Old moleskine by barnimages
When I ruminate on loss,
I dwell on a red notebook I left
behind on a train one summer
and on evenings like this, when
the air is close and there is thunder
in the distance, I cant help wonder
what was in that notebook: what
drifting thoughts, what earnest plans,
what idle dreams, what overheard
conversations, what borrowed lives
and exotic notions. Of course, I have
filled many notebooks with similar
fleeting moments since then and
I tell myself it doesn’t matter as
memories are meant to be written
in innocence, not judged years later
by the guilty. After all, I lost that
notebook a long time ago. Long before
I began keeping this journal. Long
before my dreams became concerns.
Long before I finally understood what
matters most. Long before the sky
stared back at me through the prism
of a storm. Long before I started
writing about the things I have lost.
–Bison Jack
It’s been some time since I’ve shared a Bison Jack poem from the Savannah Missed Connections – in fact, I can’t believe I didn’t share this one earlier. Perhaps, unlike so many other Bison poems, this one didn’t grab my attention and pull at my emotions. But now, as I ruminate on what has been lost and how, if ever, we can collectively recover the past, these words of innocence and guilt shout at me from the page. Now, I understand.
