Seattle Sun

There is a quick sharp pull that one might feel, with it a weighted turn to finding brightness where there is none. I have Seattle to thank for this, but the home of ours must be built anew. And yet I am not in my method and have no sense of worship for the work or to erupt into a broken sense, but I am appreciating the copious sunlight with a startled turf-forming consciousness. You must take the fear of normalcy and the aerodynamics of emotions that fuel the sense of the present and jerk it to a gluttonous love. The wood pulp, the paper, the feeling of how-to ache of these conditions and do not permit the imagination to fold into its chamber. How do I turn this summer around? Is there still an I and no You in this problemed space? Can I sort through our shared moments without your orange pants, your color-blinded syllogisms, and hull of near-end turbulence? I reckon with these days and the practice of finding the sun to its glory so that whatever score I have to settle with sorrow does not affect germination thus far.   

Credit

Copyright © 2017 by Prageeta Sharma. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 20, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem
“Seattle was a place where I had spent a lot of joyous and contented time with my late husband, Dale. We bought a condo downtown to escape the fishbowl that Missoula sometimes was. We relished in our shared art-making, cooking extravagantly and looking out at a lush, green Seattle, a view we could see from the rooftop with the glorious sun ever-present. This poem is about reclaiming haunted spaces and trying to take in the beauty after feeling so challenged by grief. What’s there to say about grief? You live with it and try to find a way through it. The sun can be there to provide its light.”
—Prageeta Sharma