My paprika is hotter than yours.

 

 

 

Can I speak about the pain of loss

and yet the beauty of love in spite of that pain?

Each person feels winter in his or her own way.

I kept those words of the Ghazal on the wall

in the room with the leaky roof,

to strike out, like Hafez said, "naked on the road".

But Grandma had Alzheimer's at the end

and had to be tied down or locked in the house

least she, at 2am, would wander down streets

and on the porches of strangers, asking the

whereabouts of relatives who died 20 years hence.

And I have found that the easiest thing to do in life

is to compare, with another human, pain. I'm over

winter. Over the shovel. Over the sweet gale.

Over the frozen dogs. Over their kibbles that

turn in the cold, into one solid, oblong ball. Over

trying to remember steps, uneven under the clean snow.

 

Over you.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

like the part about grandma...because of her disease she kept asking...

but yes, there is a part of that is always asking about those we lost in the past...

whether through death or loss of a relationship....we remember...too much.

i remember the pain and the loss of too many times...too many people...

the bumps are like those under uneven snow...and many of them make me feel cold...

eventually...we compare pain as poets...and we all have felt it and written about it...

it's the "getting over" that is so tough.

this is such a good write, Dana.

your poetry incites me toward inspiration to write myself...almost always...

jacob

[quinfinn]

oddly, i feel, reading this....as if i were listening to a Tracy Chapman song...and yet, there is a deeper more ephemeral logic running through these lines, like a soul tested and reborn and tested again. this depth is astounding, and i am loathe to share with you that i had not previously been aware of your writing capabilities, even though i have witnessed your nom de plume on these pages many, many times. such are the paths we wander, and i am glad you chose to wander one of mine, for now i have seen how well you emote in your writing. forgive me if i say only ......"wow"

[Marie Anzalone]

I have oft found that the words of beauty written by those who can neither experience fully the pain of great loss, nor empathize with it in another; ring hollow and false. For how can someone truly experience Life's joys without touching that sacred part of themselves that knows the bitterness of disappointment and disillusionment? That part which acknowledges Death as the ultimate loss, the apex of giving up joy for the nothing or reward or integration that comes next? Only by embracing the ambiguity of mortality can we understand our own relation with our Creator. Anyone who says they know what happens, unless they have passed the veil to death and been brought back, is a liar. I don't care what the books say.

Funny, dana. I look at the day you posted this. That same day, I almost wrote a poem about actually cooking hot salsa; about how mine had more fire in it. Synchronicity has been resoundingly loud on many sides lately. I am trying to stand up and pay attention.

[writing mojo]

your journeys of self discovery always leave more than a mouth full, a salivating renascence of being found in one of your favorite time period in a paintings..mine is a storm after surrealism is left on the lawn connecting time lines broken to dotted eyes locked...great piece

[Corset]

Liar liar pants on fire :P

A very nice piece dana, especially since you wrote so openly with your quill.
I felt the sorrow, but also the celebration of these two hanging feelings in conflict yet one together you describe your grandmother, as a beautiful person. You always expressed the most tangible feelings, and things which are not to be touched, in words, in atmosphere, in all. I appreciate that so dana! Thank you for being here on the cafe. Fantastic write. Your title is gripping...

- Elisa

[Emily B]

you take my breath, hot gusts that come back so cold it could freeze me all the way through