poetry wednesday : for nagesh.
(photo from Nagesh Rao's Facebook page)
I participated in Colleen Wainwright's amazing "50 for 50" project to raise money for WriteGirl, an LA-based nonprofit that supports girls and young women writers. For my contribution, I was to receive a custom poem by one of their mentees, a poem that young woman would write for me, or for someone of my choosing.
I filled out a form explaining that I chose my friend (and make-believe twin bro) Nagesh Rao, to get a poem. That we are twins is somewhat make-believe, not Nagesh himself. He's very real and very necessary.
And here it is, a poem in honor of his mother's passing, by 21-year-old poet Portia Frazier.
To Nagesh, and to all of us navigating our own private geography of loss, with love and thanks for all your listening, and in full recognition that grief is a tease:
CUSTOM WRITEGIRL POEM
Requested by: Patti Digh
Poem is for: Nagesh
WriteGirl Author: Portia Frazier, Age 21
Title of Poem: Where Do You Go
Where Do You Go
When you leave me, where do you go?
Are you lost in time, shaped by its flow?
Science says that our cells are made up of energy
Does that mean I can breathe you tasting more than a memory?
If energy never dies and can never be created
Does that mean that our meeting may again be fated?
Are you in the hands that still hold me?
In the eyes of the ones near me?
My heart aches for you
The embrace I depended on now withdrawn
My eyes and throat burn with the need to mourn
My voice breaking under pain too sharp to be borne
“Why must you leave?” I shout through my dreams
Hoping it reaches you while I unravel at the seams
My path is still clear
I can still feel you near
You are in my memories
In the air around me
In the hands of our family
When you leave me
You are in peace
In beauty
In rest.
