With Her Without Her

Cherry

By Silver Spun Sand

Thu, 19 May 2011
  • 3170 reads
15 comments
 

Manic sounds
of frenzied packing
ricochet
down the staircase
from her room
into a clouded hall...

Suitcases – prized
free; dragged,
protesting
from the loft.
Posters bleed;
ripped
from walls...
no mercy shown;
holdalls, borrowed
indefinitely.

Footsteps – dressed
in black, draw
ever closer...falter;
some turn back,
then turn away...
grow fainter
with the distance.

Long after
that final door-slam
fades from memory,
a host of hangers,
in her hallowed, lonely
closet, still clang
a liturgy...

At an open window
a wind-chime,
long-since outgrown,
of butterflies
and birds,
stoically knells...
shepherding emptiness
into neat, little rows.

Certificate PG
Poem
Silver Spun Sand Poems
Love

Comments

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on
Hi Tina, good to read your work again, you must be on the mend. This one has all the elements of that person who leaves, never to return. I like the way you have described the feelings of the person left behind. Good read, Jenny.

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on
Think I am on the mend, Jenny...at least I hope so;-) Pleased you enjoyed and many thanks for letting me know. Tina

 

Submitted by Dark Fox on
This really touched me. I have done the whole final door slam and packing thing. Thank you for this emotional beautiful read again x

Kayleigh Nichols

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on
Dark Fox - much appreciated;-) Tina x

 

Submitted by Highhat on
A lot of good lines here Tina- I could almost hear the door slam- it was very final. ;)Pia

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on
Thanks, Pia;-) Tina

 

Submitted by seashore on
A very moving piece, Tina. So much more to this than meets the eye I'm sure. Get well soon. Coral

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on
Thanks so much, Coral. Am feeling much better today, thank goodness;-) Tina

 

Submitted by rjnewlyn on
Tina, this is wonderful but so sad - the clanging coat hanger liturgy, the outgrown wind chime. It really works very well. Rob

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on
Thanks so much, Rob. As always, I value your judgement and criticism highly and am pleased that you took exactly what I had intended from this piece;-) Tina

 

Submitted by Beeme on
I agree, I found this very emotive and beautifully expressed. I adore the imagery, particularly; "Suitcases – prized free; dragged, protesting from the loft. Posters bleed; ripped from walls... no mercy shown;" Beeme xx

k.

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on
Thanks so much, Beeme. Good to hear from you. Glad you enjoyed;-) Tina xx

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on
Thanks, Nathan. You know what they say about a change being as good as a rest;-) Pleased you enjoyed, and have a great week. Tina xx

 

Submitted by barryj1 on
I thought the imagery was very powerful and poetic, but I was left hanging at the end without enough information to fill in the missing pieces. Who was the having the hissy fit and why? Where will she go and what will become of our emotionally distraught protagonist? It's only in the second to last stanza that we learn that it is a 'she'. This is not to say I don't like the piece but rather that it left me with "a wind-chime, long-since outgrown, of butterflies and birds,stoically knells... shepherding emptiness into neat, little rows." To play the Devil's advocate, because your language is so unique, the other miscellaneous information could prove a distraction. The poem is what it is - a rather lovely, fragile and ephemeral snapshot of emotional upheaval. Case closed.

barryj1

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on
Hi there, Barry;-) I do in fact introduce the subject of the poem in the first stanza. I.e. 'Down the staircase from her room'. Apart, of course, from the title;-) Hopefully, I thought I had set the scene throughout for a girl going off to Uni or wherever. My two girls grew out of posters round about their eighteenth birthdays, and so I thought that might help, along with the 'borrowed' holdalls that would probably never be seen again. To me, it would be obvious from this that it was an amicable parting, and not some fraught family row, or whatever. The wind-chime too was a hark back to a not so long ago childhood, or so it was intended. Pleased you enjoyed it on the whole though, Barry and once again, many thanks for your valued comments;-) Tina