Ruth

This Is How It Is--Ruth Stone

I look at the gene bank,
examples by the millions,
and they won't do.
On this planet, for me,
there was only one impetuous specimen.
How angry I become
when I walk through the corridors of my dreams.
On all the beaches of the living world,
the shadows of where you were
are washed away by the tides.
Only in my skull,
night after night,
I wrestle with your obstinate ghost.
But even that is better
than this three-dimensional life
that is so boring without you.

Ruth Stone, is this ancient saint of a woman. in her nineties now I bet. blind. lost her sights decades ago. decades before that, her husband, the father of her young children killed himself. almost all her poetry is for him. or for her kids about their dad.