On the Leaving of Things

I try to take things with me where I can,
Devices that seem normal, not too new,
Objects that my hand knows how to grasp
As well as thoughts that take no energy to think.
There is a spice to newness, but it's rich,
And savoured best when sprinkled on the bland.

Too many pieces of a former life
Stay back among the pieces of their own,
And they are gaps for me, as I for them.
My emptiness is wide, as much is lost,
But like the missing item of a set,
I fear theirs may be deep and catch the eye,
A sorrow difficult to bear because alone.
Not knowing that is one more gap for me.

For absences are not like real things.
They can divide and multiply at once.
A missing instrument is not the thing itself,
But songs no longer played, and those who heard,
And moods no longer matched by melody,
The uses, habits, practise, now disused.
So missing friends are noticed in the way
That no-one knows the meaning of a phrase,
Or laughs at jokes so worn they don't need words.

But unlike them I still have gaps ahead,
The better kind of gap, not dead but fresh,
The unknown future, full of unknown friends,
And simple pleasures not yet guessed.
Besides, the things around me that are new,
The petty tasks that aren't quite yet routine,
Although they cannot fill the holes, loom large
Enough to block the view of what's not there.

Best not to look at spaces where things were,
The things now left behind in what is past.
Like other sadnesses they crave my gaze,
Will act the Hydra, feeding on the fight.
People are too large to simply miss,
The gap revealed by things that still remain.
Like making tea for one, not two or three,
Remembering that one needs extra milk -
The knowledge useless now except to frame
That gap.