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ISBN:
978-0-6151-6572-1
Publisher:
Richard Harteis
Rights Owner: The
Church of Living Hope
Copyright: ©
2007 Richard Harteis
Language: English
Country: United
States
Edition: First
Edition
It’s
never easy to lose a loved one. Our emotions escape us
in numerous ways; tears, anger, denial, reverence... and
for the lucky (if that could even be a proper
description) there is poetic closure. Harteis bravely
shares his deepest pain, the loss of his partner in
life, the poet William Meredith, through such lines as
in V. Sentimental Reveille;
A penguin, a
white wolf
take shape in the crumpled
tissues on the night stand,
affirm the dull irony:
When the sun pours into my sleep
And I first open my eyes, you
are never to be seen again,
but in dream.
These are hard poems. Honest poems that glimpse a life
filled with humor, respect, camaraderie and love. Poems
that realize their end. So much shared is now solitary.
Visuals, as in “Aubade” of a deer, a hummingbird, the
trees, are now seen alone. Obvious in how much they
truly shared, he laments “How can I bear this/without
you?” and I wonder, myself, will beauty be the same
without someone to point it out to?
There is so
much involved in death, so many ways to bring the pain
to the surface that it can be devastatingly unbearable,
as so in “Procrastination” where “The condolence
letters/throb on my desk” .. reminders that the bleeding
has not yet stopped. This love is so
profound, so eternal. In the poem “A Plan” Harteis tells
of a plan they had to return to Ireland, with a nod to
George Burns perpetual dedication to Gracie, he speaks;
I never renewed your
passport, but
I’ll smuggle you in through memory,
illegal immigrants gone underground in
the heart’s duress. I’ll show you around
through my own eyes - not so blue,
they’ll have to do. Take them darling,
they are yours. Perhaps by the time
we reach Ireland, they will be smiling.
He aches for even a ghost to appear, anything to lighten
the heaviness that bears down on living without someone
so vital to his life. An insurmountable void, unfillable
and desolate. He allows an exemplified summation in “The
Lesson”;
“Have you ever
lived alone before,”
John asks, knowing you have died,
solicitous. “Yes,” I say, “Often alone,
but never lonely...”
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