78. A Poem On Pronouns
I have a college friend from Butler University in the 1950’s and her name is Myra Britton. Through the years we have stayed in touch, she and I and her husband, Don. The three of us saw each other in July of 2009 and to my surprise in early August, I received a letter that Don had died quite suddenly just weeks after I saw them.
I had another friend, Cathie, just an hour away who had lost her husband in May of 2009. I visited that friend fairly often and stayed in touch with Myra through phone calls and after a year or so I received a poem from Myra which struck me as being true to both of these women and to many others. With Myra’s permission I share it here:
—
Suddenly
my grammar changes
because us
becomes me
Ours becomes mine
we to I and our to my—
a love lost
—–
—–Myra Britton (2010)
© Copyright 2010 by Myra Britton
—
It has helped me to know from Myra this reality of a “love lost.”
