Clear Mo(u)rning

By Roy Dean Doughty

All of us experience loss. From childhood on, things that we hoped for, fail to materialize, things that we had become accustomed to or loved, disappear. Sometimes these losses are trivial, sometimes devastating. But no matter how universal this experience, we must all learn to deal with it alone. Loss is personal.

As we grow older, our personal losses accumulate, and collectively they form a great monument, a conglomerate memorial growing inside of us, which no one sees, but which everyone senses, whenever they are with us. These losses begin to account for a great part of who we are: an identity fashioned of voids.

We might live for decades with little or no conscious realization of this, and then something happens, which suddenly and implacably brings it home. For me, it was the loss of my mother. That loss gathered up, as a mother does, the entire brood of all my little losses, and made of it that internal family I call myself. As she had in life, her death birthed me.

For years now, as a kind of spiritual practice, I have written a daily poem. So it was natural to me, just as a part of the habit of who I am, to continue that practice. Thus I made a poetic record of the short period of my mother’s illness, of the day of her passing, and of the weeks following her passing. That record comprises the 31 poems of this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roy Dean Doughty
• Release date: May 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452497822

Roy Dean Doughty

Roy Dean Doughty is a poet and fiction writer, NLP master (Neurolingistic Programmer) and radio host.

Book preview

Clear Mo(u)rning

In Memoriam

Hazel Edna Doughty

January 3rd, 1928 to December 4th, 2009

By Roy Dean Doughty

Copyright 2011

Roy Dean Doughty

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Table of Contents

Preface

Un: Written 12/2/09, the Black Hills of South Dakota

Distaff: Written 12/3/09, the Black Hills of South Dakota

Maternal Caress: Written 12/4/09, the Black Hills of South Dakota

The North: Written 12/5/09, the Black Hills of South Dakota

Primal Pairing: Written 12/6/09, the Black Hills of South Dakota

Searching for Soporifics: Written 12/7/09, the Black Hills of South Dakota

Guidance System: Written 12/8/09, the Black Hills of South Dakota

Primordial Math: Written 12/9/09, the Black Hills of South Dakota

Welcoming Beggary: Written 12/10/09, the Black Hills of South Dakota

Epithalamium: Written 12/11/09, Badlands, South Dakota

Bedtime Story: Written 12/12/09, near the confluence of the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers

Bitch: Written 12/13/09, Butler County, Kentucky, near the Green River

Elegiac Lullaby: Written 12/14/09, Butler County, Kentucky, near the Green River

Clear Mo(u)rning: Written 12/15/09, Butler County, Kentucky, near the Green River

Suffocation: Written 12/16/09, near Corte Madera Creek and estuary, San Francisco Bay, Kentfield, California

The Soloist: Written 12/17/09, near Corte Madera Creek and estuary, San Francisco Bay, Kentfield, California

Pietà: Written 12/18/09, near Corte Madera Creek and estuary, San Francisco Bay, Kentfield,