t-minus five hours

so i've substituted a heady prose on poetry book with a poetry handbook recommended by one of the poets at my local poetry roundtable. i'm nearly finished with this hail mary substitute, but i've come across this.

and i cannot separate life from work from work from life, they are all comingled in my mind, my heart, my life. i am wholly who i am not bits and pieces suzanne. any living has to be done by the heart, even working, even resting.

so the line is from a sharon olds poem called "feared dead" and i need to get that book, satan says. the line:

once you lose someone it is never exactly / the same person who comes back.

and this line hits me in the chest and takes my breath away. this is what a book should do, if a book should do anything. evoke emotion. evoke presence.

and cause one to contemplate.

my last poem of the weeks series is hovering over me at the moment and i try to push it away, push it away until i can't push it away anymore. (this is how i write).

the persistent inspiration that will not be denied. the birth pangs that can no longer be ignored.

and i read this line from addonizio and laux's the poetry companion,

the heart is never finished with grief ... though the burden is too heavy, we manage it.

and my arms burn from the stallion who reared up and i held on. i would not let him go. i would not let him hurt himself. i held on though he could have flung me away if he wished. he relented and followed me to the paddock. where i turned him loose.

my arms ache with the memory of surprise. slack arm and lead suddenly taut, arms and legs holding on to a tornado, hooves flayling in the air. and me all present, watching the bell hooved creature rear and breathing in deep. holding on. driving my feet in against his effort to resist.

i will not let you go.

but i am no match for his will. and perhaps this ache, this haunt is what strikes me now as most poignant.

not the presence of mind in the moment, not the danger of it all.

but the momentary decision to hold fast and not let go.

it is all i know how to do. it is all i've ever done. all i'll ever do, where stallions are concerned.

and i feel the ache of my stubbornness
and the hunger in my soul for him to find peace.

that i could lead him to safety, rather than startle him.

i'm not ready to hold this one, but those moments choose us, we don't choose them. we are not asked if we are ready, we either are, or aren't.

and the slight rope burn on my hand, the fact that i had the rope still in my hand while he reared, reminds me that i was, at least for an instant, ready.

and still, i refuse to let go.