Nothing is forever lost, nor do things repeat themselves
Identically, like a train of bus timetable,
Daily or seasonally. Each journey is different.
Last time, there you sat, embedded in memory
Of other interiors, of yesterday night, of childhood
Staring out the window. Probably seeing nothing,
Unaware whether you woke or still afloat on a dream.
This time there’s a fisherman, knee-deep in the estuary
A fox silhouetted, look, loping over a hill brow,
An air-tail Mallard dipping his head in a stream
Or a field greening and yellow, speckled with poppies.
And next time, who will you be, other than another,
Drinking at the station bar, with some fellow travellers,
Swapping jokes and anecdotes, gossiping and laughing
Or swilling whiskey alone, inside your own reflection?
Nothing is forever lost. Nothing is repeated,
Each journey is different.
There are so many things relevant to our lives that we can’t touch or see. Government, insurance, credit, hierarchy, so many existential abstractions with gravity. Within and without.
To avoid inundation one must be comfortable and learn to enjoy swimming in deep water…every day. The undertow is considerable.
Even though my father has passed, I see him in everything beautiful around me. You are so right – Nothing is Forever Lost…
Thanks for sharing that Rebecca, I too feel the love of ones we’ve loved continues in the radiance of nature. Their presence remains… kingfishers and bluebells, wind and rain.
Thank you Jana, you have pre-empted my next poem! Learning to swim the undertow, the flow, the unconscious forces that move us through the waters of our life, is the process of letting go. Letting go that we have any control over those forces. Liberating and terrifying both at the same time, don’t you think?
These words are beautiful…..embedded in memory of other interiors, of yesterday night, of childhood……and so true. We view the world from a place inside our mind which is layered and wrapped in our past :-)
The past is ultimately wrapped in poetry. I used to resist that, but find I’m lost without it. I cannot shake it off, so better I shake hands with it (poetically), before letting it go…
If I could have a choice of a poem I’d like to carry away in my heart, it’d have to be this one.
Then please consider it yours, for to me your thoughts confirm the enduring spirit that this piece is trying to point to.
Thank you… maybe I have, or you have, carried it before too.
I feel sure of it…and there are moments of synchronicity in our lives which I cannot express in words… I realise that we cannot share the same physical time-place relationships that friends usually occupy. But it is no les enriching for it. I know we can, and will transcend the limitations of this world. The nature of compassion is limitless and the bounds of gentleness are, I feel, universal.