Ergon by George HS Singer

Ergon by George HS Singer is a poetry collection that really touches on the human experience. His poems are about his life as a monk and then his life when he left to get married and have a family. They are deeply moving and full of a vulnerability that touches the reader as the poet shares his most intimate thoughts through his words.

I’d love to share one particular piece that I felt portrays the deep love that couples share as they age. It’s no longer love like a bright shiny coin but it’s so familiar and caring.

Our Quotidian

I love you differently
now than when you were hot
and I sizzled—

I sweep the floor, scrape away
squashed berries, pry
tops off medicine bottles you no longer can
and you drive

across town to find just the right
apples, open the bills first, brew kimchee,
worry for the both of us.

I listen for your stuttering laugh
downstairs and feel the silence
that concentration makes

when you ply your needlework,
racing to finish the Christmas stockings
as if the cosmos required it.

Children phone with stories about
their children. We need only change
the beds in their old rooms twice a year.

You call 911 and you’re there
with me when the anesthesia
wears off—worry webbing around

your eyes. Too, you call me cheap
and I spit lazy. We walk past each other
in the hallways.

Until we jump back from
the loneliness as, when on a hike,
a diamond back shook its rattle at us.

You vacuum, I mop.
I know your smell and you, my snore.
In line at the market, you lean into me,

Grazing my shoulder with the warm loaf
of your breast, I tap your thigh—still here,
together in the quotidian.

This slim volume of poetry is a must read for poetry lovers.

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Source: Copy received from the author for an honest review. No compensation was received.