since I last held you
I measure the days
in fallen leaves—
great brown mounds
beneath empty branches
Posts Tagged ‘missing’
Calendaring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, fall, leaves, missing, time on October 5, 2025| 4 Comments »
After a Morning of Crossing Things from a List
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death anniversary, grief, love, missing, river, silence, talking to the dead on August 13, 2025| 12 Comments »
Then comes the moment
when not one thing is more important
than walking to the river
and finding a wide rock in the middle
of the flow where I can sit
and speak to you.
There’s not much to say
these days besides I love you,
I miss you. So I say the paltry words,
six inadequate syllables.
As always they are sorry translations
for the infinite songs of my heart.
So I sit on the rock and listen;
silence the language you speak now.
I’ve been learning its tender
conjugations—you were. You are.
You have been. You will have been.
Is it true they all sound the same?
I practice silence long enough
the river moves through me
touching all I cannot say.
I don’t know how I know
when it is time to rise.
The silence holds me.
I teach the silence your name.
When I say, I miss you
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, missing, mother, parenting on June 24, 2025| 2 Comments »
I mean there’s a silence
here where your voice should be,
an emptiness beside me
where your warmth is not.
I mean your cereal bowl
is not in the sink.
No scent of lavender candles
burning in your room.
I might say, I miss you,
but it’s code
for I miss who I am
when you are here.
Miss giggling until we fall
on the floor. Miss
the way my fingers
pull through your hair.
Miss holding your feet
while you sit in a chair—
that strange thing
that only we do.
I say, I miss you,
but I mean I miss
you humming the Eagles
while making chia seed pudding.
I miss the here of your hand
in my hand. I miss the here
of your feet on the floor,
I miss the here of your eyes.
The here of your sneeze.
The here, right here, of your sigh.
After Not Seeing Her for a Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, how it is, love, missing, song, straight talk on March 27, 2025| 2 Comments »
for Deb
I held the tall and solid
song of her in my arms,
held her the way
a note clings to a staff,
as if for a moment,
I could anchor myself
to the years of shared
laughter. I miss you,
I said. And she said,
That is how it is.
What a gift, these five words.
They did not try to fix,
nor did they ignore
the ache of missing.
As if she were helping me
rekey my thoughts into bitonality—
a melody written in love
with a harmony written
in ache. For a while longer
then, I held her because
I could. And moments
later I rehearsed again
how to let her go.
No part of it
was not beautiful.
Since You’re Gone
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged couch, ekphrasis, heart, love, missing on January 26, 2025| 6 Comments »
My heart is like a well-used couch,
the kind with a dent where your body
once curled in, the cushions threadbare
from years of use; the kind of couch
that remembers every time you gave
it your weight, that recalls every story
that spilled from your mouth,
your words now woven into its upholstery.
Since you’re gone, the picture of me looks
like less like a picture of me and more
like a picture of where you used to be.
One Missing You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, love, missing on June 6, 2023| 2 Comments »
in the chamber of the heart
lighting a golden candle
offering you a chair
City Market, 10 p.m.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, grocery story, missing, shopping on March 5, 2023| 12 Comments »
Once again I’m weeping in the produce.
This time it’s the cauliflower that does it,
remembering how you and I were the only ones
who loved it. I’m thinking now of curried
cauliflower soup and how I no longer make it.
Thinking of all those nights we squeezed the lemon
into the bowls, made a yogurt swirl on top.
And next thing I know, I’m crying in the cracker aisle
because I’m not buying saltine crackers.
I hate saltine crackers. But you loved them.
You loved them and, oh, sweet boy,
I still love you and I want to put the damn box
in the cart, as if I could bring them home to you.
I don’t mind it, this ache, I don’t mind them,
these tears. Of course, it hurts to miss you.
Is it any wonder I shop at ten o’clock at night,
these empty aisles, these tears spilling down my face
as I walk past the cans of black bean soup,
the flats of fresh blackberries, so ripe, so sweet.
After the Loss
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, letter, loss, missing, unreliable narrator on March 1, 2023| 14 Comments »
I don’t think of all the lines from letters
I will never learn by heart,
those letters that you never wrote
about those days you didn’t live—
those mornings you didn’t wake to snow,
those friends you didn’t bring back home,
those tangy foods served in countries
where you will never go.
Is it strange to miss what never was?
I wouldn’t know.
I’m not thinking of them now,
all those letters that you never wrote.
Grateful for Those Years
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, holding, missing, son, touch on August 4, 2022| 13 Comments »
Tonight it’s his willowy body I miss,
the way it fit so easily into my arms,
the way he’d find me on the couch
and slip in beside me and loan me
for a time the full weight of his loneliness.
I miss how sometimes we’d say nothing
and let the quiet crests of our breath
be the only thing that need be said.
I miss how sometimes we’d talk for hours,
our thoughts unspooling like ink-dark yarn.
I miss nuzzling my face in his hair.
I miss being with him everywhere—
in the kitchen, in the car, in the yard,
on a plane, in town, on the pond,
in the store, by his desk. But most of all,
tonight, I miss him in my arms,
here in my too empty arms,
this place where so many years I held him,
this place where the memory of his beauty
still leans full weight against my chest.
One Attempt
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, language, loss, missing, sky on July 3, 2022| 4 Comments »
like trying to contain the sky
in the word blue—
saying I miss you
May 4, 2022
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, missing, ordinary on May 4, 2022| 14 Comments »
It wasn’t that anything special happened today.
No holiday. No giant rainbow. No astonishment
of bloom. Though in years past we would have said,
May the Fourth be with you.
It wasn’t that I made an extraordinary meal,
though you did love the thin-sliced roasted potatoes
I made tonight, and they did turn out good,
slightly bubbled and browned.
It wasn’t that there was a bobcat on the porch.
And the morels aren’t out just yet.
And Mother’s Day is not until this weekend.
But I missed you. I missed you not because it was
the first May 4 since you were gone, I missed you
simply because you are gone. Sometimes,
getting through any ordinary day
is like trying to play Scrabble alone.
It’s like singing a lullaby to an empty bed.
It’s like not making your lunch.
It’s like not worrying how you’re doing.
It’s like lighting a candle and letting it burn to the end.
Missing My Father
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, death, father, legacy, missing on November 26, 2021| 6 Comments »
When you miss him, look inside.
—Deb Stevens, private correspondence
Today when I miss my father,
I hear him in my voice when I say,
You’ll go broke saving money.
I feel his tenderness in the way
I hold my own daughter’s hand.
His laugh blooms inside my laugh
when I giggle hee hee hee.
Here he is, ever inside me.
Returning home from his death,
I feel transformed,
or is it I feel more me—
the me he helped to shape
with his life, the me
he is fashioning with his death,
the me I’m still learning how to be.
A Vanilla Honey Scent
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged missing, poem, poetry, sweet clover on April 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »
scent of sweet clover—
wishing I could send it to you
send you, too,
this woman
alone in a field
surrounded
by sweet clover,
her head tipping back
in ecstasy
where the cup your hand
could be.
One Thanksgiving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, missing, poem, poetry, thanksgiving on November 25, 2017| 2 Comments »
One Other Scene from Summer Camp
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dinner, flower, missing, mother, parent, poem, poetry on July 26, 2017| 2 Comments »
For My Sister Across the Ocean
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged missing, ocean, poem, poetry, sister on November 1, 2015| 4 Comments »
In the empty kitchen I read
your letter out loud,
try to speak in your tones
as if I might trick my ears,
but there are too many waves
in my voice, I can hardly keep my head
above the water, they are deep
the tides between here and there.
Christmas and my Mother
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, daughter, love, missing, mother, poem, poetry on December 24, 2013| 1 Comment »
unable to form
the sweet dough in my hands
without hearing the echo
of her hymn as she sings
a thousand miles away
Using the Last Bit of Red Onion Left by Rachel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cooking, friendship, missing, nostalgia, onion, poem, poetry on July 3, 2012| 6 Comments »
Using the Last Bit of Red Onion Left by Rachel
Lost for weeks in the corner of the crisper drawer,
it appears just in time to save the carrot soup.
One large hunk of red onion, partially used, still good.
I get nostalgic, remembering how Rachel, gone for three weeks,
served it with eggs, and though I didn’t eat them
I remember how delicious the kitchen smelled then.
It is her hand that chose it, her hand that sliced the rings.
I laugh at my own nostalgia. But I miss her, the all of her,
the giggling on the couch with her, the singing in the car,
cayenne and hot chocolate late night, poems, wine.
And slicing the onion, thinking about how Rachel she is,
it is right somehow that I should start to cry.