Old family photo & MOVING DAY (dream precipitated free verse poem) by Roswila

MOVING DAY
(in memory of my brother Russ)

back in the day he'd always help me move
to a new apartment (and there were many
moves in those salad days of our youth)

he'd toss boxes and lamps on and off trucks
and U-hauls, lift them into and out of cars,
heft box after heavy box of books up stairs
(of course, there were always stairs)
into the freshly painted space awaiting
what I (and whichever roommate I had
that time) would make of its blank walls
and echoing rooms

even as I now echo in waves, that space
where he'd lived from infancy to white
mustachioed age starkly empty and huge

while I bear each cherished memory
as it flits across the walls painted anew
by the shaking hands of grief


[free verse poem precipitated by a dream 1-14-14. I say "precipitated" because I have not recounted the actual dream here, except in the last stanza and even there only in part. All the rest is actual memory of my younger brother Russ (who passed away 12-28-13). Image: old family photo, taken in very early 1949 in the back yard of our new home in Astoria, Queens, New York City where we'd just moved from Florida; Russ (3 months old), me (five years old), with our mother and father]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers, as the above is), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

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>til next time, keep dreaming,

[aka: Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under AView my complete profile@) **** My other blogs: ROSWILA'S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA'S TAIGA TAROT; and TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT, digital photos. ****