Hunkered Down With Memories Poem by Lonnie Hicks

For the Survivors



He said:



"I was hunkered down
with Miss Lady Lonely
last night
my old friend;
silent
dark
and remorse-fulled
staring hard at my foibles
as I tossed my Ignorements
toward her.
'I don't even see you, ' I said,
distracting myself
from her
sipping my Glass of Forever Wine
hunkered down with
my TV show
because
these are my wedges
against the dark
in the living room
with my Unreminders
that you are gone
another in that
parade;
how could you die
only sixty two
and she,
who knew
she was even sick.

You can't explain to youth
how when people you knew
as bustling youth
leave our bosom;
it is a shock
because like youth
us older ones
still think we are immortal
as we were at 22
death and leaving
was only something for the weak
and infirm
and that
God knows
is and was not us.

The ones who have known
terrible illness of course know
they know
they brushed by
that Ultimate Sense of Diminishment
but don't often
speak of it
because it is Unutterable;
and it makes the living
uneasy;
so it is only to you
Miss Lonely
we can speak
us survivors
seeking out
your bright eyes
your
all knowing
too wise sad smile
that
too patient staring
you do.

I sit here
by the phone
dreading its ring
telling of
another friend
or lover gone
things youth
will never understand
I sit with just you
in my life
hunkered down
in your comforting
void.

But then
Kindness intervenes
here often
in this the third quarter
of my middle ages
stifling my memories
and the sadnessness they entail
leaving only
this painless
hum
of past musings
sweetened
by only half remembered
memories
rendering them now
less painful
now mere
misty
utterings.