Before I get into this piece,
I want to let you know that this piece is about loss.
There's some pretty vivid language in it regarding the loss of a loved one and some imagery about funerals and death.
So if this is a trigger for you,
You may want to turn off this recording.
The poem I'm about to read you is a Sestina.
This is a very tricky form of poetry and I love taking on a challenge like this.
The Sestina is a poem with six stanzas of six lines and a final stanza that's a triplet.
All the stanzas have the same six words at the line's end,
But those words are in six different sequences that follow a fixed pattern.
So it's very tricky and then you have to use those same six words in the closing three line stanza.
So as you listen,
See if you can pick out the six words and I hope you enjoy this one.
This is called Still Losing You by Alicia Mott-Camitto.
One question endlessly probes me.
Do I remember you?
My mind awake,
But my memory hidden behind a screen.
A wall of hurt,
Depression,
Non-transparent,
Perhaps wooden,
And now love reached with difficulty,
Always drowning in black.
Lost sanity behind the dying image of you,
Looking onward as me.
I cannot remember your hug and down my face stream eternal tears.
Is this my life?
Once filled with happiness,
Now always something tears at me.
Somebody please wake me up.
I don't ask much.
All I want is you.
On Saturday morning,
Pulling weeds out in the yard,
Me eating pancakes,
Bacon and eggs.
I look through the screen and see mom clipping coupons on the porch,
Sipping her coffee,
Black,
How she always drinks it.
But my memory is not a wooden puppet.
I can see the sidewalk you designed,
The wooden fence around the pool you put in with plenty of sweat and tears.
And now,
Walking on the sinking grass,
Heels sinking into black mud,
Squish,
Squish.
We walk over to what they say is you,
Sloshing through our tears under a tented throne.
Only a stretched screen of nylon covers you now.
Do you recognize me?
Do you watch me?
What do you see when you're watching me?
Do you smile?
Do you know how I weep so at the wooden box?
And mom,
Falling apart,
Tries to be strong,
Tries to screen us from the hurt.
Misty day,
No sense of time.
Raindrops like tears.
All these images left in my brain.
Tad,
Where are you?
Sky,
Uniforms.
The trumpet calls out in the rain.
Black,
Black,
Single flag of red,
White,
And blue.
Rain pours down black,
Flashes of familiar scenes.
Summer days,
My bike.
You held on to me.
Seeding sunflowers,
Backyard barbecues,
Pitching in the yard.
You taught me so much.
So many times I wanted to quit,
But you wouldn't let me.
Now the heart in my chest sinking down,
Down,
Saturated with tears and wrung out again.
I look at mom's face through her hat and screen.
No more replays of arguments on my internal big screen TV.
No more dreams of your visits.
No more black regrets.
I know you exist somewhere still.
So no more tears.
As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
You are near me.
We can't hear the pastor's voice over the booming thunder.
Wooden angel?
Thy rod and staff comfort me.
Cold rod,
Splintered staff,
Empty you.
And behind the thick screen of reality still stands a broken me.
Cursed with a purely black memory and a soft wooden heart.
Every endless day full of dried up tears,
Longing only for the lost experience of you.
