this window where time takes its toll and we watch it frost over what once lay outside. Walled off from the past and even the present world we look with eyes of a traveler through time. A wonderful poem of aged and cracked regrets and blurred visions.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you for your words, Soren.
j.

[Soren]

Most welcome Jacob