Family Recovery

Negative Space challenge: The Prompt - Write a poem shaped by what's missing. Let an absence, omission, or empty space become as important as what you put on the page.

Negative space is what surrounds the subject. In a poem, it can be silence, omission, white space, or the thing the speaker refuses to name.

Write a poem shaped by what's missing. Maybe it's a person who never appears, a word you keep avoiding, a gap in a memory, or something the reader can feel without ever being told directly.

Use form, line breaks, repetition, restraint, or even the space on the page itself to make that absence felt. Whatever approach you choose, the emptiness should do real work in the poem.

Celebrating 48 years of family recovery today
she would've been 69 this year and on this day
she would be standing by my side, supporting our
recovery. It's a family thing she would say
~
It was sixteen years ago today
and she was only fifty three
Why oh why on this special day
It was meant to be she would say
~
Her art work will be featured in a city
museum next year. A big University
wants her work for four years
and it brings me to tears.
~
She left two children
and 7 grandchildren
She left me and four brothers
Just one year after our mother
~
It was not fair, now I had
to be an administrator for mom,
her and our dad
It was all just so sad!
~
She loved to cook
I wrote a book
as a memorial
It was recipes in a cookbook
~
Then there was a calendar
and a book about Reiki and her
All memorials for family and friends
I hated that this was all there was at the end
~

Memorials are one thing
Love how some will drum and sing
Funerals are another thing
We had a drum, and Ojibwe singers
A relative spiritual man spoke
His sister provided a smudge
my Christian brother passed the smudge
Our relative was a deacon
His sister worked at the Catholic church
She was buried there.
WE will all be buried there
It wouldn't be anywhere else but there.
Catholic, Midewiwin, or not
~
The beauty of nature
is a reminder of the beauty
that was her. And the people
brought much beauty from nature
to celebrate her short life here
I miss her being with me on my special
day of recovery. So grateful to be here
at this point in my life. With no strife
Happy, joyous and free most days
Sadness is okay too, about yesterdays
Today though I celebrate my recovery
with my daughter and granddaughter
by my side, attending a meeting with me.
~