The Days

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4

I want my dog back now. 

This has gone on long enough.

Something must have gone wrong

and the world is ignoring my sadness.

She passed away in spring so already 

we missed the summer together 

and it’s well into fall. She shouldn’t 

have missed barking at the kids 

in their costumes last week. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas won’t be the same.

She’s one of the family and how can the world 

be happy without her? It’s hard 

to think of her wandering in all that sky

with no one to help her cross the street. 

Without her toys, how can she 

play among the stars?

I didn’t consent to such a long absence.

I never agreed to forever.

Someone put an end to this absurdity 

and bring her home to me. 

The days are getting shorter now. 

J. Kyle Kimberlin

November 2025

Something Terrible

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“Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us. So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloudshadows, passes over your hands and over all you do.”
– Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet

One Hundred Years of Meh

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I just finished watching the last of the eight episodes of One Hundred Years of Solitude on Netflix, based on the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is my favorite novel of all time, a work of surpassing genius. So was the TV show, if it hadn’t been based on this book.

Everything about the show was excellent – the acting, directing, sets, costumes, lighting, music , and editing were all fantastic. It looks just like the book looks in my mind. But it simply wasn’t faithful to the story. So much was left out and changed as to give the audience the entirely wrong impression of what Marquez was saying about post-colonialism, among many other things.

Once of the main themes of the novel is the circular turning of time, an abstraction which is hardly well-developed if you shift events around out of order.

The banana company was left out entirely, as was the government’s fruit company massacre. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of obliterated subplots and relationships. I think it’s safe to say the last 20% of the novel was simply amputated and left to float down the river of shining stones.

If I didn’t know and love the book, I’d give this series 5 stars; since I sort of do, it’s a generous 3.5. Lo siento.

At Times

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“It is summer.
How many summers does a little dog have?”
— Mary Oliver

Some nights it seems like a century,
sometimes it feels like yesterday
that I watched the cross of death
shadow your face and fix
your soft brown eyes with night.

Sometimes memory is the patch
of dry ground between cacti,
at times it stands and sings
like bands of light within a wave
and crests when I say
your little name aloud.

You were Brookie and I will not
forget you, my friend who saw
the better heart of me
and taught me simply joy. 

Brookie, 2011 – 2025

J. Kyle Kimberlin
July 2025
Creative Commons Licensed

Terrible Things

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“Terrible things are happening outside.

Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes.

Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated.

Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

– Diary of Anne Frank

January 13, 1943

a failure

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“And it is exceedingly short, his galloping life. Dogs die so soon. I have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old—or so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to keep them young. The one gift we cannot give.”
― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs: Poems

Tiny Heart

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Because poetry too often pulls
the punch but never lies, our dog
is dying of heart disease.
Brookie moves about the house
and yard afloat in diuretics.
Her heart has grown too large
in all her briefly eager love.

The words of this poem looked black
when you began to read. Now they
appear to be a cloudy cataract blue,
like the old spoon your mother used
to make soup for you on rainy days.
The words begin to swim like little fish.

Stop it. There is no crying in poetry.
Still grief is heavier in the mind
than iron, as inscrutable
as a breeze from far out at sea.
Sorrow is starless.

Sometimes I forget why I came
to Earth at all. Surely it wasn’t
for this helpless grief. I thought
everything would be beautiful
and nothing would hurt, but
everything I love
is in a rush to be gone.

J. Kyle Kimberlin
Creative Commons Licensed

Time Passing 

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What is the poetry of time 
merely passing? What birds 
alight and sing in vain?

Does a face reflect in dusty 
surfaces and will flowers 
find forgiveness in this rain?

We’ll spend the day and time 
will pass and nothing 
in this world will cause us pain.

J. Kyle Kimberlin
Creative Commons Licensed

This is interesting. I found this little poem in my Apple Notes and apparently I wrote it but I don’t remember doing so. I’ve googled some of the lines to be sure it’s mine. I don’t typically use so much rhyme, but sometimes I do.

What do you feel about it?