you see this face,
but it is not mine
you hold these hands,
but only for a time
I fly on these feet,
but someday they’ll stop
find traces of me
in the words that I share
meet me on the road
to nowhere specific
and tell me your tales
that are not so terrific —
I want all of your heart,
but just for a moment
call me your angel
and paint me the sky
Garbage Notes:
I wrote this originally as a dedication to a fellow poet who I knew on Medium who passed away about a year and a half ago. Michael Hall wrote beautiful poetry and was an awesome dude to interact with. He published often and sent many of his works to me for publication in Scuzzbucket. He also ran his own pub called The Bazaar of the Bizarre, which is still going strong to this day.
So yeah, this poem is about the impermanence of human life. The first part refers to aspects of our bodies that we consider to be our own. But really, they are only biological structures that we identify with for the brief time that we get to live on this earth.
The second part gets more at the nature of a lasting legacy. We might leave behind parts of us when we go. This could be in the form of children. This could be in the form of creative work that we leave behind. Here, specifically, this takes the form of words that are shared. But they can also be memories, experiences, and stories that remain in the hearts of the lives we touch.
The third part has to do with the time we get to share with others. This is the intersection of hearts and minds. When we interact and connect with like-minded people it’s like sharing parts of ourselves, for however briefly it might be. For this poem, the nature of the written word is such that you can have an entire person’s attention for the time in which they are reading your words, but only for that moment and not much more.
The last bit is a pondering of what might happen when our time is up. Do we become angels? Does our consciousness dissipate into the sky and beyond? We all have our own ideas. And your guess is as good as mine. But part of life is the curiosity of wondering what it’s all for and where it will all go.
Original dedication with list of Michael’s poems appearing in Scuzzbucket
Franco Amati 2023
Beautiful. I love the idea of the legacy: "find traces of me in the words that I share." Sometimes I wonder if that's why we writers are so passionate about our writings. Maybe traces of us will be found too. Thanks for sharing!
Very nice tribute,