This poem was submitted to the Poems Fray in 2002 by our inscrutible Permanent Archivist, Johanan Rakkav. It is (so far as we know) his one and only attempt to date to write in iambic pentameter.

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LOVE WHEN LOST

I wish that love when lost could be regained

Like missing pencils tucked behind the ears,

Or rolling on the floor; or if they're used

To draw a portrait of the dear, then kept

In secret drawers, filed away and safe.

It never, ever seems so easy -- right?

Love ebbs and flows, it's said, like ocean tides

Beneath the moon; perhaps today we'd say

Like icy boulders making Saturn's rings

A whirling maelstrom delicate as glass.

Or that, however long it lives, it dies

In fire like any star that's ever shone

(Or maybe yet in darkness, fading out).

Analogies may stretch like rubber bands,

And still they never reach the end of pain.

Returning to the one about the floor,

I'll write a simple statement of the truth:

A love that's lost is not so soon replaced,

And that's why almost everyone will try

To find it, though the broom has swept it up.

Copyright © 2002 by Johanan Rakkav