People sometimes tell me
About the many things they miss.
They miss that feeling of being loved;
They miss the emotion of being hugged;
They cling tightly to the randomness of bliss;
They even miss the thrill of hanging over the abyss.
My mother missed us kids as children all around,
Even when we grew up and still there to be found.
My father missed the work that brought him honest fare;
In retirement, he had far too much free time to spare.
My older brother took sick and missed his ability to speak;
He lay awake on life-support with prospects utterly bleak.
What I don’t miss is the life that I have already lived,
A life I call my own that no one else is able to give.
What I do miss is another life in some distant future,
A life to improve on this one, to build with seam and suture.
Missing away the years only heightens one’s sense of sorrow;
Missing things is a useless luxury I can no longer afford to borrow.
Missing things shatters hope onto the rocks of pure invention,
To suspend our belief in ourselves and only seek out prevention.
Never missing things raises the sails of freedom the high seas to ply,
To ride the open wind through the azure ocean of sky.
If I confessed to the extravagance of missing my youth,
I might as well accept the reality that today I am completely uncouth.
A wall surrounds the past we should never attempt to breach,
A land of long gone by that missing will only bring us to grief.
In the past, time has things disappear, like clouds, like mist;
You cannot touch a cloud, any more than you can catch the mist.
Missing things in the past is like reaching into the heavens;
Life moves on cat’s paws; even if we are at sixes and sevens.
I try not to miss anything,
I try to take everything in its stride.
What we miss only makes us yearn,
Preventing us from accepting what we must learn,
Missing things ends up taking us to the land of no return.
I don’t miss anything,
I don’t miss anything at all
Except perhaps only one thing.
I miss the future that for me will never arrive,
A distant future in which I will never be alive.
INTERESTING PIECE WELL DONE AND...EVERYTHING CONTRADICTED IN THE LAST TWO LINES BECAUSE 'YOU' LESS A BODY, WILL ALWAYS BE ALIVE. THANKS FOR SHARING. LOVE, BLESSINGS AND FAITH...JOYCE * HIS INSPIRATIONS
Having written about the weight of dragging around old baggage, this piece was particularly relevant to one of my pet peeves: those who can't let go. Certainly, those wallowing in what they miss, as opposed to,as you point out, that which is ahead, are people to me who have stopped living. Thanks for sharing.
John,
Well one conundrum is if we had never lived at all, we would be missing nothing a'tall!
I was supposed to have died at 3 months old but somehow lived, so guess I could have missed a whole lot more or if I had never been born, I would have missed an entire life.
Dan
right, we miss only what is known as our missing things; however, there are so many things which are missed without our knowing of them. Is it good or bad? neither first nor second. What's the remedy? Open our mind, broaden its range 'to be alive in a distant future' without anticipation ;)) the missing things can be likened to blessing, as you never miss what is truly yours (in other words, what you are able to digest). For me, what I'm missing here is the orderliness of the inner structure so characteristic of your poetry, John. Cheers, alex
Ahhh . . . You gave this poem everything you had to give, and that was good enough for me, and hopefully for you also. I used to miss things, but not anymore. Why bother to miss things, it just puts a gloom within yourself. Good writing. John.
Outstanding piece John
One thing I don't miss is my past
for those days I have lived one day at a time
Luckily escaping an abyss
I'm now happily enjoying 8'grandkids
And still taking it one day at a time
Without making too many plans for the future
Peace be with you
Still Living on my Feet is the follow up to Tichaona Chinyelu’s first book, In the Whirlwind, which was rooted in a sense of hard-hitting revolutionary black love. However, in this sophomore effort, Tichaona brings the revolutionary essence from deep
This book represents a thirty-day period of my poetry journal. Each poem addresses
the dominant thoughts occupying my mind during the early morning hours of a given
day.
Share
Print
Save
Follow
compelling read
Regis
Well one conundrum is if we had never lived at all, we would be missing nothing a'tall!
I was supposed to have died at 3 months old but somehow lived, so guess I could have missed a whole lot more or if I had never been born, I would have missed an entire life.
Dan
Love ya!
Jane
One thing I don't miss is my past
for those days I have lived one day at a time
Luckily escaping an abyss
I'm now happily enjoying 8'grandkids
And still taking it one day at a time
Without making too many plans for the future
Peace be with you
William