Looking for the right words
Posted on | December 15, 2005 |
Tonight at the writing workshop I try to untangle a little more of the story I am attempting to put down in ink. The people I write with are an mismatched, well read, easily humored crowd who all have day jobs. We sit around eating pretzels, discussing the virtues of present tense. They ask me about my dad.
I try to explain how my relationship with my father, who died nearly four years ago, has been evolving in a one-sided way since then. Sometimes it’s hard to locate him in my memory, except in freeze frame images. Snapshots. Mostly, I can’t help looking through the lens of the present: dissecting who he was, his beliefs and flaws. I know that then, when we were in our relationship, I couldn’t see outside of it. I know I didn’t analyze his beliefs in the way I do now, measuring them against my own. The seam between my thoughts and his was often blurry. I loved his way of thinking. His persistent, disciplined way of examining the spiritual world through meditation and questioning. I loved how he could apply logic to the fixing of a broken radio, or the cutting of a fallen tree.
After he died, for weeks, months, the first year even, I could call to mind his face, his smile, his fierceness, and our love was very present. Now, I spend hours hunched at the computer, my body mirroring his posture, writing about the ways I’ve been shaped by him. It’s a strange shedding process that is taking place. I’m slipping out of the skin of my childhood as his daughter and fitting into my own. I am gathering myself up—finding abundance in one hand, loss in the other.
Looking for harvest
I beg for you now,
your absence is an ache
like a sadness at new moon.
A craving for touch,
a shock when I look at familiar photos
and know those bones and skin,
are not around the corner.
I do not know my feelings now.
Cannot grasp onto any understanding
of moments or metaphors.
You hang like a crescent moon in my heart
a sliver, a sickle, a tool of harvest.
Yet I do not know the fields
where I can go walking
to find your abundance.
I know not where to find
the round fruits of your love.
So I wait. Polish the scythe.
Hold on to my heart.
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12 Responses to “Looking for the right words”
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December 15th, 2005 @ 3:12 am
AMAZING. MAGNIFICIENT POST.
December 15th, 2005 @ 7:29 am
that was breathtaking.
literally.
December 15th, 2005 @ 8:43 am
such moving words. thanks for writing this here, Christina.
December 15th, 2005 @ 10:22 am
You are so gifted with words, Christina. Don’t ever question or doubt that fact. This was amazing…
December 15th, 2005 @ 11:42 am
This is so beautiful and full of grace. You are a truly gifted writer. You speak to the heart. You make your pain tangible and present and so real that I tremble at the thought of losing my own dad. Wow. WOW. Thank you.
December 15th, 2005 @ 4:43 pm
How is it possible to share such an aching loss with such beauty? Grief is a tangled thing, but I really resonate with your imagery. I know I’ll remember it, always.
Sending you much love as you journey through your grief - and finding such beautiful ways to shed light on such a dark place.
December 15th, 2005 @ 4:52 pm
Your words about your father are making me wish that I had had more time with my own before he died. Or that I had at least taken better advantage of it.
December 15th, 2005 @ 6:44 pm
beautiful!
here’s to your harvest of abundance and loss. here’s to the gleaning memory and the fruit of loss.
December 15th, 2005 @ 10:25 pm
The imagery and cadence of your poem make my heart ache. It is so difficut to wiggle through the many tangled strings that have attached us to our parents and them to us. My father died eight years ago, yet I think about him - even talk to him - almost daily. The harvest image here is very strong…and my intuition is that your thought process and emotions are tied so very strongly to the seasons and the movements of nature…you will find a very strong new growth after a winter of storage as you gather strength for new beginnings.
I just love the collage below! Although made of many pieces, its posture is proud. So beautiful, Christina!
December 16th, 2005 @ 1:12 am
Wow. You are an amazing poet. I hope you’re submitting.
December 21st, 2005 @ 12:37 am
oh, Christina. The way you weave words together is amazing. You have a way of expressing your emotions — even messy ones like grief — with such honesty and beauty and grace.
July 15th, 2006 @ 8:40 pm
thank you for the word comfort…balm to the open wound of resently losing my Dad…..sometimes still so hard to believe he is gone..and yet, continuing to look for him in all that is around me…..and finding him in the memories he took the time to make with me..