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| is for Dirge |
A dirge is very simply a song of mourning, sung or chanted at a
funeral. There is a subtle difference
between the dirge and the elegy, with the former being more direct in its
expression of grief, while an elegy uses symbolism to a greater extent and
evokes sorrow in indirect ways.
I am not sure whether my effort is a dirge or an elegy, but for
whatever it is worth, here it is:
Migrant cranes and swallows, migrant humans,
yellowed leaves beneath the new; the forest floor
signals the close of something, some transitions.
The wrong end of a season, only it feels much more.
The waves write their poems on the foam
and wipe them off and tear up the manuscript;
and someone I knew well goes to her final home;
many meanings in my own irrevocably shift.
She’s gone, and milling feet at the airport
the lift of wings, the rush and crush of traffic,
the final stretch at a run as a last resort
won’t be ever run again the same euphoric,
never the same heady sigh, the happy collapse
and heave in the arms of gentle memories;
she’s gone, and alone I must negotiate the gaps
she’s left in my haunts and haunting alleys.
It’s easily said, nothing in the world shall us part,
that her heart remains in me though she’s gone;
it’s only I who knows where loving ends and starts
and it’s only I who knows how I carry on.
