Ed Northen

PRESENT {predicate, [of a person] in a particular place}

I am sitting
Across
From a person

Who
Is no longer
Present

My mother
Inaccessible

She stares
At nothing
Into another realm

Seeing
Something
Invisible

Having conversations
With people
In her past

Who are gone
No longer present

I am the one
Who is alienated
Wondering

If she is aware
I am present
Not Absent

Ed Northen is a retired Fire Captain/Paramedic who worked in the field for 34 years. He lives in Hailey Idaho, where he pursues his passions of environmental stewardship, hiking, backpacking and currently working as a fly fishing guide. He has been writing poetry for eighteen years, has been published in Ariel, Chimera, and Poetry Works and reads at local poetry gatherings. His poem poem "A River's Gift" recently won first place for ecological poetry in a recent contest.