I was deeply saddened to learn of the recent loss of poet Riemke Ensing, whom I met through the Tuesday Poem blog community (2010 – 2015.)

Riemke Ensing; Photo credit: James Ensing-Trussell

I loved Riemke’s poetry and enjoyed meeting her in person at the WORDChristchurch festival in 2012 — she had a great sense of fun, as well as a great love of poetry and art.

On December 18, 2012, I posted Riemke’s poem, O Lucky Man, as my Tuesday Poem feature.

I post it again today, in her memory:

O lucky man

Eight or nine small poems before breakfast, you record.
Oh lucky man! Here it’s a wonder
there’s any writing at all with the light slowly failing
and such clouds inexorably dark across the moon.

Rilke had one of his characters admit to maybe ten good lines
at the end of a long life. It has to be better than that
but everyday the horizon is closing in —
‘life’ and ‘art’ — the two unequal parts of the equation
never finding the balance to make that perfect symmetry.

This morning though, three blackbirds
at the bowl of persimmons on the outside table.
Poem enough itself
and a Chinese painting to break the fast.

© Riemke Ensing
From: O lucky man by Riemke Ensing, Otakou Press, 2009.

Reproduced here with permission

You may also enjoy Riemke’s poem, Transport, featured on The Tuesday Poem Hub, also in 2012.