Poetry: dVerse Poets Pub 8/4/2020 (window)

Today’s dVerse Poet’s Pub prompt for poetics is Looking out the window, provided by Peter Frankis. While the challenge was to take a picture, post it, and write about it. I adjusted time a bit. I used a picture I searched for and found that my wife took of me through a window, 48 years ago. This idea came to me quickly and I could not let it go.

Circa 1972, through front window of house I grew up in.

The Window Behind Me

A window from the parlor to the covered front porch
of my parents’ home, a memory of chewing paint off the sill,
of watching adults sit and talk and wave as neighbors walked by.
For eighteen years, my view of the world outside
where wind blew, rain fell, thunder clapped, people sang,
cars passed and honked. Life beckoned me to the stage,
through that window.

What was I thinking 48 years ago? My young wife and new son
in the window behind me. Our future? Was I talking or listening to
a passerby? Was I thinking of losing that hair as it turned gray?
Four-years military—done! College degree, done! Responsibility
branded me an armed man. Was I up to it? Did I have life,
or had it taken me?

Would the photographer still be my wife after 54 years? Would I have two
more children and would they be in their forties with more kids?
Would I build two careers and retire? Would I write poetry?
I had time. I knew I would live forever. I did not even know what I didn’t know.
Now, I know. Some I wish I didn’t discover. A window from the past
reflecting the future. The present me, right here, right now, today.
I want to say, relax, you’ll be fine.

Look both ways through every window.
Mind the gaps and cracks.

39 thoughts on “Poetry: dVerse Poets Pub 8/4/2020 (window)”

  2. Oh, I love this perspective of the prompt. It’s very enlightening and philosophical. I also enjoyed the past and present themes/perspective. When viewing a photo, I indeed ask myself what I was doing, or what I was thinking. How the present can be so different from the past as we think to the future is remarkable. A very stunning piece with beautiful details and vivid descriptions.

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  4. A beautifully reflective poem, Bill. I can see why you chose the photo. It takes you down memory lane, and from your past to present day. I really enjoyed taking the journey with you 🙂

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  5. This was wonderful, Bill. I love your idea of going back, reflecting on what you might be thinking then while letting us know what has since happened. Just lovely.

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    1. Thank you, Dale. I’m glad you liked it. Sometimes they come all at once. This one did, but as I was looking for the photo, I thought it was of my father. When I saw it was me, the whole thing changed. 🙂

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      1. I love that. I can well imagine how everything changed.
        I have just chosen my own photo for this prompt but shall have to wait until tomorrow as somehow my day got away from me and it is already time to hit the hay!

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  6. Dear Bill,

    The photo and the piece go beautifully together. I’m pleased to see that you have the same photographer. I was a young married at that same time. Wonderful reflections.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

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    1. Thank you, Rochelle.
      Like the Bob Seger words from his song, ‘Like a Rock’ —

      “Twenty years now
      Where’d they go?
      Twenty years
      I don’t know
      I sit and I wonder sometimes
      Where they’ve gone

      “And sometimes late at night
      When I’m bathed in the firelight
      The moon comes callin’ a ghostly white
      And I recall
      I recall…”

      Now more than 20.

      Shalom,

      Bill

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  9. A contemplative view of life, forward and back. Time now to forgive ourselves for what we might have done better and know we did the best we knew how at the time, and with that acceptance enjoy the peace of this time in our lives. Great write!

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  10. I read this last night and was too tired to leave a comment. It stayed with me though. Like a whole life, what lies at the other side of the window. So much changed yet the people are the same.

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