Longing

Dec 24 2015

The sort of word we never drop

into conversation.

Because who wants to sound like a snob

or drama-queen?

But poets

emboldened by distance, or self-importance

put them on the page

as if they had license to say

any kind of foolishness.

So we skirt their words

as if flirting with danger;

inaudibly pursing our lips

tongues clicking dryly.

Like the feeble-minded,

who talk to themselves

need help getting dressed.

Letting the words

linger in our heads,

circling back

and mouthing them again,

little echoes

rippling out.

But never out loud.

Words like longing

impostor

besot.

Wanting, wanting ...

... but not sure what

how much

or even when.

Lives spent

in triumph, and regret

inertia and intent,

hoping, at best

for meaning

                       …love

                                   …contentment.

Lives that come to a stop

instead of an ending.

When all that is left

is to soldier through indignity,

the galling dependence

of age.

The inchoate longing

we can't make sense of

can never share.

It presumes fulfilment, but is always there

dangling just beyond our grasp;

eyes, bright with desire

hands out-stretched.

I was reading an excerpt from Ian Brown's new book Sixty. Something he said stuck with me, and the poem somehow emerged. I think it was this passage that did it (the underlining is mine, because I think this was the part that twigged): "At sixty, after all, you are suddenly looking into the beginning of the end, the final frontier where you will either find the thing your heart has always sought, which you have never been able to name, or you won’t. And whether you find it or not—I suspect, or at least hope, that it doesn’t really matter, as long as you look hard—that will be your life. I keep trying to peer into the distance, to see how the story ends, how it stacks up, how I did as a human being, but of course you can’t know, no matter what the Freedom 105 people say. I suppose the only thing you can hope for is that it doesn’t get too lonely too fast."

We spend all our lives seeking something, but are never sure what. Contentment? ...meaning? ...immortality? Money? ...sensation? ...pride?

But whatever, it's never enough; we are always ruled by desire.

The poem began with the word "longing". And I realized that this is one of those "poetic"words: something you'd write, but would never say in everyday speech. I try not to use language like that in my poetry, afraid it will sound pretentious and appear inaccessible. So the poem opens with this idea. And then it ends in old age; still seeking completion, still pursuing the heart's desire that was never really understood in the first place.