Vox Populi
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Donna Spruijt-Metz: Person
My Person—there were so many stars last night—
at least for the light-polluted skies of Los Angeles
—and I was thinking of you—
perhaps you are finally at one with your mountains
—all the stars you saw there. I want you to know this:
I wouldn’t call you back—not
to a body that would be unable
to walk the mountains freely. Even though I miss you—
even though the hole you left in me is vast—please—
trust me. I know you were done with this mortal-ness
—the betrayal of it. I won’t summon you back—but today,
my first museum visit since you died—an exhibit
of photorealism—you might have hated it. But there was one painting—
“Father’s Day”—the artist reunited with her father
after he spent 40 years in a Chinese labor camp—it was mournful.
It was stunning—and dangerous—and she used glaze
the way you did when you were first learning it—and you
and I, we didn’t call one another ‘darling’ or ‘pumpkin’
or any of that bullshit. We called one another ‘Person’—
as a reminder.
~~~~~
Copyright 2025 Donna Spruijt-Metz
Donna Spruijt-Metz‘s books include To Phrase a Prayer for Peace (Wildhouse Publishing, 2025). She’s an emeritus professor, MacDowell fellow, rabbinical school drop-out, and former classical flutist. She gets restless.
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such a gorgeous, moving poem, Donna.
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What everyone said.
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LOVE this!
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Donna is great, isn’t she? Glad to have her on board now.
M
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The deeply moving clarity and love of this, Donna, thank you.
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Today, still in bed, tired of being sick, I saw the nature of the movie you sent, but saved it for later, so I was already musing about my husband’s ashes, some scattered in the mountains by my daughter, some in the ocean by my son, some surreptitiously secreted by the stoplight he worked 7 years to have installed by the school where he was principal, and by the statue of his hero, Tony Gwinn at the stadium he had photographed as it was built in San Diego. Where was I? Oh. No, not to return, the Parkinson’s tremors, the head painfully lowered, the non-existent partying in the house, the ghost children, the walk outside his brother’s house thinking he was in China. No, I would not bring back the father of my children, or my father, a brilliant man who, the day before he died, sang me the song he sang at my 4:00 am feedings. Whew! This is what VP does to me—sends me back to the past to dance with my demons and delights.
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Lovely meditation, Barb. Thank you!
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Such a stunning elegy, testament of love, art, letting go. . .
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Yes, a beautiful and somewhat eccentric elegy. I love it.
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Such a loving man, and a man so loved — of course he is at one with his mountains now. What a powerful poem.
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Of course!
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Reading this at dawn on Father’s day, is the perfect way to start today.
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Yes!!!!! Happy Father’s Day, Jim!
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oh. person. Donna, this is so beautiful. ❤️❤️
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What a lovely tribute and complete poem!
I go out on my porch and read and write, look east at the land, place our father saved for us all, and I think how such things, so grand and tangible tie so deeply into us, such persons, such people we come from: fathers.
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Lovely comment, Sean. Thank you!
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