Fraction
One day, my heart will stop beating. (not everything is a joke)
-Jimmy Kimmel in a tweet on January 13, 2012
There will be a world with no you in it,
and it won’t be lopsided here without you.
The people who knew you will also be
gone, and then the people who had been
told about you. A child in each playground
swing, a dog at the end of every leash.
Water will course through the pipes
in the city you no longer live in, in your
home that you are not inside of. The new
inhabitants will hold a pot beneath
the faucet in the kitchen, place the pot
on top of the stove, just as you did.
Some of your objects remain, have
been reassigned. Your guitar is held
by a boy whose mother purchased it
from a resale shop. Your gray pearls
are with a woman flecked with your
genes. Many of your books have
disintegrated. A few of the things
you made still belong to someone
else who looks at them. There are
television shows starring humans who
were born long after you disappeared.
Feathers fill the pillows, and teens
and preteens take the risk of placing
their tongues in each other’s mouths.
Forever, you will never come back.
Ninety-eight or eighty-three over
infinity, it is almost not even a fraction.
Geez. Now I don't even want my breakfast!
ReplyDeleteThe details in this poem are wonderful, Hannah. What a statement on our impermanence!
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed your poem this morning, Hannah. Love the inspiration behind it too.
ReplyDeleteThis made me cry. A few years ago I bought a Tuareg cross. The man who sold it to me said he bought it from a Tuareg woman who was 90. You blew me away. And I LOVE the TITLE! xx
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. And a thing of beauty is a joy forever.....
ReplyDelete"is there some idea to replace my life"
ReplyDeleteLove the subject and the chilling last line. I've long thought we need to see ourselves as objects, just every once in awhile, and now I'll add that we need to see ourselves as fractions (barely). Great idea. Not comforting, of course, but don't most of us do plenty of comforting of ourselves, distorting our size and importance in the process?
ReplyDeleteDo you ever think about what will happen to our blogs?
ReplyDeletean important poem, hannah. this recognition of the solidity of things as they drift through time, against the bare flickers that we make against the sky ...
ReplyDeleteMy poem response to Fraction is in my litblog, Hannah. http://ambitsgambit.blogspot.com/2012/01/zero-point-without-you.html
ReplyDeleteThanks for the prompt. Bravo, H.
Oh, Hannah.
ReplyDeleteHi Hannah,
ReplyDeleteI like to think we live on in the moments that we've shared with others, hopefully good moments, leaving lasting impressions and endorphins, that in turn were shared with the next person and the next; that every touch of the skin and flash of the eyes has a meaning beyond object or words. I find it so sad, these days, to tour antique shops and to think, that most of these items belong to someone who has died, and no member of the family either wanted it or was there to take it. Photographs are the worst. "Your grey pearls are with a woman flecked with your genes." Well, maybe, hopefully, the story and a photograph went with them. My mother's pearls (quality fakes called Mallorca)- none of us can remember who gave them to her, only that she treasured them and wore them in an early photograph, but at least they are in the care of her grandaughter who loved her. Will the next generation know even less about them, and give them to Goodwill?
This is a poem that will come back to me again and again - when outside under the stars feeling the insignificance of this short life; at the bedside of loved ones, infirm; when I put down the telephone, not knowing whether I will ever talk again with the person at the other end of the line.
ReplyDelete