poem: Note 3 penned on a night in January, 2014: for you, Janae

When Frodo and Sam walked at last

  into the heart of Mordor,

 even the smallest protections and comforts

    were burdens of unimaginable,

unbearable weight. Saint Teresa said

        to get close, we must first drop

      humiliation, and then chase the reptiles

out with brooms and fire.

and so I come, unburdened with

    the weight of platitudes designed

   to make me feel better. I will not offer

 you crap about being in some better place

        drinking ambrosia. I know better.

    Nobody is ready to cross that divide

   at 24, even the ones who say they are.

I am told you loved my poetry, so I decided,

  simply, to write for you. This morning,

       the sun is rising beautifully

      outside my window, and a dog is chasing

  a chicken, playfully- I can see the rockfall

from my window that yesterday's earthquake

    helped along. One day,

           it will swallow this house.

Small miracles keep us all standing.

No, I do not think you are in some

  better home, just a different one-

because this one too is filled with things

      worth knowing and exploring.

   Waterfalls and heartache,

kisses from dogs and dandelion clocks 

 and landscapes and personalities

      and tree ferns and making love

  under those ferns with hope

    for enough things to be under control

         to create the future you want

       with your beloved.

I hope whoever or whatever

   called you away is generous enough

  to give you another chance

     at all of that, and so much more. And

  that those who loved you, can remember

you as a spirit suffused with joy,

     not simply as a loss of light

   when the clouds claimed their own.

When we drop the armor, when we

    clear out caimans from our underbellies

  when we walk with open hearts,

there we find our own versions of

    peace, if never quite, reason.

There does not have to be a reason-

   that you were here to love deeply-

  for your time, that was reason enough.

     

Reviews

[Mark]

My favorite line? (A practice I rarely indulge): "caimans from our underbellies": that small sharp-nosed , needle-fanged horde of anxieties, hatreds and fears content to nestle where they imagine themselves unseen, and delicately devour us from the inside out.
A beautiful epitaph to a cherished friend. No loss is sadder than the loss of potential, and few entities have greater potential than the 24-year-old, just entering onto the precipice of adulthood.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, Mark, for your beautiful words and kind review. A cherished friend here on WC (hde rushin) lost a daughter the other day. She was 24, her name was Janae. The last correspondence from my friend was that she loved my poetry. I never knew her, but decided to write for her after learning the news.

[LJW]

Genuine heartfelt words from the heart of a genuine person.

His loss is unfathomable.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, LJW, for the comments and the acknowledgment. Rapid life changes have me struggling to carve enough "down time" for me to keep up with my art and communities. I hope to strike that balance soon. I thought last year that I was not wanted here; now i start to see, more and more, why compassion is desperately needed here.

[LJW]

Don't ever leave.

[W.k.kortas]

What strikes me the most about these notes--I'm reviewing them en masse here--is how you've pitched the emotion just right, which is so difficult to do. The heartfelt and the craft both walk the tightrope without slipping off at any time. That's a damn hard and damn impressive thing to do.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, kortas. I have alway sappreciated each and every one of your reviews for their insight and ability to hep me hone my craft. It is nice to have you back.

[Emily B]

amen .......................................

loved this

[Marie Anzalone]

dana's review left me unable to function.

[h d e rushin]

she read your "Letter to a Soul Sister" while sitting on the edge of the bed and ran thru the house
as if I had chased her again when she was five and could run and I couldn't. As if a poem had unlocked
some secret sensation amongst her female reasoning and that she had found the mortise to go forward
but this time with more courage; with the walk that only young girls develop when they pass full
length mirrors and realize a woman is looking back at them. She was learning to write poetry, but
not from those crusty old political examples of her dad, rooted in seventies folklore, jaded by the
hippie handwriting of Hoffman, Ginsburg and Baraka, but from another woman who seemed to speak
her own ingraft language. From you.

men should never write poetry, not when women are so perspicuous. Thank you my friend..Thank all
of you,

dana

[Marie Anzalone]

dana, I think that this may be the single most meaningful review I have ever received on any of my creative efforts. Thank you for making me feel tonight like what I do, matters. Thank you for accepting what scraps I have to offer. Thank you just for being a truly wonderful human being. And thank you for sharing part of Janae's story with me. I will never forget your words here.

May her love be the thing that makes her presence larger than your loss.

love,

Marie

[Emily B]

we love you, Dana