02-19-2015, 06:00 AM
Thank you for your reply. I looked over the poem and I think I agree that the ending is more powerful. I did some serious editing, and I condensed the poem a lot. I tried to use less words, more content. Here is the edited poem.
Draft #2
I wonder what nothing weighs.
Why is that absence weighs more
than substance. Why is it that
the hole takes up more space than
the chunk of me taken. Taken by the
ghost that passed through and didn’t
leave all of me behind.
It sticks like a splinter, the feeling
that it was a mistake to let go, erase
the imprint of her smile I juxtapose on others.
Force the chitter of her laughter from the rafters
of my mind like they were wrens scattered
into the blanketed night.
Nothing to do but watch the sands of time
erode her immaculate statue, revealing
the cracked clay it was built around.
Its better this way, I tell myself.
Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,
it is the act of clearing the sweat, blood and tears,
picking burlap sacks of rice and dragging them
until all of the rice have fallen out of the
small holes in the fabric. Until the bags becomes
nothing, but a whisper on your skin.
The definition of dramatic irony.
I stand at the top of the mountain,
a trail of rice snaking beneath my feet outlining
the path I carved through the brush, with four or five
empty burlap sacks held in my hand, all I would
want is to share this sight with you.
And just like that, my bags refill, and I start my trek once more
Draft #2
I wonder what nothing weighs.
Why is that absence weighs more
than substance. Why is it that
the hole takes up more space than
the chunk of me taken. Taken by the
ghost that passed through and didn’t
leave all of me behind.
It sticks like a splinter, the feeling
that it was a mistake to let go, erase
the imprint of her smile I juxtapose on others.
Force the chitter of her laughter from the rafters
of my mind like they were wrens scattered
into the blanketed night.
Nothing to do but watch the sands of time
erode her immaculate statue, revealing
the cracked clay it was built around.
Its better this way, I tell myself.
Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,
it is the act of clearing the sweat, blood and tears,
picking burlap sacks of rice and dragging them
until all of the rice have fallen out of the
small holes in the fabric. Until the bags becomes
nothing, but a whisper on your skin.
The definition of dramatic irony.
I stand at the top of the mountain,
a trail of rice snaking beneath my feet outlining
the path I carved through the brush, with four or five
empty burlap sacks held in my hand, all I would
want is to share this sight with you.
And just like that, my bags refill, and I start my trek once more