
Poet Naomi Shahib Nye
spent years collecting
poems of loss.
Loss resonants.
I am quick to remember
the lost button,
favorite jacket,
childhood book.
These easy memories
block the door
in my mind’s eye
to larger losses —
loved ones,
innocence,
understanding.
Loss may be inevitable,
but,
no one every tells you
what to do
with the empty space
left behind.
Powerful poem on loss. I like how you said these easy memories block the door to larger losses, loved ones… In your few poignant lines you capture so much. Thanks for this.
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Profound poetry, my friend. Even the form matches the function. What do we do with that empty space?
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Simple words, but loss does leave that empty space behind, doesn’t it? And I can more easily explore that feeling thinking about my grandmother’s pin that fell off while I was in a metro bus at age 24 than i can thinking about the deaths of my parents…
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After recently losing my mom this couldn’t resonate more with my heart. Loss most definitely leaves a humongous empty space.
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Thanks so much for this! Even the loss of a glove can send me spiraling. The loss of someone close to us is a raw bloody wound that is invisible to all but ourselves at times.
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Such a powerful ending to a poem about loss. No one tells you what to do with the empty space left behind (snap-snap!). Love the contrast between the concrete and the abstract. Well done!
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Wow…the empty space left behind–how beautiful. Loss feels so raw in that emtpy space. It is something from which I usually run but now am beginning to just give it space.
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