Losing Things
Losing Things
by Suzanne Doerge | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
The things we lose along the way:
the pants fallen into a crack
between the bunk and the wall,
essentials tossed in the lost and found—
Would that be my scarf she is wearing?
Water bottle I forgot at the top of the hill,
hat left on the table in the café bar,
flashlight dropped when I bent to tie my shoes
in the glare of the plaza, unmissed until
the dark edge of town.
No going back.
Reminders of the things
I didn’t know I could do without:
clothes in my closet that I never wear,
resentments that no longer matter,
failures that were only glitches,
sorrows that stir into sweetness,
longings that discover presence—
all stones to be left at the Cruz de Hierro.
The finding of ourselves in the losing.
Our packs all the lighter.
Editor’s note: This poem is from Doerge’s collection, Footfalls: Poems of the Camino (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2022). Find a review of that collection in the Winter 2023 issue of La Concha. Doerge’s poems “Village Square,” “Fields of Wheat,” “Delight,” and “¿Algo Más Señora?, which are also part of that collection, were published in the Summer 2022, Autumn 2023, Winter 2024, and Spring 2024 issues of La Concha, respectively.
