Your Hand I Remember(edit 2)

[TranquillityBase]

I.

The past a thicket
dark and brambled.
Memories flit branch   "memories" tells us the past is the thicket you are referring to
to branch, offering 
treasured glimpses,         bright?
precious song bird’s faint 
calls logged and recorded.  poem enters alternate realm at this line
 
But you,
you caught in the thicket,
what can I hope
to remember of you?           great intro to what follows
 
II.
Lily of the valley
your favorite flower
remember
your house on Martha Washington
those stairs the height of Everest
how me and the cousins we tumbled
down again and again playing
octopus, Grandpa grasping for us
before the blazing living room fire; great visiuals here
a child’s thrill of wishing against
wishing to be caught. But never you      this threw me a bit, you're saying you rarely saw her, except as below?
 
glimpsed carefree, song sung quietly
rarely heard in memory, I imagine
 
sitting in the kitchen
at your pink Formica table
talking, just us two, your
Lauran Bacall gapped grin,
the curl off your cigarette, hanging
on every missing word never
heard from you to know you.  another great description, so many fine details, last line is a little tricky.
 
III.
It could’ve been the light
of an early fall or the height
of summer not letting
on that time is late when.     vagueness of time leading up to another run of great imagery gives reader a break
I held your hand 
in the bright hospice room
not knowing what else; comforted
by the quiet bustle of soft
shoed nurses. Quick to smile,
they hustle tucking
blankets and tending pumps
and morphine drips to the regular
rhythm of ragged breath all
wishing against wishing               great use of echo here
each is your last.
 
Your hand I remember
delicate, bird-boned
skin whisper soft
spotted and thinned
by years, held 
such heat, a glowing
ember of yesterday’s fire.  Whisper fine ending

Hi Bryn,

This shows signs of previous endless polishing, so, for now, (I may be back), these are my comments.  I liked the way the poem ebbs and flows, as one quiet moment is followed by a dense section of lines of movement and action.  One of the best elegies I've seen.

One suggestiion about a different title:  "Your Hand I Remember".

TqB