One Year Poem by Sharon Olds

One Year

Rating: 3.7


When I got to his marker, I sat on it,
like sitting on the edge of someone's bed
and I rubbed the smooth, speckled granite.
I took some tears from my jaw and neck
and started to wash a corner of his stone.
Then a black and amber ant
ran out onto the granite, and off it,
and another ant hauled a dead
ant onto the stone, leaving it, and not coming back.
Ants ran down into the grooves of his name
and dates, down into the oval track of the
first name's O, middle name's O,
the short O of his last name,
and down into the hyphen between
his birth and death--little trough of his life.
Soft bugs appeared on my shoes,
like grains of pollen, I let them move on me,
I rinsed a dark fleck of mica,
and down inside the engraved letters
the first dots of lichen were appearing
like stars in early evening.
I saw the speedwell on the ground with its horns,
the coiled ferns, copper-beech blossoms, each
petal like that disc of matter which
swayed, on the last day, on his tongue.
Tamarack, Western hemlock,
manzanita, water birch
with its scored bark,
I put my arms around a trunk and squeezed it,
then I lay down on my father's grave.
The sun shone down on me, the powerful
ants walked on me. When I woke,
my cheek was crumbly, yellowish
with a mustard plaster of earth. Only
at the last minute did I think of his body
actually under me, the can of
bone, ash, soft as a goosedown
pillow that bursts in bed with the lovers.
When I kissed his stone it was not enough,
when I licked it my tongue went dry a moment, I
ate his dust, I tasted my dirt host.
Anonymous submission.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Colleen Courtney 15 May 2014

Such a wonderful heartfelt and tender write. Beautifully descriptive!

2 0 Reply
Rajnish Manga 15 October 2018

The narrative involves several fleeting glimpses of nature and life. Thanks & Congrats.

1 1 Reply
Paul Brookes 15 October 2018

As usual Old's get to the nub and tells the reader in stark lines her grief. The overwhelming sense of loss and sadness great write as always loved this.

2 0 Reply
Edward Kofi Louis 15 October 2018

Tears from my jaw and neck! Thanks for sharing this poem with us.

1 0 Reply
Tom Allport 15 October 2018

A sad poem of the loss of a loved one and how it affected them one year on? Well written Sharon.

0 1 Reply
Sylvia Frances Chan 15 October 2024

Very excellently worded, dear Sharon, the words touched deepest my heart.5 Stars Most deserving poem as The Modern Poem Of The Day. Chosen by PoemHunter and Team. Congratulations!

0 0 Reply
Bri Edwards 15 October 2024

Why 'Anonymous submission', I wonder. City cemeteries (and country ones too I suppose) can be good places to go bird watching.

0 0 Reply
Bri Edwards 15 October 2024

I once went with my 3rd wife to her father's grave. She (I think) said that he called her 'stupid' and she hated him. We got help finding his grave and then she did what she came for: she SPIT on his grave.

0 0 Reply
Bri Edwards 15 October 2024

I once had a short temporary job mowing a lawn in a cemetery. While there I got a look inside the cemetery's crematorium where a large coffin-shaped cardboard box was burning in a furnace. : )

0 0 Reply
Bri Edwards 15 October 2024

It has been several years since I've visited a graveyard/cemetery, in which I knew none of the inhabitants (the dead ones; not the ants and such) .

0 0 Reply
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