Forgotten poem.

This was another morning when I woke an hour or more before the alarm. I decided to muck out the French laundry basket, which was filled to the brim with books, genealogy, stationery, and the like. I posted that process on Facebook. I also went into my studio, where there was a smaller basket of miscellaneous blank cards, address labels, and envelopes, and put that into the newly organized laundry basket.

In the smaller basket was a folio with the dregs of a collection of Mary Engelbreit postcards and stationery. And the draft of a poem from 2004, six years after my divorce from the children's father.

The fulcrum of my dignity, as a former wife,
was assurance that his spurning was impersonal,
a cool poultice of illness and rationalization
applied to the running sore of my longing.

He had evolved, he thought, above the common need to touch
and lived as contemplative spirit
in a house of breath and bone.

Forsworn, he stands before me now,
telling me of a kindred spirit
whose quiet companionship is present joy,
seeking my blessing.

Eleven years later, I can still remember how devastating that was, though it grieves me no longer. Time, the Atonement which heals not only sin but sorrow, and the love of a most excellent man have done their work. And I am grateful.