Carryin' On Poem by Heather Minette Schutmaat

Autumn arrived early.
"Carryin' On" plays on loop.
You are painting a canvas a shade of yellow
that fills me with an unfamiliar feeling—
a feeling that I will later remember as momentary hope.

I open our living room windows to the world outside.
I want September to know that we are carryin' on, too.
"A southern fall must be like a northern spring, "
I say, welcoming our season,
"You know, that long-awaited relief."

But your silence falls in sync
with the pause between tracks
and becomes a void—
a void that I will later remember as its own song.

An abyss that sings,
not an early fall in Texas,
not the voices of Johnny and June,
not the color of a canary,
not a poem that writes itself through an open window,
has the strength to carry on
in this home that we have broken.