I'm opting today for an earlier NaPo prompt I declined - to write a poem composed entirely of questions. (Because that's where the Muse took me! And try as I might, I'm not feeling much love for the picking apart of news stories, which is today's prompt...)
This poem comes from one question that recently popped into my mind and that I can't get out. Do you have the answer?
The Ones
When we find ‘the one’ -
that epic romantic grail end -
what happens I wonder
to the memory
of all those other ones?
The not-sures, the nearlys,
all the lovely light-as-laughter
likes, not loves?
The proverbial practice pancakes
that flew, then flopped?
Precursors to perfection,
the necessary understudy
lessons in being
connoisseurs
of our own hearts -
where do they figure
in the grand scheme of fate?
Are they simply forgotten?
Like knowledge when an exam
is done? Dominoes knocked
down to reveal
the last standing one,
the toppled like strewn
soldiers left to die
in unmarked graves?
Are they simply footnotes
to the final peace?
A crass countdown? All their
flairs and fares now
irrelevant, redundant?
No more than an indifferent
means to the enigmatic end?
Pointers on a map only
of temporary significance
to the treasure at hand?
Or are they secretly submerged
into the one? Like a collage
of jigsaw pieces? Ingredients
to complete a recipe? Tapers
to light a bigger flame?
Are they all predestined parts
of the final blueprint,
like Russian dolls
inwardly stacked?
Too steady in numbers
to ever fall?
The last one, the only one
a bric-a-brac of befores
and never mores?
A gain of losses? True
love not necessarily
new, but known,
just a bittersweet
winding up win?
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