Notes of Love Lost

the story of us
is written on notes
that now lie on a table
across from me

I closed the door on empty
finding my way back
with paper torn from abandoned books

their words sweeping me aside
pulling at my feet


I gathered them up
brought them home
lay them out before me

if I rearrange them
would we still be here?

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2020

Posted for Poets and Storytellers United

Comments

  1. So much depth in that final question. Would we, indeed, be ourselves and love who we've loved our lives hadn't happened the way they did. What would change what? How would we--and those close to us--would be different.

    I shall continue to think about your poem for a while.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Magaly--it seems important to ask the question regardless of the answer

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  2. This is so poignant! 💝 In life there are so many questions that compel us to re-think and re-analyze the path we have chosen.

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  3. If we can somehow reorganize the words and rewrite the ending perhaps we'd find the beginning again. "I closed the door on empty" filling the space with words torn from "abandoned books" those lost words found again, filling up the pages.

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  4. It can be so painful, wondering if there was anything one could have done to change the outcome. It's hard to know what's worse: knowing there was a way things could have been different or realizing the outcome would have always been the same.

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  5. So many different choices could have been made to rearrange our lives. But we have who we are now and no words can change that. Lovely, nostalgic poem.

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  6. The lost and found memories of love , still enchants you h lovers even though they may be afar...

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  7. When I dwelled upon possibilities of 'rearranging' words (events) of my book(life), I find very enigmatic possibilities...But then I find life to be strictly a 'ONE WAY' route. And hence, only going forward that I can make different choices for yet different unknown outcomes. There for life could be so inviting!
    Nice, thought provoking poem. Thank you.

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  8. A poignant question indeed. But yes, I think you would. Nothing is ever entirely lost.

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  9. What a wonderful question to pose - and one to think about long after reading

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  10. Anyone who has suffered a loss of friend or lover should find themselves relating to this poem.

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  11. Your question ... quintessential. Love this.

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  12. Simply poignant and wonderful verse.

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  13. I really did like a lot reading your explanation of love lost and of its records in the letters. From my experience when ones knows of the others unfaithfulness and infidelity it is too late unless one shoots the other guy, like in the wild, keep the horns sharp. But our society frowns on this for humans.
    Now if the letters stop coming a rearrangement might be in order. Ha
    ..

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  14. How can we ever try to find meaning afterwards?
    There has to be a reason or at least a way of knowing where the ending begun

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  15. Yes, what could be if only we could rearrange what we lived/wrote with life's pen.

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  16. An interesting question posed.
    Maybe in my past, at a particular time, I would have longed to change my then present, recapture a love lost.
    But if I had, my lovely family wouldn't exist now - my sons wouldn't have been born... and I wouldst change their existence for the world.
    Maybe everything has a purpose...
    Anna :o]

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  17. Such lament and ache for resolution that seemingly does not, perhaps cannot, come. I really feel this one. A stirring write.

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  18. This poem really speaks to me........as a writer, so much of what we experience, we write down on scraps of paper........interesting to wonder if we rearranged them, where we might have arrived.

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