Sam Norman Verse-Virtual 2019 May

May 2019

I am a high school teacher at Bacon Academy in Colchester, CT. Recent works have appeared in Verse-Virtual, Amethyst, Down in the Dirt, Praxis, and Abstract Magazine. Most of my recent poetry focuses on a terrible tragedy. My son, Ben, just 20 years old, lost his life in a car accident on New Year’s Eve, 2018.

ABSENCES
…Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
                                -Reasons for Moving
-Mark Strand

I may look like I'm listening to you,
I might even answer.
But understand that
every bit of my essence
is straining
to be somewhere else,
in another time,
and that I am not here at all.

COLORBLIND
-For Teri

My palette has been reduced
to a series of grays,
shades of black.

There is no room
for Prussian blue or Cadmium yellow.
My world is monochromatic —

muted mornings,
dismal days,
jagged blackened twilights.

I have become colorblind —
stolen is the brilliance of the sunrise,
the opulence of Coventry Lake.

These colors
were buried in
Veteran's Cemetery

when the honor guard folded the flag,
brilliant red, white, and blue,
that had covered my son.

Taps was playing:
I remember a hueless tune
in the bitter gray afternoon.

DAILY CRASH

My son planted Death in me
and it is beginning to take root
destroying beliefs I thought inviolate.

It grows, flourishes,
condemns me to relive
the terrible moment.

This is Death's time to grow,
and I wonder what else will be lost
when it finally blossoms?

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