Jami Patterson | + Follow Poet |
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The Geography of Your Absence

For my Mimi, Nana Pat, Nana Sue, Bumpa and Papa.
Whom I Miss Each and Every Day.

Where your laughter once carved bright rivers
Through the canyons of my days, 
Now silence pools in the hollows of my heart,
And your light-so singular-fades
To a thin gold haze, I cannot quite touch.
I wander these rooms that echo
With the hush you left behind,
My fingertips tracing dust-
A faded photograph of us, your forgotten sweater,
The empty cup you loved,
All I have left to gather into memory's arms.
The clock's relentless turning
Has not made you less gone.
If anything, the ache grows sharper-
A stone I carry in my pocket,
Heavy, inescapable.
The world keeps spinning, 
Seasons turn as if nothing has changed,
But your absence is now my only weather,
A second skin that wraps around me-
Invisible, immutable.
The world conspires to keep you near:
A song you loved plays in the grocery store,
The scent of rain on warm pavement-
A smile from a stranger that mirrors yours.
Every day, a thousand tiny echoes 
Of the way you filled my world with color.
I am the cartographer of these haunted lands-
I map the borders of longing,
Chart rivers swollen with tears,
Name forests where your laughter lingers
In the hush of the leaves.
They say time heals,
That the pain will dull,
That one day I'll wake and find
Your shape in my life has blurred-
Edges softened, eclipsed by new joy.
But in the hush between my heartbeats,
You are sharp as glass,
The wound a window
That lets in only memory and longing.
I water your roses.
But they do not bloom for me.
I keep your letters,
But your words have gone quiet.
Each night, I light a candle
And watch its small, steady flame-
It shivers, a wavering hope
In the cathedral of my sorrow.
Every morning, I rise and carry you
Like a melody only I recall,
Your name forever on the tip of my tongue.
You are everywhere and nowhere-
The sky aches with the blue of your absence,
A distance I cannot cross.
You taught me the language of laughter;
Now I speak in sighs and silence.
You gave me the gift of presence,
And I am left learning
The long practice of absence-
The slow, daily tending
Of what I cannot repair.
Yet, in the quiet hours
When sleep won't come,
I find you in the space
Between one breath and the next-
Somehow still a comfort,
Somehow still a pain.
I am the keeper of your memory,
The lighthouse on a shore
You will not return to-
A beacon for my shipwrecked heart.
Some days, grief is a heavy coat I cannot shrug off.
Every street corner holds the ghost of your laughter;
The world's colors bleed pale
Because you are not here.
I am learning to live with this weight-
To walk, to speak, to smile
As though nothing is missing,
As though my bones are not hollowed
By your absence.
And yet-
Sometimes there is sweetness in the sadness,
A reminder that loving you
Carved new chambers in my soul.
To have known you was a miracle.
To lose you is to measure each day by the echo
Of that miracle's worth.
So, I gather up the fragments:
A photograph, a note,
The memory of your hand in mine-
And I make a shelter,
A place to sit gently with my sorrow,
To soften grief's sharpest edges
With remembrance.
Life moves on-
New days are born.
I am remade by mourning,
A mosaic of what was broken,
A song in a minor key.
When I weep,
It is not only for what I have lost
But for all that you gave me-
Your laughter, your light,
The warmth of your voice at night.
Even as sadness settles beside me,
I am grateful to have loved you
So deeply, so fiercely, so true.
In the geography of your absence,
You remain-
A landmark, a beacon,
A star by which I navigate
All the dark and winding roads ahead.
And if, on some distant morning,
The ache has softened,
If the world brightens with gentler light,
I will carry you forward-
Not as a shadow,
But as the quiet presence
That shapes every kindness,
Every hope, every day
Of this life I learn to live-
With, and beyond,
The sadness of losing you.

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