"I know you will forget me when I'm gone"

[elisem.livejournal.com]

That was the first line of a poem Mike wrote to me.

Because it's a Mike poem, though, it turns around before the end. Of course.

It was unfinished. The missing lines are in the middle. Also of course. He knew the shape of it, and put in the one line of the middle where he knew it would go. Even with the missing middle, though, it works. Oh, it works.

I know you will forget me when I'm gone
It is no test of love or trust or will
For certain grounds have to be dwelt upon
For certain spaces will not go unfilled
[... unwritten line ...]
I know you will forget me when I'm gone
[....]
[....]
I will not bless what I'll not look upon
For what's not wrong no one needs to forgive
I know you will forget me when I'm gone
In order that you properly may live
Outpacing death and homeward making speed
Till hearts are harbored and are home indeed
And when I die... what did I have to say?
What minds let slip, hearts never give away.

Comments

[imnotandrei.livejournal.com]

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for posting this.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

You are very welcome. Seems to me a bunch of people need to hear this one, because whenever it gets quoted, people go "Ohhhh...." and make a note of it.

Just Wow!

[thetimesink.livejournal.com]

Thank you...

Re: Just Wow!

[elisem.livejournal.com]

You are very welcome, and isn't it?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oh, man.

Elise, that's just beautiful.

(I attempted to write something else in this comment, something to the effect of what a privilege, a sort of immortality it gives to you, to have been the beloved of such a gifted poet. "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

But heaven knows I'm not as gifted a writer as Mike, and so I can't make it in a way that doesn't seem either breathtakingly clueless or beside the point. Sorry for my ineptitude.

It would have been much better not to have ever lost him at all.)

[elisem.livejournal.com]

*hug*

And I do know what you mean.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

By the way, Neil said that it was a very Mike-like thing that the poem's unfinished part was in the middle, and that if Mike were writing a story about having such a poem with an unfinished middle, he'd tuck the missing lines into the story, so that when you were nearing the end you'd go, "Wait, what? But where are the lines?" And if you asked Mike, he'd say, "So-and-so spoke this particular missing line in the middle here, and the other line is in the story there," which would be true... and I said, "Yep, and when you got to the last line of the story, the whole thing would sort of go *click* in your head and you'd see where all the missing lines were."

Though I think, upon reflection, I'd amend that last sentence, so it came out "... and you'd see where all the missing lines were, and are, and always had been."

He was like that, wasn't he?


(edited because my quote marks had gang agley)

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Oh, Elise.

He really was a wonder.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

He so very was.

I am so glad you got to meet him!

[badger2305.livejournal.com]

I still miss him. Damn it. A LOT.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

I know, dear heart.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

One can't help but feel that some particular Patron Saint of Bionic Replacement Parts is Out There somewhere, watching over the snail's pace as the Big Day approaches, and muttering under his breath "In order that you properly may live ti dum ti dum and homeward making speed" and building a whole new variant structure around those words, to fit the new situation.


There's probably a sandwich in it somewhere.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

There can't be three missing lines, though, because it's a sonnet. And of course it's the middle that's missing, because that's how it works. I think he'd have fixed it into proper sonnet form if he'd had the chance. I almost see how it might have gone.

(Having said that, I once told him that 110 Stories was the longest damn sonnet I'd ever seen.)

[pameladean]

Oh, it's good to have this findable.

I think he's using "forget" as a term of art, maybe. I think of him all the time, myself, so what must you do?

P.

[elisem]

Definitely as a term of art.

(Love you, Obble. And I am always grateful that Mike dubbed us the Obelisks.)