Showing posts with label Photo of you in a Manhattan cafe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Photo of you in a Manhattan cafe. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Remembering my brother

My brother Ray died seven years ago today. I still remember the shock of hearing about his death. I was at work and it was all I could do to gather together my belongings, call my husband, and find my way home. Seven years. So much has happened in that space of time. Too much to write about here; there is a lifetime of sadness that has occurred during that time. However, his two children seem to have survived the tragedies that unfolded around them during these years and are now flourishing. Ray would have been so proud of them both. 

I published a poetry collection in 2019 entitled Cemetery Road dealing with his death and with death generally (https://tinyurl.com/muxk95hb). One of the poems in this collection is called Photo of You in a Manhattan Café . I wrote it in 2017, two years after his death, and am including it here. 









And on this day, the second anniversary

Of your untimely death

A long-buried photo of you surfaced

Causing me to catch my breath

 

We had met for lunch in some downtown Manhattan café

That you frequented—eager to share with me your find

Proud that you were working there in that melee

Of New Yorkers milling about with their own kind

 

The contours of your face, your photogenic smile

Your youth that emanates from a decade ago

Your furtive smile, the one that could beguile

And persuade the most stubborn of us so

 

Your hidden secrets that remained unearthed

You did not give them willingly away

And those of us who tried to probe and came away

Unenlightened frustrated rather gone astray

 

If walls could talk, and photos likewise

Perhaps you would still walk upon this earth

And smile your stealthy smile for all to know

That happiness was yours, there was no dearth


Tuesday, February 21, 2017

A new poem--Photo of you in a Manhattan café

This is a new poem that I wrote on the second anniversary of my brother's death. It is part of a new volume of poems that I am working on, in addition to my book about Tarrytown that I hope to be finished with this year. 
-----------------------------------------------

Photo of you in a Manhattan café  

And on this day, the second anniversary
Of your untimely death
A long-buried photo of you surfaced
Causing me to catch my breath

We had met for lunch in some downtown Manhattan café
That you frequented—eager to share with me your find
Proud that you were working there in that melee
Of New Yorkers milling about with their own kind

The contours of your face, your photogenic smile
Your youth that emanates from a decade ago
Your furtive smile, the one that could beguile
And persuade the most stubborn of us so

Your hidden secrets that remained unearthed
You did not give them willingly away
And those of us who tried to probe and came away
Unenlightened frustrated rather gone astray

If walls could talk, and photos likewise
Perhaps you would still walk upon this earth
And smile your stealthy smile for all to know
That happiness was yours, there was no dearth



copyright 2017 All rights reserved
Paula M. De Angelis 


The surreal world we live in

Holy Week for Christians starts on Palm Sunday (one week before Easter Sunday) and ends on Holy Saturday; it includes Holy Thursday and Good...