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Let the Poets Write

by Maureen Glaude

Let the poets write
their verse,
the novelists plot
their stories.

The calling at hand
is for the civilian,
woman, sister, sister-in-law,
friend, in me
to deal with the struggle
against the risk of
mourning's reality.

The service of support and
ministering, the drafting
of a final farewell, all intercept
creation of stanza and paragraph.
The latter were the safe paths
that empowered me more, to manipulate
cut and expand, move and re-shape,
than fate does.

Consciousness under seige,
let the poet in me,
the novelist whose pending
manuscript chapters and frozen characters
sleep in the files long unopened,
walk away
on her own, do what she will
hibernate, grow old, forget, be forgotten
let her peers surpass her,
for all she can contribute
will not suffice
to create the desired change.

She is no longer the called for
part,
but is upstaged,
made immaterial
by more than
her everyday human counterpart.

This is an enormous time.

This is not the time for fiction
and poetry, save for a Psalm to be read.

A loved one walks
on the edge of that Valley of the shadow ...
Let the others write.



01/06/2005

Author's Note: draft

Posted on 01/07/2005
Copyright © 2024 Maureen Glaude

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 01/07/05 at 03:13 PM

Wow...beautiful....humbling words Maureen, made all the more so, knowing who/what inspired them. I prayed for Mare and Jack, your entire family yesterday, and will do so again. This is indeed an enormous time.

Posted by Michelle Angelini on 05/05/05 at 09:11 AM

Mo, this is so well done, with sensitivity and difficulty in decision. I know it was a rough time in your life. Hugs!
~Chelle~

Posted by Elizabeth Shaw on 07/21/07 at 03:59 PM

so beautiful, oh so beautiful

Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 07/21/07 at 04:10 PM

A truly fitting piece for POTD under the circumstances. Ironic in one sense, but that's the great thing about poetry in how something we write years ago can still have impact or has even greater impact in the future. Once again, well done Maureen. IMO, you fit the part even better now, as you strut that stage in the sky with Juan, Jack, your father and relatives who've departed this earth bound stage.

Posted by Kathleen Wilson on 07/22/07 at 02:57 AM

This would be deeply moving in any circumstance and of course especially so now. Our fragile words, our caring actions too, set into "the enormous time". Moving also that this, amidst all choices would be chosen and so the deep sensitivity of who has chosen, I applaud, and am silenced with these words.

Posted by JD Clay on 07/22/07 at 04:03 AM

pe4ce, forever peace.

Posted by A. Paige White on 07/28/07 at 01:19 PM

You are not forgotten Maureen. The poets write of you and remember your loved ones staring into that valley of the shadow in prayer.

Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 07/28/07 at 02:12 PM

And so we shall write, inspired by such a one as Maureen.

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