F o r   H i m   I   S i n g

“For him I sing,
I raise the present on the past,”
(from Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass)

The past is dead. They say you should
never look back. Focus on the now, or
if you must, the future. But how can I ever
escape my past? It is a seething
quagmire just waiting to suck me under
clutch me to its core. Yet for him
I must sing, build our days layer by
layer over the past. One day there
might just be enough distance
to finally sigh with relief,
finally begin to live, to breathe.

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First appeared in PoetryRepairShop, October 2003