It’s easy to see the beginnings of things,
not so easy to see the endings.
With eyes like cameras,
the silent guide
can tell you things
you will not believe.
We look at each other and,
confused by grief, cannot see.
The explicable has ended.
Normality is a dirty joke…
Inexplicable, evil things
lick our cheeks in the dark.
These moments of utter sadness,
come from a glimpse
in an old news clip,
some passing moment of
gracefulness that is no more,
swept away and lost.
We lived through the crumbling
of the walls, so sudden;
that brief, shining moment now forgot,
and ‘mere anarchy
is loosed upon the world.
An age is ending.
The center has not held,
and a beast, roused on its slow thighs,
slouches again toward Bethlehem.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
During the weeks after diagnosis, before the really scary stuff starts, you vacillate between hope and fatalism and begin to think about many things, like the crumbling of things that always seemed permanent….
OCTOBER 2016 / JULY 2019 AUTHOR OF THE MONTH at Spillwords.com
“Hemmingplay,” is the pen name of Doug Stanfield, who grew up on a family farm in western Ohio, went with his parents for two years in Karachi, Pakistan, in high school and had lived, until recently, in Bellefonte, PA with his late wife, Wilda and their two sons, Ben and John. Doug was a writer, editor and director of internet communications at Penn State for 26 years. He has had a few disreputable occupations, including newspaper reporter and editor, and public relations flak, but is trying to make amends for his sins by writing poetry and fiction. When his sons were safely off making their own mistakes, he turned on the computer one day, stared at the screen for what seemed a long time, and began to learn the craft anew at age 67. Doug has published three books so far: "Mermaid Sisters: First Dive", a children's book on iTunes/iBook; "I Came From A Place of Fireflies" published as a paperback and Kindle on Amazon, and a new book of poetry, "Snowflakes & Ashes: Meditations on the Temporary”, available as both an ebook and as a paperback. (Gatekeeper Press) on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Ingram and Baker & Taylor, and a few others.)
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