“…memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different”
– Dana Gioia
Artists have long offered reminders that the just-around-the-corner greener pasture we seek is often right beneath our feet. Spoken-word poet Andrea Gibson, chronicling her voyage with terminal cancer, proclaimed, “…all my prayers were answered the moment I started praying for what I already have…” The Republic Tigers echo this wisdom, singing, “We’ve been waiting all our lives for things we’ve always had but have no eyes to see.” And the 13th-century Sufi poet Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī winked to us with the note, “You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck.”
In his poem, “Summer Storm,” California State Poet Laureate Dana Gioia explores this timeless theme through a different angle. He asks us to consider that it’s not just pining for changing our present that keeps us perpetually dissatisfied. It’s also the spinning of stories of could have been from those sparkling roads not taken upon which we continue to gaze and grasp.
Summer Storm
We stood on the rented patio
While the party went on inside.
You knew the groom from college.
I was a friend of the bride.
We hugged the brownstone wall behind us
To keep our dress clothes dry
And watched the sudden summer storm
Floodlit against the sky.
The rain was like a waterfall
Of brilliant beaded light,
Cool and silent as the stars
The storm hid from the night.
To my surprise, you took my arm—
A gesture you didn’t explain—
And we spoke in whispers, as if we two
Might imitate the rain.
Then suddenly the storm receded
As swiftly as it came.
The doors behind us opened up.
The hostess called your name.
I watched you merge into the group,
Aloof and yet polite.
We didn’t speak another word
Except to say goodnight.
Why does that evening’s memory
Return with this night’s storm—
A party twenty years ago,
Its disappointments warm?
There are so many might have beens,
What ifs that won’t stay buried,
Other cities, other jobs,
Strangers we might have married.
And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.
By Dana Gioia
Featured in Rebel Angels: Poets of the New Formalism
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