what have u lost?

Seeing for you

The leaves left at the tops of trees
sound like rain in the wind. November-
the sparrows play at being leaves,
the leaves at being birds.
I play at seeing for you
now that u play at being gone.

Linda Allardt

Borrowed this book entitled "What have u lost?" from the library yesterday. It's a collection of poems that expresses and explores the experiences of loss. Loss of loved ones. Loss of friends. Freedom. Memory. Things that are close and precious to our hearts.

As Naomi Shihab Nye says, losing makes us miserable, startles us awake. It's also inevitable. Tom Clark has written, "There remains the problem of not being able to see one's loved ones again, up against the problem of never having seen them in the first place. Were they simply too close to be looked at ?" Losing casts all kinds of shadows on what we thought we knew.

Is there anything good about losing? Does loss help us discover anything? maybe sometimes we notice or take better care of what we still have. Momentarily. Maybe the reason we talk about our petty losses with such energy is that there are so many inevitable larger ones that can never be redeemed or reclaimed. The people. The era of our lives.

Losing something is just like losing a part of urself. A piece of your heart. Leaving a gaping hole. As the famous quote goes "Time heals all wounds", perhaps, it does. What it doesn't state is that, scars remain.