It’s been a sad week, one way and another.
Tanka for Bev, and for Manfred
The news comes –
two different friends
dead this week.
The nights grow colder
with brilliant sunsets.
************
Landay for John
My face in the mirror pinched and old –
I approach the sad part of the memoir I’m writing.
July. This is the same month he died
in a long ago year when the sun set for us both.
After the sunset, the long dark night.
Inexorably, the sun rises again – for one.
Forty years past I shed many tears.
I open the page and find I have still more to fall.
Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United in Friday Writings #36: Sunset.
Sunset photo © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2019
The nights growing colder despite the brilliant sunsets and the sun rising for just one... the grief is palpable in these beautiful poems.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you find them beautiful. I wanted them to be, for the sake of those I'm remembering in them.
DeleteThank you, Rosemary, for hosting and mentoring several of us. I liked the eulogy poem for two. One doesn't forget loosing mate or dear friend. I believe the grief disintegrates but that the memories will remain. I watched my dad, and you to some extent, sort of painful to deal with also.
ReplyDeleteBev would have corrected me on my mixing a "their" in with singular pronoun. Bev and I are the same age, I was six months older. Perhaps running with younger crowds and marrying that way twice helps me to keep feeling young. :)
..
Jim,
jimmiehov6.blogspot.com
..
I think that people like you – and Bev – are the real meaning of the saying that the good die young! (They stay young! ... I think I'll make that, WE stay young.)
DeleteOh beautiful but sad sunsets So sorry your friends pased away. Are you talking about Bev from Indybev such a beatiful lovely poet .
ReplyDeleteYes, Marja. I mentioned her passing in my Friday Writings post.
DeleteStill more to fall... gave me a chill.
ReplyDeleteAh well, it is as Kahlil Gibran says, and the sorrow is a measure of the former joy.
DeleteLuv the jyxtaposition in your tanka.
ReplyDeleteWe all miss our dear friend Bev.
Much💚love
Thanks, Gillena. Yes, she was such a lovely lady.
DeleteHow can we not weep for our beloved ones who have departed? Setting suns, all of us...
ReplyDeleteVery true. Death is indeed a part of life, and our common end.
DeleteA sad and beautiful tribute. RIP Bev. I will edit and add a note at my blog also in response to today's sunset prompt.
ReplyDeletemuch💚love
Thanks again, Gillena. I hope that somewhere, somehow, she is aware of our love and acknowledgment of her.
DeleteYes she will be aware. Beautiful sad poems of loss. As you say none of us can escape death. ..the reason we should cherish every moment of our life.
DeleteIndeed yes!
DeleteHow apt to use a landay to write a poem on grief, and it's so beautifully written too.
ReplyDeleteWe are all going to miss Beverley, her delightful rhymes and her sense of humour. The sunset goes out for some friends.
I am posting a poem on the sunrise instead.
That sounds good. I'll go and have a look at it in a minute.
Deletebeautifully sad poems, Rosemary. And a lovely photo, too.
ReplyDeleteLinda E.H.
Thank you!
DeleteThe tanka squeezed my heart. Then I got to the last two stanzas of the second poem and burst into tears. A sad week indeed. So much loss... So much hurt...
ReplyDeleteThank you for your tears, dear Magaly.
DeleteLanday for John ... oh my ... I am trying to respond through tears - then again - I expect that the tears that are falling are my response to this exquisite piece.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Anonymous, for this high compliment. Please tel me your name?
DeleteMoving. These are beautiful tributes
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteSunset for Indybev...right after the last post of hers that I read mentioned a serious illness. At least it wasn't a *long* illness. She is missed.
ReplyDeleteYes, and her family reported that she went peacefully. Clearly her family was very loving, which is not surprising. All things to be glad of – and yet, as you say, she is much missed. She is irreplaceable, but when all's said and done, we can only be glad to have known her and read her for so long.
Delete