A saw that a friend posted a poem, “Footholds,” by W.S. Merwin. Merwin is a poet I really like and need to read more of him. That poem begins:
Where I dug the logs into the rise
to make the steps along the valley
I forget how many years ago
their wood has dissolved completely now
disappearing into the curled slope
gone without my seeing it happen…
What struck me in the poem was the idea of something happening over a period of time “without my seeing it happen.”
The poem got the poet in me thinking about what things in my life fit that line.
Merwin says further on in the poem:
Father and Mother friend upon friend
what I remember of them now
footholds on the slope
People as footholds, like his steps that have slowly disappeared, so slowly disappeared from memory that it was unnoticed. I lost my father almost 9 years ago and I think of him pretty regularly, but I have to admit that I think of him far less than I did in the first year after he died.
That admission might seem embarrassing to some because you often hear how we never forget our loved ones. But we do. Not totally, but gradually, and without being noticed. This is a good thing. I wrote last week about dealing with grief and this gradual process of things disappearing is part of that grieving process. It doesn’t mean I care less about my father or any people I have lost over the years. It means that healing and moving on have occurred.
I need to think more about this whole idea. Maybe a poem of my own will emerge.
Milneville 