Losing Track
Denise Levertov
Long after you have swung back
away from me
I think you are still with me:
you come in close to the shore
on the tide
and nudge me awake the way
a boat adrift nudges the pier:
am I a pier
half-in half-out of the water?
and in the pleasure of that communion
I lose track,
the moon I watch goes down, the
tide swings you away before
I know I'm
alone again long since,
mud sucking at gray and black
timbers of me,
a light growth of green dreams drying.
It's easy to lose track of where you are in your own life.
After a period of anxiety, hope, anguish, resignation, it is easy to leave a year, a job, a relationship, long before you actually say the words, pack up your stuff, and go. Perhaps you've said the words, but you were met with a look of disbelief, or worse, a blank stare.
It's disconcerting, when you've left, really said goodbye in your mind or heart, when the year hasn't finished with you, or your boss is ticking off the list of expectations required for the next five years, when you know, know, the paint has sealed that window shut. Or your husband,or wife, or partner enters the house and starts asking your opinion about some minor change to the house, when you know you've closed the door already.
How could they know you've left when you are still sitting right there where you always are?
Perhaps you've said the words and haven't been heard. Say them louder.
That is how this new year feels only three days into it.
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