{npm22: 6~ absent tanka}

We were not big believers in our house in pining for lost loves. My mother is probably the one I most often heard say “Absence makes the heart go wander.” (I’ve also heard it said, “Absence makes the heart go yonder.” I wish I could find the provenance for either, or both, but as usual I’m left with “American proverb.” Fine.) Mom usually meant it about pets – those who don’t get fed, who make someone else their favorite person, which is how she ended up the sole proprietor of the cat, but I have never believed that missing someone makes you love them more. Absences makes you miss them. And then you resent them for not coming back.

I’m clearly not a romantic, here.

The etymology of the word “fond” is, of course, foolish or infatuated, from deranged or unwise, from the Middle English fonnen. So, absence makes us …deranged? Great. Perfect.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”


while you were out
ink fades in sunlight,
your photographed face is blurred.
is this fondness, grown?
as absence aches like tooth-pain?
as your echo falls silent?