I wrote it after the absence of an abusive lover, an artist I was with for a couple of years. It was a relationship that probably should never have started and was hard to give up. “Crush” yes. And then, the reality. He used to climb the cherry trees outside my window like a monkey in a way that made me smile. Then, he wasn’t there and I knew I’d never see him again. Still, yes, one is mad about what is lost. But, just like the butterflies transcend worlds and give into some ancient instinct, there is the urge to return to the source, some dark matter. But one must live, not just for oneself, but for the seven generations to come, as well as recognize that we are the consequence of seven generations before us. And all the small signs of the world clue us in as to what it is we must do. It gives us the strength to take another turn. To take back one’s life – and limb. To mature from the fallen petals to the fruit of one’s life in peace.

But those we love, for right or wrong, remain. We can dream them back. But under the x-ray of our examination. We can see into some kind of healthy truth, some extraction, some surgery: that pain of removing someone from our lives who is bad for us, who is making us weak and sick, who is hurting us. The thrown stones: hurtful words, blows, are like the hail storm that blows in and ruins the crop. Those sweet cherries we were so looking forward to and now will never have – not in this season, not from those blooms.

But, still, we miss the absent lover. And in our dreams, much is revealed. This is a literal dream, he was transformed into a skeleton (significant as he carved bones as an artist) and looked like an xray of himself again climbing through my trees, stripping off the fruit to eat. A “decayed holo-gram” because his power diminishes in time; it doesn’t hurt as much. I know, at that point, that it too shall pass. A “holo” (hollow) “-gram” an empty letter, a fake message, an illusion (of love) and not the real thing. Now some trickster xray for this new physician/surgeon (pruner?)

“My forever empty art” (I forget how the line breaks go now – it was over 20 years ago) is a reference to me, the poet, staring out the window, feeling that keen regret (for dumping him), for his now absence from my trees, looking over the same scene but in the light of another season (Valentines Day, when the butterflies return to Natural Bridges near where I was living in Santa Cruz at the time) and transformed. At least I can make something out of it all. Yes, it’s an art. I’d rather have him in a healthy relationship, but this art has, once again, saved me. Better to miss the guy than suffer the “slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune.”

Good read! Thank you!