Humanist Voices in Verse: “Falling”

This week’s poem is by Daniel Thomas Moran, TheHumanist.com poetry editor, retired dentist and Boston University Assistant Professor, former Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, New York and the author of seven collections of poetry. He lives in Webster, New Hampshire with his wife, Karen, where he has taken on the role of Unemployed Poet and Anecdotalist. His recently published collection of poems, A Shed for Wood, has been lauded for its “profound and intelligible poetry” (Peter Quinn, author) while Moran is described as “a distinctive American voice which deserves an attentive hearing” (Elizabeth Heywood, Acumen Literary Journal). His website is www.danielthomasmoran.net.

If you’d like to contribute original poetry to Humanist Voices in Verse,  send an email to write@thehumanist.com with “Poetry” in the subject line. Please send no more than three poems for consideration per week.

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Falling

With time comes
the falling away,
of familiar touch,
fragrance through
an open window.

In the quietude
we wonder about
the vigor of the wind,
some loose sounds
in the rafters.

To each thing
comes change.
In the graying days,
the sun becomes
an absent lover.

Yet in these years,
to those so disposed,
There is a peace
of curious quality,
a truce reluctantly signed.

The comforts of our
our life’s clichés shed
like old skin.

In the emptying bottle,
a sadness and yet,
the satisfied thirst.
Days age while
day retains youth.

And we can
only but wonder,
Will there be one
to take note
of our leaving?
And then, how
might we know?

—Daniel Thomas Moran