Do, did and never done

My fingertips swipe the pages
like the needle of a record player,
dusting off your pinched-in words

A heart can see, like my fingers do
as they walk these pages to decipher
that, what-used-to-be

These lectures,
I could copy them
change a few names here and there
B’nai Brith, Frauenclub,
other things will stay the same
the cropped-up-worry,
angst, dispair

International politics, it twist and turns you see…
We are skipping, like a broken record
scratchy,
stuck,
How much you’ve tried,
how much we try

to lighten up!

As my fingers touch the margins
of a life that ceased to be
I can’t help but wonder

Are we matching patterns in a larger tapestry?

I will keep writing,
we always do,
did
and clearly
are never,
ever
done

© Emmy van Swaaij