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Elizabeth Holliday's avatar

Thank you for this. Gasp. When I was about 7 yrs old my beloved grandfather once showed me a poem he'd written for me. Touched but also chagrinned and too immature to appreciate the moment, I didn't ask for it and treasure it as I now wish I had. I can't recall anything about the poem, just the love and honor I felt. Later Dad would tell me he never found it, never knew him to write poetry, and was as mystified as I was. The loss haunts me still.

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Amanda Wald Rachie's avatar

Thank you so much for this poem today. Just the idea of the sustaining power the lost poem had for Albert Huffsticker's father is something I can carry with me for the rest of my life to sustain me. There are lines from poems that come to me when I need them in my darkest moments. Perhaps my mind carries those lines in its pocket and knows when to bring them out for me to hear when I need them.

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Corie Feiner's avatar

I love the idea of trying to create the poem that will be in someone’s pocket - like the one his father held like a talisman all those years to get him through Hell.

Don’t we all have that need? For a talisman of sorts to get us though tough times?

I appreciate the plain spoken voice in this poem- without much imagery or music - but more of a personal pondering written in such silence - as if he was in the echo of the POW camp - as if he was inside his father’s pocket.

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Suzanne's avatar

On my grandmother's tombstone: "Camerado, I give you my hand," and I wish we had talked about this, about Whitman. There is so much between my father and his mother that I have lost, and that is heartbreaking. Trying to set better seeds between me and my own kids. It is not easy. Thanks for your post.

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kate keegan's avatar

to speak from your heart is the gift your dad left you.

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jude's avatar

so deeply moving and beautiful.

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Sandra Murzin's avatar

Loved 'The Lost Poem'...sure makes you think about the things that get you through the day,get you through life.I really liked the end,where the father just walks away with his beloved poem...thanks for sharing this!

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maryan's avatar

Yes, the "things" that seem lost and valuable (not in order: cause and effect) and the impact they have on our thinking mind and heart mind. love this poem !

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Lisa B. Martin    zihuawriter's avatar

Perfect sentiments

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Joshua Bond's avatar

A powerful poem which I connect with. Now that I'm a grand-parent myself, I wish I knew more stories from my own grand-parents who lived through two world wars and had their houses and businesses bombed in WW2. I try to connect with my own grand-children but we live in different countries. Nevertheless, I see my poetry as perhaps, one day, a connection via them to beyond the year 2100.

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Marc Mannheimer's avatar

How beautiful and aching. I wonder why I write, far too little. But I guess it's to bring people to the places writers brought me when I was young.

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Rolando Andrade's avatar

What a strong and vivid poem in terms of imagery. I felt all that anguish, like a knife tearing through skin. I will try for a long time to imagine what was written in that poem

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Roselle Angwin's avatar

What an amazing poem. Thank you.

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garrick's avatar

Very nice.

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Ethan Summers's avatar

A strong man, who needed so little and yet so much to nourish his soul and give him the power to fight… so different from the “Like” hunters and social media warriors this days…

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David A. Westbrook's avatar

Very strong. Thank you.

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