The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sun 6/10/07)

[RetroLounge]

Going Away

Now as the year turns toward its darkness
the car is packed, and time come to start
driving west. We have lived here
for many years and been more or less content;
now we are going away. That is how
things happen, and how into new places,
among other people, we shall carry
our lives with their peculiar memories
both happy and unhappy but either way
touched with a strange tonality
of what is gone but inalienable, the clear
and level light of a late afternoon
out on the terrace, looking to the mountains,
drinking with friends. Voices and laughter
lifted in still air, in a light
that seemed to paralyze time.
We have had kindness here, and some
unkindness; now we are going on.
Though we are young enough still
And militant enough to be resolved,
Keeping our faces to the front, there is
A moment, after saying all farewells,
when we taste the dry and bitter dust
of everything that we have said and done
for many years, and our mouths are dumb,
and the easy tears will not do. Soon
the north wind will shake the leaves,
the leaves will fall. It may be
never again that we shall see them,
the strangers who stand on the steps,
smiling and waving, before the screen doors
of their suddenly forbidden houses.

Howard Nemerov

****************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

[xchrom]

1. i remember belonging here -- but now i am a stranger.

[RetroLounge]

3. No strangers, just friends we haven't met yet...

:hug:

RL

[xchrom]

5. i certainly hope so.

dude -- :hug:

[Inchworm]

2. Good one

When you go back after many years, they are all strangers again.

:thumbsup:

[wildhorses]

4. nicely done

thanks:hi:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. Good morning, my dear Retro!

So this is what it feels like to say goodbye...

Very sweetly melancholy......

Thank you...:hug: