17 Comments

Beautiful! If I was the editor of Poetry magazine and the industry wasn't corrupt, I'd choose to publish this poem without thinking.

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Thank you, Felix! I did try to cut to the heart of it.

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Yes...

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Agreed, Felix.

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In four lines, you say all that must be said. Kudos, Josh.

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Thank you, Mary ❤️

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Whoa! This is one of those poems, that I'd read, read again and yet again and still can't have enough. A hug from afar.

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Thanks so much!

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Wow, no pun intended, but there's depth there.

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Appreciate that, Ben.

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The shovel is a powerful metaphor here

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Thanks, Jill!

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Perfect in every way.

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Thanks, Tara :)

I appreciate how brief many of the comments are, too. Nuff said!

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Once our shovels are broken, we can’t exactly heap words into the comment section. We have to pluck them one at a time and pass them to you before they wilt. 💕

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Wow Josh, this was a tour de force. So powerful. I’ve read it three times already, and suspect I will a few more

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Thanks, brother. This one didn't require much revision. Sometimes you have to scrape away a lot of fluff to get to the core of a poem, but this one came whole.

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