On Rewriting a Poem

 

{Sometimes old poems ask to be reworked. This is a small example of just that.}

 

 

                                  

On Growing Old Together, A Love Poem

 

Will you scatter me over water
or throw me to the winds,
letting me float away?

 

Will your ashes mingle                                                                                       
with mine one day
when you too are gone . . .

              Ashes to ashes . . .

 

Will you take my hand again
and hold me close against the wind?
Will your eyes always smile with mine?

              Dust to dust . . .

 

Will our hearts travel as one
no matter where that might be?
Will our love be forever?

              Two stars together.

 

 

 

November 2025

 

This is a love poem written for my husband. We met in 1974, fifty-one years ago. This poem originally appeared on this blog in 2015, but I was never really happy with the ending. It never felt “right” to me. Those of you who are writers will know the feeling. You will know that some poems are meant to pop up again for you to rework it until it really is complete, and this is what I have done.

 

Growing older together has been a gift to both of us. We have shared so much and grown so much. Love is the one constant in the equation we call life. This poem is dedicated to my beloved husband and to all who have loved and been loved.

 

 

I’ve recorded myself reading the poem should you care to listen. Just click on the button below and give it a half a minute to begin. 

 

Ritchie and Mary, 1976

The sweetness of honey

 
~
 

Gusts No. 36 Contemporary Tanka
fall/winter 2022

 ~

 

 

once I welcomed
the darkening of winter
      now I crave
the sweetness of honey,
the buzzing of bees

 

 

~

 

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Photo: Medical News Today, August 29, 2018

Making Amends

Moonbathing 26, Summer 2022

 

one by one trying
hard to make amends,
I separate fine strands
of webs I’ve made
to hide my mistakes

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         ‘silk’

Inner Life . . . (tanka)

 

The third (and last) tanka published in the latest issue of Gusts:

 

 

does inner life
start or end in the heart
     I heard it for the first time
in a deep red canyon,
that distant river of me

 

 

 

GUSTS no. 35, Contemporary Tanka,
Spring/Summer  2022 Tanka Canada