This Evening I can Write the Saddest Lines
I wrote this poem after the last boxes were packed up from our home in Annapolis in July 2019. I stood surveying the emptiness of the house, resting in the weight of its hollowness. We didn't know what lay ahead. We were moving to Ethiopia. This evening I can write the saddest lines* Write, for example, “One day my children will no longer create art for me.” The Magothy river breeze pushes through our yard and sings. This evening I can write the saddest lines I loved our years here and they are gone forever Through evenings like this one, my children bounced in our trampoline How I loved to hear their squeals of delight. Tonight I can write the saddest lines To think that I have lost this, to feel that it is gone. To hear the echoes in our empty home, still emptier without them And the verse falls to my soul, like the sun setting in our backyard What does it matter that our love did not keep us here The house is empty and they are not with me. This is all. In the distance child
