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Best Poems Written by Erin Sim

Below are the all-time best Erin Sim poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Erin Sim Poem

Morning Fog

Morning Fog

This morning
when there is much to do inside,
there is fog outside my window.
The fog I sought two mornings ago
that caused me to dash to the car
in hopes I could grab a coffee
and sit by the lake,
witness to the softening of the world,
treetops indistinct, not yet awakened from their dreams.

By the time I reached the street
rain had dissolved,
  captured,
     drunk up the tiny molecules
         of water playing fog.

I like rain, too, so I stayed on the road,
found myself coffee and a breakfast
by a temperature controlled fireplace.
Despite the rain, the little cafe
quickly became peopled 
and I had to move on.

The soft shield of fog
was what I was hungry for,
not the food I left half eaten.
The desire to be 
fogged in, alone or companionable,
putting thoughts to paper
or contentedly one 
  with the downy view,
    the lack of detail,
     the absence of certainty,
      the enveloping moisture 
       making all things
         remember 
          what it was like to be born.

We are all born 
In some kind of moisture --
pushing through the dark damp soil,
or squeezed through a tunnel of flesh,
causing someone pain 
   for the first of many times. 
Or we peck our way through
   a fragile/sturdy shell, 
    wet with possibility,
or we're loosed with a hundred siblings
   into a salty waterscape of danger,
    calculating our chances.

For all of us, 
our first vision must be a little foggy,
our possibility of success unclear.
But
every foggy morning 
crawls into my soul
to whisper
what it could be
to be reborn.

Details | Erin Sim Poem

The Funeral

The sandwiches taste of sorrow.
Cookies crumble into tears.
The coffee is as weak as my knees
And I stumble to one of
The uncomfortable low chairs
Not made to comfort,
No arms made to hold.
There is endless murmuration
Of voices and bodies swirling
From photo array to photo array,
Exchanging stories and condolences,
Memories from so many corners
Of a life of many rooms.
This room, the last,
Has no door from which
I will ever be allowed to escape.

Details | Erin Sim Poem

California Fires - 2025

My heart is breaking 
as the fire wins,
An elemental only doing
What its nature demands:
Eat, heat, repeat.
Some spirits walk on
As the fire fights
Any efforts to defy its nature.
We count, one by one,
those escorted by fire
To the edge of understanding:
bitter taste of pain on one side,
On the other, wholly unimaginable
to us. Holy. And unimaginable.
We are slow to learn their names,
To understand the holes
Burned in families, communities.
The wind is doing 
what it's designed to do:
Feed the fire,
to do what its nature demands:
Eat, heat, repeat.
My heart is doing what it's designed to do:
Break.
Break, for the powerful presence
Of absence.

Details | Erin Sim Poem

Just Dust

"It's just dust," he said, kicking the dry ground
With a worn boot,
Toe pointed cowboy style
But with none of the flash.
"This could be grandpa," he said,
Shoulders rounded, eyes to the ground.
"They didn't bury too deep in them days,
And no boxes or vaults out here.
He could've just rose up after a while.
Could've just shook off the dirt
And blown off west again,
Just another dust storm
Trailin' bits of himself behind.
He wouldn't of thought twice
About breakin' grandma's heart
Just one more time."

I watched the sun pick shadows
Off his worn chambray shirt.
He looked hot, weary,
Big hand taking his frayed straw cowboy hat
On and off and on,
Either the fidgets or his way
Of air conditioning his head,
With its damp hair that could stand a cut.

Suddenly he looked straight at me:
Leather-tanned face
That had run up some mileage;
Pale eyes the worn blue of his shirt,
Meeting my eyes then sliding his gaze
Off into the dirt-colored distance.
"You're the one's got all the degrees,"
He said.
"Why do folks say 'just' somethin'?
Like 'just dust' or 'just no reason'?
Myself, I don't see justice is much involved."

"I could make up an answer," I said.
"I have no earthly idea.
I just know we do."

He snorted a laugh,
Shook his head,
Turned toward the house.
"You just come on in, then"
He said, something inside him
Sounding a little less buried,
His shoulders a little less hunched.
"I'll just make us some cold sweet tea," he said.
"That's just what grandma would've done."

And then, just then,
I knew it would be all right.