American Appreciation

at what point do we ever say a loss is too much to bear? is everything replaceable?

He says, the hour for me, late it grows

it is far time I started walking home,

and we said, fare thee well, and thought-

it is sad to see him go,

    but...

 there will be other walkers, other homes.

she says, I lost him at 12, he was

just there; right place, wrong time

and we said, fare-thee-well, and thought-

it is sad to see him go,

    but..

 there will be other mothers, other wombs.

he gave blood and fought to save trees from 

his countrymen and mine, and when he lost,

we said, fare-thee well, and thought-

it is sad to see them go

   but...

 there will be other places one can roam.

she says, there are too many demands

for me to finish work my life has spent

and we said, fare-thee-well, and thought-

it is sad to lose her words

     but...

 there are other authors, other poems

and he tells us of ditches where his parents died

and how grief prevents him ever feeling home

and we said, fare-thee-well, and thought-

it is sad to never understand

  but...

 there are other places one could say "shalom."

 

Reviews

[Tree]

You have been experimenting with structure of late, Raquelita. Here your use of repetition is potent and well placed, a poem where when read out loud penetrated this reader's consciousness, hitting the restart button of my imagination and structurally organizing beautifully the pain, the loss. When loss piles up like this, it's like a sack of wet sand straddling each of your shoulders, where then you spend long days and nights searching for the right place to set them down... Touching upon the subject of repetition of language again, I've found that while working on my current project I do this a lot, and at first I wanted to check-myself and reign in what I felt was an over use of repetitive language, but then decided against it because it's simply how people talk when contemplating ... When expressing. In this piece Raquelita you help validate for me the use of this form of literary communication, as long as it is natural, relevant, and aesthetic. As it is in your poem.


Diego

[Marie Anzalone]

I think there is great power in repetition, Diego. One of my favorite forms is a well-done villanelle, where the repetition makes the message sink into the psyche and bones of the reader if executed correctly. Think Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gently into that good night/ rage, rage against the dying of the light!" Repetition can also serve as an anchor point, when used to illustrate different forms and suage of language, or how the same repeated words can have such different, even sinister meanings- many song lyrics do just that. "The Cat's in the Cradle" is an example I can pull form that genre.

There is even a poem on loss, far better than mine, that maybe I borrowed from a tiny bit in this, where the author recounts things she has personally lost over th eyear, pretending it is no big deal, even when we write it! Like! disaster. Elizabeth Bishop- One Art:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster