Tuesday, December 28, 2021

FOR JOAN DIDION WHO

by Mary K O'Melveny




Told it like it is    Like it was
  if we had been paying better attention
Made us see what she saw   and be grateful
 
Stared into storms  wearing night vision goggles
  in case we missed some essential point
Exposed each slant of light    tone of voice   shadowed figure
 
Crafted a perfect sentence   Drafted a fine line
Saw that a paragraph can hold more weight than gold
  if it opened our eyes wider   and we did not blink
 
Spoke with timbre of choruses and echoing canyons
 we could hear her whispers cutting through darkness
  in case we lost the soundtrack of our own lives
 
Understood more than most   Less is more
  there is little room for error   restraint can be operatic
   understatement can be perfect   is often preferable
 
Laid out the sorrowful news that we will not survive
  recast such tales as memoir   you always lose what you need
Told us don’t bother to weep    Timing is everything


Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.