It's Still Life

Please visit Spira’s blog, read and listen to Act 1 through Act 3

Inspired by Spira’s “The Shape of Absence”

They say absence has no shape —
but I have felt its geometry:
the exact negative space
of a hand I can no longer hold,
the hollow of a voice
forgetting its own tune.

It is the silence between words
not as a pause, but as a well —
you can drop a stone of memory inside
and never hear it strike the bottom.

A young soul laughs,
How long is a piece of string?
But I have seen the end of mine —
not as a cut, but as a knot,
woven by a love that outlasts its body.

And when I am gone,
who will recognise
the shape of my absence?
Perhaps the wind,
as it wraps around nothing
where I once stood.

Perhaps the page,
as it stays warm
a little while longer
after my hand has lifted.

(For me, absence is not an empty thing, but a mould shaped by what was once poured into it. The ache is the shape. The memory is the silhouette. They are not lost because I am holding the impression they left in the air. Absence is not a void. It is a silhouette in reverse, a negative-space cathedral.)

Now please: go and visit Spira’s blog, read and listen to Act 1 through Act 3

Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2025.