Letter to a Distant Friend
It's hard to find the time to write.
Small duties proliferate.
A sloth breeds among this crowd
of phones requiring answers, meetings
needing attendants, knots demanding
to be tied or loosened — Now.
I wonder often if the life
I live is worth the life I lead
supporting both. The two seem not
my own but messes left
by someone else for me to tidy up.
My life is life in shape alone.
The substance leaks away like blood
removed by the embalmer's art.
My wife is wife in name alone.
The moist affection dries. A residue
alone still clings like glitter to her skin.
The loneliness amid a hum
of voices kills a little more
each cluttered day and kissless night.
A small despair suffuses me.
I wish for vast and sudden grief,
huge and quick enough to justify
the sharp voracity of sorrow
eating me away. A shell
confronts the news from Bosnia,
Belfast, and the Mississippi Valley.
Implacable water rises to the mouth.
My own is amplified by grief
impersonal and endless. How
can we survive so much indifference?
Complaints are crowding out the small
and daily wonders I once used
to justify my breathing. Pattern,
habit, inertia, and obedience
are all that keep me vertical.
Without them, I would sleep. I wash
another glass. I do it well
and this allows another step.
I know that beauty flourishes,
that misery like mine is private,
individual and small.
Such knowledge, though, remains inert,
pinned by all the tiny darts that
paralyze. Enough belief remains at least
to push the pen, to let it say
I hope this finds you well and happy,
busy in the work you love.
I hope it's such abundance
widening the gaps between your letters
into chasms. Worry comes of quiet.
Reading what you write is reassurance
always welcome. Just a note
however brief would comfort as a smile.
I send a few new pieces, knowing
you will read them; knowing, too,
you seldom seem to like them much
and that it's hard to find the time to write.
Small duties proliferate.
A sloth breeds among this crowd
of phones requiring answers, meetings
needing attendants, knots demanding
to be tied or loosened — Now.
I wonder often if the life
I live is worth the life I lead
supporting both. The two seem not
my own but messes left
by someone else for me to tidy up.
My life is life in shape alone.
The substance leaks away like blood
removed by the embalmer's art.
My wife is wife in name alone.
The moist affection dries. A residue
alone still clings like glitter to her skin.
The loneliness amid a hum
of voices kills a little more
each cluttered day and kissless night.
A small despair suffuses me.
I wish for vast and sudden grief,
huge and quick enough to justify
the sharp voracity of sorrow
eating me away. A shell
confronts the news from Bosnia,
Belfast, and the Mississippi Valley.
Implacable water rises to the mouth.
My own is amplified by grief
impersonal and endless. How
can we survive so much indifference?
Complaints are crowding out the small
and daily wonders I once used
to justify my breathing. Pattern,
habit, inertia, and obedience
are all that keep me vertical.
Without them, I would sleep. I wash
another glass. I do it well
and this allows another step.
I know that beauty flourishes,
that misery like mine is private,
individual and small.
Such knowledge, though, remains inert,
pinned by all the tiny darts that
paralyze. Enough belief remains at least
to push the pen, to let it say
I hope this finds you well and happy,
busy in the work you love.
I hope it's such abundance
widening the gaps between your letters
into chasms. Worry comes of quiet.
Reading what you write is reassurance
always welcome. Just a note
however brief would comfort as a smile.
I send a few new pieces, knowing
you will read them; knowing, too,
you seldom seem to like them much
and that it's hard to find the time to write.
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Author's Note
From 1993
Other stories by Gary Hardaway
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Very pleasurable to read, Gary.
This is so so grounded... The descriptions of the everyday put me in mind somehow of what the character Bob Hughes says about the quotidian in Drugstore Cowboy...
“Bob: Well, to begin with, nobody, and I mean nobody, can talk a junkie out of using. You can talk to 'em for years but sooner or later they're gonna get ahold of something. Maybe it's not dope. Maybe it's booze, maybe it's glue, maybe it's gasoline. Maybe it's a gunshot to the head. But something. Something to relieve the pressures of their everyday life, like having to tie their shoes.”
Really good piece... Solid.
It's funny where we will find the pieces that connect - the best things seem to speak for us, our own experiences - for me, this is one of those things.
A pleasure to read: as fiction. *
"I wish for vast and sudden grief, / huge and quick enough to justify / the sharp voracity of sorrow / eating me away."
Stanza five makes me happy sad. Hits me right in the heart.
This is fine.*
This reaches into places I can't even begin to describe.
Very moving.
Sincere thanks to everyone for reading and responding to this. I am entirely grateful.
great work. loved its depth.*
Thanks for the kind words, James.
"The moist affection dries. A residue / alone still clings like glitter to her skin."
*
Thank you, Bill.
Great work. The language and the sentiment. "I know that beauty flourishes,
that misery like mine is private,
individual and small."
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Gary. I sincerely appreciate your words.
This is so beautiful. Misery like that described is not private. It is universal. I had a recent hospitalization and brain injury that completely got me off the hamster wheel. It was June 10. I have three to six months to heal, if not completely. I have never felt more content, more pleasured, more slow, mindful or alive. Our lives are insane. Fave*.
Thank you very much, Gloria.
Beautifully done, walks the tightrope well. I got an extra pleasure when it became a letter by the end, augmenting the sense of reaching out through writing. Too many poems drop me in the last stanza, become too withdrawn at the end. One note: I tripped at the line that ends "rises to the mouth" when the next one was "my own..." I thought you meant your mouth at first.
Thank you, Sara.
Solid and meditative without self-pity. Good job.*
Thank you, John. Your comment means a lot to me.
Stunning, achingly good poem. I particularly loved these lines:
"How
can we survive so much indifference?"
and
"I know that beauty flourishes,
that misery like mine is private,
individual and small."
And of course I was hooked with the first two lines, and remain hooked with the last stanza. *
Thank you very much, Beate. Your comment makes my day far better.
I know that beauty flourishes,
that misery like mine is private,
individual and small.
Love that. Fine work, Gary and thank you for stopping by.
Thank you, Lucinda