22 Comments
User's avatar
Kim Nelson's avatar

❤️💛💚💙💜

Maureen Doallas's avatar

Really beautiful, X.P.

X. P. Callahan's avatar

Thanks so much, Maureen.

Janie Braverman's avatar

You're posting such beautiful work, X.P. Heartbreakingly beautiful. It is astonishing how there is to learn. Some of it wonderful, some of it painful, some of it both. Always more.

...I

hadn't yet learned to discern

such light

X. P. Callahan's avatar

Thank you, Janie.

Martin Garcia's avatar

👏👏👏

Ann's avatar

I still remember the "marine light" in my dad's eyes during his last days. I loved this the first time I read it and loved reading it again. ❤️ Just beautiful.

X. P. Callahan's avatar

Thank you, Ann. That light is something. Saw it in my dad’s eyes too.

Alexis R Kane's avatar

Such a beautiful elegy for Joe. I love this.

X. P. Callahan's avatar

Thank you, Alexis, and (almost) happy birthday!

Mario Fonseca's avatar

— — — — — — — 

— — — — — — — 

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— — — — — — -

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— — — — - - -

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

Concrete poem? Intriguing!

Mario Fonseca's avatar

Oh, well, you know these are ten lines each with seven dashes, at one point they begin to shrink until all are shrunken to seven short dashes –ten weeks of seven days, those seventy times you ‘could have watched that mountain turn every shade of desert with the sun going down…’

X. P. Callahan's avatar

Aha! Brilliant. Went right over my head. Thank you!

Mary Roblyn's avatar

All of the lights. Lovely.

pamm hanson's avatar

always a dear favorite. the mountain turning pink. wait.

Cathy A Wickham's avatar

This is heartrendingly beautiful.

Fotini Masika's avatar

The definition of elegy - your poem.

X. P. Callahan's avatar

Thank you, dear Fotini.

Paul Wittenberger's avatar

I find all of these Elegies brilliant, X.P., poignant and provocative reminders of a time not that long past when brothers and sisters were dying in a war few knew was happening, and even fewer cared—including almost every politician in the country, right up to the President.

X. P. Callahan's avatar

Thank you, Paul. Worse than the indifference was the caring about how quickly all those undesirables could be eliminated.

Paul Wittenberger's avatar

Regularly shouted from pulpits across the country.