I’ve shed an unreasonable amount of tears for your beautiful family and the stories both you and Wendy weave and share. There you go again, wet pillow, touched heart, stirred soul.
It feels so strange to publish that poem, set in the late-summer field by my English house, where it’s now lightly snowing there and I’m sat here (briefly) in Sydney’s heat. Connected and very disconnected at the same time.
There is something so authentic and deeply personal about the way you both write. As I read your work it’s like the story is emerging from deep within my soul, I guess it says something about the universal nature of emotions and parallel experiences.
If I still lived in Sydney I could buy you that coffee I’m planning on buying you Ian, but I’m a little too far north suffering a next level humid heat.
to picture the scene, where the first-born survived
– that would mean without doubt
that his brother would never have been."
Ian, very heavy poem but beautiful. I appreciate the way you call out the futility of selectively editing the past in impossible ways.
We end up recognizing that we are living in the only possible future... The one that actually happened. And our only option is to fully live there. Beautiful work.
This is wonderful Ian. The love that bridges the huge gap between your living and dead child. You convey the bittersweet nature of holding space for both of your boys so beautifully.
I’ve shed an unreasonable amount of tears for your beautiful family and the stories both you and Wendy weave and share. There you go again, wet pillow, touched heart, stirred soul.
It feels so strange to publish that poem, set in the late-summer field by my English house, where it’s now lightly snowing there and I’m sat here (briefly) in Sydney’s heat. Connected and very disconnected at the same time.
There is something so authentic and deeply personal about the way you both write. As I read your work it’s like the story is emerging from deep within my soul, I guess it says something about the universal nature of emotions and parallel experiences.
If I still lived in Sydney I could buy you that coffee I’m planning on buying you Ian, but I’m a little too far north suffering a next level humid heat.
"Pointless, so pointless,
to picture the scene, where the first-born survived
– that would mean without doubt
that his brother would never have been."
Ian, very heavy poem but beautiful. I appreciate the way you call out the futility of selectively editing the past in impossible ways.
We end up recognizing that we are living in the only possible future... The one that actually happened. And our only option is to fully live there. Beautiful work.
Beautiful poem Ian x
For the one to be here with you, the other must have gone…
So moving and, yet, so inarguably true.
I don’t think I could have written about this as you have, Ian.
I hope it helps you both.
This is wonderful Ian. The love that bridges the huge gap between your living and dead child. You convey the bittersweet nature of holding space for both of your boys so beautifully.
The warm spring sun is bathing the same location right now 🙂
🥰
This is powerful, Ian. So many stellar images and lines. It is/was cathartic I suppose, the way only words can be.
This is beautiful. Painful, but beautiful.
Mesmerising and bravely expressed. I find the use of rhyme oddly appropriate here. Stunning work 💙
Thanks Caroline 🙂