.
Renaissance
for Rob Salminen
I am as old as I have ever been,
And I’ve not seen all that I’d hoped to see—
But every day my life begins again,
And I’m as young as I will ever be.
.
.
Lost and Found
a pantoum
It’s hard to say for sure. It’s been so long.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve been here before.
The paint is peeling and the color’s wrong,
And there were flowers growing by the door.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve been here before.
What matters is that I was there with you,
And there were flowers growing by the door,
And I could do the things you couldn’t do.
What matters is that I was there with you.
It’s hard to be alone when you are old.
And I could do the things you couldn’t do,
And you had stories itching to be told.
It’s hard to be alone when you are old.
The house is big and empty, now as then,
And you had stories itching to be told:
“I’ll tell you something. I remember when…”
The house is big and empty, now as then.
The paint is peeling and the color’s wrong.
I’ll tell you something—I remember when—
It’s hard to say for sure. It’s been so long.
.
.
Benjamin Daniel Lukey lives near Monroe, North Carolina. He teaches high school English classes whenever he is not fishing or writing poetry. His new collection, What We Leave, is available now in paperback and on your Kindle device.
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“Lost and Found” is a well-written and very poignant piece. Thank you Daniel.
These are two precious melancholy poems both evoking my sentimental senses.
Dear Daniel,
Each of these poems reminds me to appreciate the gift of today. Thank you.
Gigi
Your pantoum is truly beautiful. It seems the perfect form for expressing these these sadly nostalgic kinds of thoughts; the repetitions, I think, echo the patterns our minds go into when we have remembrances of past times that were beautiful in their own ways but make us grieve now. “What matters is that I was there with you”, and, “And I could do the things you couldn’t do” is, for me, the most moving line, picturing for me the last decade or so of my mom’s life, when dad was doing all the things she couldn’t do, which made him very tired; yet he wishes he still had her there to keep on doing those things and caring for her, in order to have her company. Thank you, Benjamin.
“Renaissance” is perfectly succinct. I love it.
Well done. Lost and found reads like old person with a faulty short-term memory repeating himself when someone visits him at Shady Pines.
I love Renaissance!!
Daniel, I thoroughly enjoyed both poems. “Renaissance” (great title) beams with beauty and an optimism that’s contagious, and “Lost and Found” makes perfect use of the pantoum – one of my favorite forms. I love the way you have woven a gossamer wistfulness for the joys of the familiar with the tangled realities of the present. Wonderful!
Enjoyed both poems, Daniel, especially Lost and Found. It’s simplicity is appealing and the poem subtly expresses the speaker’s heavy heartedness. Great work!