"Original Hope" by Lauren Camp

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend July 26, 2017   Original Hope   Lauren Camp

One borrows time not to be left out.   Been in the pattern of sun—secure, re-creating. One needs one thing.   One father is left with new limits, but one father is left. This repeat is filled with above and below. (Do you understand that it won't cease?)   Every hour compared to dozens of previous hours and angers, and the daughters post pictures of vanishing. Such is a comfort.   One agrees to ask for nothing.   Under time lives silence.                Copyright © 2017 Lauren Camp. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "In late 2015, my father was diagnosed with 'moderate stage dementia, most likely Alzheimer's.' Anyone who has experience with this disease learns, sometimes again and again, to return to this hour, this moment, today. Rather than focus on the continual losses, or ask how much further there is to fall, you are reminded to reaffirm the entire picture of now, a now in exploded perspective, a now outside the lines of past or future." —Lauren Camp   Lauren Camp is the author of One Hundred Hungers (Tupelo Press, 2016). She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.   Photo credit: Anna Yarrow Poetry by Camp   One Hundred Hungers (Tupelo Press, 2016) "The Emergence of Memory, 1" by Laynie Browne "The Case for Memory" by Jerome Rothenberg "Hope Wanted Alive" by Terese Svoboda Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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