A Navarrete quatrain*
How strange these absences that call upon
Image by K. Kovarik, 2011
the masses of the unexplained to bring you
close enough to hope—perchance to know,
that what we had, long past, uplifts us still.
~
How strange these empty thoughts, their
tubular assault like whistles in a headwind,
scraps of words they make no sound, and
yet, your lips, to me, stay moist and readable.
~
How strange your nonexistence in this life
where oxygen and carbons breathe a name
diurnal, tea leaves spilling cross my desk, they
draw your face and mine eternally as one.
~
This strangeness that besieges us is overturning
fast to presence. Winds, be calmed. I hear
your poetry in rise and fall, your lips and chest
they draw me in. We’ve done, at last, with leaving.
~~~
© Elaine Stirling, 2012
*The Navarrete quatrain is a poetry form developed by Gavriel Navarro. Simple in appearance, it’s deceptively tricky to write (at least, for me). If you’re up for a challenge and, if you’re lucky, a heightened state, you can find the directions for the Navarrete here at Gavriel’s Muse.
Oceantics 