Naming the Stars: Joyce Sutphen

This present tragedy will eventually
turn into myth, and in the mist
of that later telling the bell tolling
now will be a symbol, or, at least,
a sign of something long since lost.

This will be another one of those
loose changes, the rearrangement of
hearts, just parts of old lives
patched together, gathered into
a dim constellation, small consolation.

Look, we will say, you can almost see
the outline there: her fingertips
touching his, the faint fusion
of two bodies breaking into light.

Oh man. I woke up this morning feeling really sad and scared and lonely about Terri being gone three days a week, and then my 'poetry daily' pulls up this poem.

I don't really feel like discussing it. We watched a DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) DVD over the weekend (for Terri's work), and one of the skills for getting through hard emotions was to distract yourself with listening to music, or reading, or watching a movie. But, the video said, don't MATCH your emotions. If you're sad, don't go watching a sad movie.

So this poem, while not exactly matching my emotions, is a sort of sad, melancholy poem, and it just makes me feel worse.

I found it on a high-school curriculum site, though. It is perfect for teenagers in the midst of a breakup. I can just see the dramatic sighs and girls writing it down in their notebooks to cry over later.