This August Day After, a memorial poem by Linda Chown
“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.” Macbeth
The sudden death of a good friend, a special person, is heart-wrenching. In response to a friend’s death yesterday, Linda Chown wrote this poem for him and for “every one cares about each other in an evil time.” / J.D.
Absence is a prayer today
I find myself lost in a spin
Of you who are not. It’s a shine
Like the inside of a song,
A way of getting nearer in this
Day of absence like a prayer
I hear the sound of your saying
And ring mercy bells for us all,
Melodic like a prayer, constant
Like the tides of your mind.
© 2019, Linda E. Chown
LINDA E. CHOWN grew up in Berkeley, Ca. in the days of action. Civil Rights arrests at Sheraton Palace and Auto Row. BA UC Berkeley Intellectual History; MA Creative Writing SFSU; PHd Comparative Literature University of Washington. Four books of poetry. Many poems published on line at Numero Cinq, Empty Mirror, The Bezine, Dura, Poet Head and others. Many articles on Oliver Sachs, Doris Lessing, Virginia Woolf, and many others. Twenty years in Spain with friends who lived through the worst of Franco. I was in Spain (Granada, Conil and Cádiz) during Franco’s rule, there the day of his death when people took to the streets in celebration. Interviewed nine major Spanish Women Novelists, including Ana María Matute and Carmen Laforet and Carmen Martín Gaite.
ABOUT
Recent in digital publications:
* Five by Jamie Dedes, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019
* From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems)(July 2019)
* Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review (July 2019)
Upcoming in digital publications:
* The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice (August 2019)
A busy though bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Levure littéraire, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, HerStry, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, Woven Tale Press, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group / Beguines, pushers of The BeZine of which I am managing editor. Email me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions or commissions.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 