Elegy for the Lost Umbrella
To lose an umbrella is nothing. But to lose
An umbrella you've held on to year after year
Through various chances of rain, that you've gone back for
Into restaurants and shops, with your sopping shoes,
And leaning against the wall like a confident lover,
There it was-- "You'd be back." Beautiful!
Sage green, sprinkled with flowers, the cloth-covered handle...
But left on a west-bound train--everything's over
Like the end of a movie. You are suddenly light
As if it were that hook that was holding you steady
Through shifting sands of years, always ready
With its shadow and kindly cane. Or it might
Be you feel dizzy because of the sudden flare
Of Possible Umbrellas opening all around--
The ones you may yet have, flimsy or sound,
But fickle, tugging you off into thin air.
A.E. Stallings. “Elegy for the Lost Umbrella.” Archaic Smile. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, p. 80.
Afterward: “Elegy for the Lost Umbrella” by Sher Schwartz
Sher Poetry 
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