The Things to Miss About You

[JoelJosol]

How about the eyes that found me, and lingered
within the radius of my stare, locking eye to eye,
unembarrassed by the moment?

Or, how about the smile that dented your cheeks,
breaking out like a new day, teeth white as the sun?

What of the hands that served coffee brewed
on my table, the aroma sweet like your scent,
floating in the air, your hair close to me?

Or that glaze in your skin, when my fingers slide 
from your shoulder down to your fingers?

How about the warmth of your lips, 
lingering, swirling, sniffing, sipping, 
and I savoring them like fine wine?

Oh, your body so close to me,
I, selfishly consuming its heat!

(Noted that "I will miss" is a distraction because of the tone it sets and the repetition.)

----- original -------

I will miss the eyes that found me, and lingered
within the radius of my stare, locking eye to eye,
unembarrassed by the moment.

I will miss the smile that dented your cheeks,
breaking out like a new day, teeth white 
as the sun, warm and cozy.

I will miss the hands that served coffee brewed
on my table, the aroma sweet like your scent,
floating in the air, your hair close to me.

I will miss the glaze in your skin, 
when my hand glides down from your shoulder
down to your fingers.

I will miss the warmth of your lips, 
lingering, swirling, sniffing, sipping, 
and savoring like fine wine. 

I will miss your body close to me,
under the blanket on cold nights,
selfishly consuming your warmth.

(I thought I could not write another poem. Tonight, I gave myself a push for my upcoming wedding anniversary poem. Read some Pablo Nerudas, Yehuda Armichais, and some. Glad I am able to cough up something 🙂.  We are already seniors but I wanted to write something romantic but not necessarily sensual.)

[Terry A]

"I will miss" perhaps implies more distance than the writer meant?  As in after your death........

Compare "I will always love" which gives perhaps a more celebratory meaning to an anniversary poem.

[David W. Parsley]

Hi Joel, glad you were able to "knock the lid off the basket" as we say in basketball parlance.  I agree with Terry, probably looking for something a shade more celebratory, though I do find a pleasing pathos in "senior" love understanding that the shared earthly existence has more time before than remaining.  Perhaps something a little more unusual like "I will someday miss" could guide the movement of the poem, punctuated now and then with "but not now"?

One specific thing I would suggest (low-hanging fruit) is deleting the last three words of the second stanza.  They are redundant and lack the punch of originality found in the rest of the poem.

Happy Anniversary and Many More Years of Happiness to You and Your Wife!
- Dave

 

[JoelJosol]

Thank you for the feedback. Still have time to reflect on the changes.

[David W. Parsley]

Ah, my friend, this revision touches the hem of Neruda's multi-colored garment!  The diction is even tighter and more supple than before.  Now the act of tracing the gaze and arm of the Beloved comes in with even greater focus, is more vivid and fervent than ever.  Even better, the graduation of tense across past and present brings immediacy to the sense of treasuring what was and still is, rendering the future "missing" to a bittersweet subtext rather than the dominant theme.  

More rhapsodizing:

• Note how the caress of the arm ties in with the meeting of eyes through use of the word, "glaze", forming a near-identical rhyme with the achingly absent word from that exchanged stare.  Note how this glaze is "in" the skin, a deep characteristic imaginably discerned and interpreted.  Poetry!
• So subtly enacted with the questioning hows and whats, in place of the repeating, "I will miss"!
• The form with alternating tercets and couplets says that it is an essential part of how the poem means, as Ciardi would assert.  It brings to mind part 4 of Wallace Stevens's "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."  Certainly the man and woman are one here; perhaps the intruding element is unknowable future?

I do have one observation: the word "warmth" occurs twice in this deliciously concise piece.  I would not want to disturb what you are doing in that fifth stanza, so my recommendation is to revisit the final one, see if there is something as imaginative as the rest of the language in this brewing masterpiece.

Plaudits,
- Dave

[JoelJosol]

Thanks for appreciating the change. The first thing I thought of to replace "warmth" is "heat".