"True beauty is truly seldom"

[...] Here I am
Sitting on a chair, thinking
About you. Thinking
About how it was
To talk to you.
How sometimes it was wonderful
And sometimes it was awful.
How drugs when drugs were
Undid the good almost entirely
But not entirely
Because good could always be seen
Glimmering like lame glimmers
In the window of a shop
Called Beautiful
Things Never Last Forever.
I loved you. I love you. You were.
And you are. Life is experience.
It's all so simple. Experience is
The chair we sit on.
The sitting. The thinking
Of you where you are a blank
To be filled
In by missing. I loved you.
I love you like I love
All beautiful things.
True beauty is truly seldom.


From "You Were You Are Elegy" by Mary Jo Bang. The complete poem is here.


*The boys in the photo are my father and his brothers. Dad is the little one on the right. Today is the anniversary of his death. If you are in the mood to read reminiscences, you'll find mine of him here. He's also featured in this blog post.