Partner Poema (Loss) by Corynn Bernhardt and Ellysa Pearce

Partner Poem by Corynn Bernhardt and Ellysa Pearce

All the new thinking is about loss.

Loss’s voice is the sound of chimes,

Ringing in your ears:

Hello, it says, I’m here.

I’m ready, it beckons.

I follow but do not allow

The piercing sound to follow me.

The path ahead is dirt and something else.

A river of flowing water.

Unlike loss, gain’s endless virtue

Is like the stream-filled mountains:

Smooth, kind, forgiving.

I can take a step in and remember.

But now I forget the real meaning.

I’m stumped on that one idea

From the voice of chimes.

But I suppose that’s the new thinking

Working at full gear.

Shotguns, riffles bang, and I’m back at war.

Without my love, without my right.

I have no foot. I have no arm.

What shall become of me now?

I am lacking spirit of searching

For another meaning of what I know is thinking

For the one bestowed upon the rings

Are jumbled and split

So nothing is straight at length.

My son is back home,

Children playing in the park, dust on their knees,

Burns on their ears. A new sound echoes from their chests.

This one is not of loss or gain:

Not chimes or like smooth running water.

But of sweet-smelling vibration,

Bouncing off the heart like a drum.