The New York City subway system has, since 1992, had a Poetry in Motion program, with a new poem posted in subway cars every so often. I saw the current poem, “Heaven,” by Patrick Phillips, this evening, and it so spoke to me. It was as though someone was tuned in to what I need and have been thinking. I wish I had written this.
Heaven
by
Patrick Phillips
It will be the past
and we'll live there together.
Not as it was to live
but as it is remembered.
It will be the past.
We'll all go back together.
Everyone we ever loved,
and lost, and must remember.
It will be the past.
And it will last forever.
I love it when words show up in the right place at the right time. Beautiful discovery.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was at Teachers College last summer, I loved reading the poems on subway to and from Columbia. Thanks for the memory.
ReplyDeleteI love the line "not as it was to live but as it is remembered". It reminds me of how we tend to romanticize the past. I love the idea of living the idealized memory.
ReplyDeleteI love the line "not as it was to live but as it is remembered". It reminds me of how we tend to romanticize the past. I love the idea of living the idealized memory.
ReplyDeleteActually, that would be my idea of hell. Sorry, I don't mean to offend you. I do like the fact that you wrote your post as a poem
ReplyDeleteI can understand that; not everyone's past is something they want to relive, especially forever. (Wasn't it in "The Lovely Bones" that a character says that heaven is high school -- that would be my idea of hell.) And I wish I had written that poem, but no, it was written by Patrick Phillips.
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