Sentimentality

This week is the last ever Wellington Feminist Poetry Club event due to some complex local issues (none of which reflect on the event’s producer or the pool of local poetry talent). WFPC is where I cut my teeth performing my poetry to a paying audience.

At the moment the Wellington poetry scene is in that awkward space when the finished chapter has not yet yielded to the new one. But rest easy my poetry peeps, a new entity will rise up to fill the gap – there are plans already afoot to that effect. But before we celebrate the new we are saying goodbye to the local institution / incubator of talent that has been the WFPC.

So thinking, about the way that things come into our lives and then leave, I have produced what is best described as ‘sentimental poetry’.

Leaving
I remember the sound of soft
crunching as I walked over
the dried leaves that had been stolen by
Autumn
and thrown to the ground.

I remember the feeling of the
damp air cool as the sun disappeared
over the ranges
We had breathed it together
when you were still someone I could find.

I remember the scent of your
perfume, how it hung around
you like a moon in orbit.
The bottle sits half-empty
collecting dust as its contents sour.

I remember.
Yes, I remember.
And although I don't
walk in that forest anymore,
Or see many of the people from before,
I can still recall all the details
And I can't stop remembering
Knowing that you
will remember nothing of me.