POEMS OF THE WEEK: BY BUDDAH, HANK AND LEE SAN

Today we have three wonderful, heartwarming (and heart-pinging) poems of marriage, brought to us by three fine gentlemen: Hank, also known as Kaykuala, who blogs at Rainbow, Buddah Moskowitz, of I Hate Poetry, and Lee San, also known as dsnake, of Urban Poems. These three poems send songs of love out into the world, and straight into our hearts. Enjoy.

TWO HEARTS LOCKED IN PLACE

What of it?
Reflecting on good fortune snug on a pedestal
When life was of prophetic indications pulsating
Looking to the sky clouds bidding as palatable
A tussle to recollect images of a pretty plaything

What of sweet recollections?
Gracious imaginations with mutual feelings of awe
Boy and girl whispering sweet nothings manifold
Insisting on a sacrifice towards a future together
Warm memories nostalgic in part but put on hold

What of uncanny acquiesce?
The winter of their life together devoid of fears
Meant for each other a relationship so blissful
What kept alive little anecdotes of yesteryears
Two hearts locked in place exquisitely beautiful

Sherry: I always admire marriages that have stood the test of time. I love this poem, Hank, and the loving story it tells.

Hank:  There comes a time in a man's heart, the recollections of those moments in time. It has been said. one remembers only too well an odd moment of grazing one's knee in a fall, more so the sweet moments of being together. 

Reflecting on such nostalgic moments together of times long ago can be therapeutic to the lonely heart. It culminates in this poem!

Sherry: And does it so well! Thank you, Hank. Buddah wrote a poem recently which also speaks to marriage, and the wonder of seeing the beauty of one's mate, growing richer with the passing of the years. Let's read.

(Frasier, Phillipe and Mosk)

THE WOMAN I MARRIED

I spied them
from the kitchen:

she was with him,
my beloved grandson,
and she was
so respectful,
and warm
and fun.

She was always
the woman I married,
but somehow,
I’d never seen
this woman before:

someone who consented
to share my life
and my fortunes,

a woman with a bounty
of lustrous eyelashes,
inviting curvature,
and an oasis smile.

She gives him
her truest,
most unguarded
laughter and joy,
and he is forever changed
one lesson at a time.

I see her expressing
the purest version of love
I’ve ever witnessed,

and the thought comes,
unbidden:

“That’s the woman
I want to make love to.”

Sherry: I love just knowing that marriages like this exist, Buddah! This is so heartwarming.

Buddah: The poem is about my wife playing with our grandson, and it brought out such love and desire, well, it's hopefully self-explanatory.

Sherry: I love it! Lee San's poem is addressed to his wife, also, in a much sadder situation. 

YOUR EYES

the eyes
are the open windows
to the soul
and in the moments that i look
deep into them
though they are clouded
because of the pain
they still burn with a flame
of fight

your eyes
smile like the first day
i met you
though there is a flicker
of regret
knowing that our days
together
will be like sand out of
our fingers

my eyes
are the dikes breaking
please don't
let her see my weakness
my fears
but a single tear
warm and salty rolls down
my cheeks

and then a frail hand touches my face.

Sherry: This is so moving, Lee San, the tears, and her frail hand reaching out to comfort you.

Lee San: I wrote this poem more than ten years ago, when on an idle day, I was thinking about my late wife. She had radiotherapy treatment for cancer, and the side effects were awful. I was thinking, she had put up a good fight, but why was she still taken away? These flashbacks  happen, I guess, even though I thought one had gotten over it. Anyway, the poem was sitting in my PC for some time. I thought it might be too personal to publish, but recently, I took it out, edited it majorly, and, yes, to push the publish button.

I think our memories and experiences, heartaches included, are deep wells from which we can dredge materials for our poetry.

Sherry: Thank you for sharing this, Lee San. I am so sorry that happened to you and your wife. I don’t think we ever get over such a loss; it just comes to live inside us. 

Sigh. These poems move me. Thank you, gentlemen, for writing and sharing them. Do come back, friends, to see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

POEMS OF THE WEEK: MEN'S VOICES: HANK, FRANK AND LEE SAN

It's time to listen to the voices of some of the men in our community, fellow poets, so today we have poems by Hank Kaykuala, who writes at Rainbow, Frank J. Tassone, who blogs at American Haijin, and Cheong Lee San, more familiarly known to us online as dsnake, who writes at Urban  Poems. You're going to love them. Let's dive right in.

EMPTINESS IN THE SKY

Evening lull but an
emptiness in the sky to
bring throes of longings

where you were but now
shadows of apparitions
dancing in the void

unsatiated
sudden and mysterious
you left unannounced

Sherry: I can feel that emptiness, when someone has departed unexpectedly.

Hank: When Chev at Carpe Diem presented a prompt, yuuuagi (an evening lull),  a summer kigo, Hank's thoughts went back to some past events. Hank was leafing through an old tattered photo album some years back and discovered a picture of an old flame. It was just as tattered and long forgotten. It was a brief encounter Hank remembered. It could have developed further, as she was such an adorable little lass. It was stifled when she left without a word. 

The above was the background musing in Hank's head when thinking what to write then. 

Sherry: Old photos are certainly full of nostalgia. Sigh. Thank you for sharing, Hank.

Frank recently wrote about a departure in a poem that truly touched my heart. Let's take a look.

GOING SOMEWHERE?

The woosh of passing wind as I move on,

the bam!bam!bam! of hammers fall away.

These wheels that crunch on gravel just beyond,

a highway exit ramp to the blue way,

where life slows down with every town I pass;

and burdens born from crow-caws to day’s rind

yeild to a precious peace I know won’t last,

but let the growls of grief slip from my mind.

Where, then, can I lay my head for the night,

remembering her ever-waking snores,

until the clock’s cukoo at dawn’s first light,

sets me once more on my own tour-du-force?

But where else can my happiness endure

than in your arms like all our days before?

cricket songs

silence from your side

of our bed

  

Sherry: That silence from the other side of the bed speaks loudly, Frank. Thank you for sharing this very moving poem. I admire the way you introduced so many sounds. 

Frank: This sonnet-haibun demonstrates how the writer and reader construct meaning together. I had intended a humorous jaunt, inspired by Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130", in which the narrator undertakes a journey to escape his wife's snoring. A few understood it as such, and Bjorn actually discerned the inspiring sonnet. Many other readers, however, perceived a heartwrenching story of grief.

Looking back on the poem, I can see their point. I was struck by how sorrowful the tone was, and the stark imagery in the haiku clearly did not portray the light-hearted humor I intended! It's as though the poem took on a life of its own and presented the mournful journey of a widower seeking-in-vain to escape his sorrow over his lost love.

From a craft standpoint, I find sonnets a challenge, so I'm delighted that it worked well in conjunction with the haiku. I enjoyed writing it, and I'm happy it was so well received.

Sherry: Wow, Frank, thanks for this explanation. I totally read it as a poem of loss and grief and am smiling to think how we bring our own interpretations to other peoples' poems. I am relieved this is a poem of humour and not heartbreak. Yay! And you executed the sonnet very ably!

The following poem by Lee San will close this feature with a note of hope for the times we live in, when it seems values we believed were steadfast are shaking in  unfriendly winds.

THE FOUR SISTERS

"Can we not raise our hands in anger?
beat our swords into ploughshares instead?"

and Peace 
raises her hands and releases the white petrel
where it circles the storm clouds

says Hope
and the golden flame in her hand
flickers but still burns strongly in the wind

says Love
and the stalk of red rose
bends with the wind but does not break

says Faith
and her hands cup the the sunrise
weighing the golden orb of the growing sun

and they look at the grey skies turning black
the sea sneering and scattering the dunes

and they are not afraid.


Sherry: The imagery in this poem is so beautiful, Lee San. I especially agree that these virtues may bend, but do not break.

Lee San: This poem is the response to a picture prompt by Rick Mobbs, a talented painter from New Mexico. Weekly, he would place one of his paintings on his blog for us writers to ponder over it. That was somewhere in 2008.

So around two years later I came around to writing a poem over the painting (you know how tardy I can be). The names Peace, Love, Hope and Faith came to me quite easily and I wrote the poem and promptly forgot about it. At that time I thought it was not that 'complete'.

Recently, I came across it on one of my thumb drives (that's my tardiness at work again). I did some minor edits and decided that it would be a very good and appropriate time to post it. You know, the crazy times we are living in now? So I added in a link to a Pink Floyd song and that's it.  And hope that with these four sisters, the dark tides will turn. :)

Sherry: We need to cling to these values more than ever before.  How we long for the dark tide to turn. Thank you for this note of hope, Lee San. 

We hope you enjoyed these poetic offerings, my friends. Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

POEMS ON GRIEF: BY ROBIN, ERIC, LEE SAN, AND BJORN

Today we are featuring four from-the-heart poems written by Robin Kimber, our beloved Old Egg, who blogs at Robin's Nest, Eric of erbiage, Lee San, known to us as dsnake, who blogs at Urban Poems, and the inimitable Bjorn Rudberg, of Bjorn Rudberg's Writings. Each of these poems travels straight from the poet's heart to ours. I gathered them together so we can reflect on all that life comprises: love and joy, loss and pain. Because I know we wouldn’t trade our greatest joys and deepest heartaches for anything.

SINGING THIS SAD SONG

Late evening slowly darkens
I love our walks in summer
The day's air now cool and clear
Skies darken, the stars come out

Twinkling lights take charge up there
Croaking frogs still like to shout
Your soft warm hands safe in mine
Fireflies flash as we pass them by

Moon peeps from behind a tree
For nightlife and us to see
Now lighting up your beauty
You let me taste your soft lips

But I wake up having dreamed
Singing this sad song of you
Pretending you were still here
As you always used to be


Sherry: So beautiful the dream, and so sad the awakening! Beautifully done, Robin. 

Robin: My wife and I were great explorers of the countryside and forest in search of birds, as she was an enthusiastic birdwatcher. She was always hoping to add one more Australian bird to her life list. This found us is in some odd places, such as dark forests with the trees whispering to us but not letting on where the birds were, and clambering over rocks on beaches which others shunned, looking for migrating shore birds. And even wandering around rubbish dumps and tips, where other birds, not having a rotting odour problem, searched for food as we ticked them off our lists holding our noses. 

The forests, however, were our favorite with the unseen call of birds requiring our total silence, sitting still to see if they might approach, and the delight when they did. This was especially so if we moved not a muscle and came up really close.

So I have many happy memories doing all these things, with the forest the most beautiful and romantic of them all.

Sherry: So lovely, Robin. I can see the two of you sitting there, waiting for the birds to visit. Such lovely memories you have! How you must miss your beautiful wife.

Eric speaks of a grief I am familiar with: the grief we tap down, especially as children, when we are not assisted in our grieving. You will see why I resonate so strongly with this fine poem.

A garden of grief

She'll look in my eyes, bless her so
For my loss and my pain to show
But those corners are not dark enow
For my tears to flow

By the time grandma died
I'd learnt to shut that off
Shut down my heart
And silently laugh it off

But deep within me there was
A black fist, holding, squeezing.
Stashing it all in there.  The loss
Remorse, unworthiness.

So sweetheart if you want to know
Where my tears go
Watch me dig my garden
In my sweat my tears do show

the spade cuts into earth, mother
Sweat glistens in the dark heat
Ill turn the earth to inter my grief
This is why these tomatoes are so sweet

Eric: I grew up across the street from a zoo.  The lions would wake me in the summertime with their roaring.  Not common in New Jersey.  It didn't happen that often, for the noble beasts were quite lethargic. I think that this is what happens to grief.  We take the wild thing and lock it up in a cage.  We hide, deny, ignore.  By we I mean I, I'm just hiding behind that.  

Well I went all Casks of Amontillado on my grief, so when my grandma died I didn't feel a thing.  Which only compounded my grief, and that black fist got a little stronger.  What finally broke me was my cat.  She was around for my formative years, in the cellar or outside mostly, as mom was allergic.  The cat and I were sometimes in the same place, but mostly it was more like an orbit.  

So when she passed, we put her in a cardboard box, and I dug a hole in the back yard.  I put the box in, everything was fine.  But the first shovelful of dirt caved in the cardboard box, and I just crumbled.  Tears streaming, arms trembling with each shovelful...  It's a wordless thing, felt in the body.  So I'm afraid I can't say much more about grief, except a footnote:  I forgot about that incident with my cat for many many years.  And I'm weeping again now.

Sherry: I absolutely know that feeling, Eric. As a child, my coping mechanism was to numb my feelings. As a single mom, I had to stay strong through many losses. In 2011, my wolf-dog died, and I cried for seven years - all the tears of my life.

Thank you for sharing such a long-held grief, in such a beautiful way. Sigh.  And I can't believe you lived close enough to hear lions roaring! How amazing!

The following poem by Lee San, about the loss and grief of losing someone  beloved, really speaks to our hearts. When love is that deep, the grief lasts long. Let's tiptoe in to take a look, for this poem is very tender.

TEDDY BEAR

another year already?
your teddy bear sits
alone
on the dressing table
among the combs and cologne.

today i was at the temple
offering incense to you.
silent
i have not heard your voice
for the past two decades.

the man staring back
from the dark glass
has aged.
you may not know him
as the one you had loved.

a mynah lands on the
aircon unit outside.
looks at me
perhaps to ride the rain
perhaps to see me weep.

image from pixabay

Lee San: It is my honour to have my poem ‘Teddy Bear’ featured.

This poem is about grief, and perhaps how to cope with the memories of a loss. I wrote this in the memory of my late spouse. She was a brave and lovely soul, and to have lost her after only some short years together is something quite hard to take at first. The teddy bear in the poem is one of her possessions.

I wrote this poem a couple of years back, and it stays put in the Blogger drafts until recently when I took it out to check for grammar and punctuation for posting. Anyway, I was too busy to post anything last year.

This poem is what may be called confessional poetry. I think most of the poems in my blog are of this type. This poem is quite short too, which is how I usually like the length of my poems. And yes, there is a certain form in the structure of this poem.

Sherry: It is very beautiful, Lee San. How very sad to have lost your young wife so soon. A deep grief for certain. The lines in the poem that say, were she to see you now, she wouldn’t know you really struck me. Yet, looking through the eyes of love, I am certain that she would. 

Thank you for sharing this beauty of a poem with us, Lee San. 

When I read it, I recognized that Bjorn’s poem “Spoon-Feeding Mother” would be the perfect poem to feature alongside it, since there are so many ways to lose a loved one, and Bjorn is living one of the hardest. Let’s read:

Spoon-Feeding Mother

when parting came slowly
as words you forgot
or when you were lost

we thought we had time
to listen to music
to read or to dine

we never could tell
   you
      goodbye

now when you’re silent
and we still cannot tell
but we wait
we spoon-feed you soup
and wonder
if you’ve already left.

Sherry: This is such a heartbreaking way to lose your mother, Bjorn. I am so sorry.

Bjorn: The background to this poem comes from the experience with my mother who is the victim of dementia. A couple of years ago she was still living at home and we thought that she managed, though sometimes she was a bit confused, as she lives in another town I didn’t get to visit very often.

Things got worse and we were happy that she got place at a good nursing home. At first she improved and we could visit and go for walks with her, but after a period of illness she ceased to talk and cannot walk any longer. She is bound to wheelchair and has to be fed.

Sherry: Dementia is such a long goodbye.  Our hearts go out to you, my friend.

Thank you, gentlemen, for your stirring and beautiful poems and the sharing of your experiences. And for continuing to keep coming back to Poets United. We so appreciate you! 

I am sure we can all relate to these poems on memory, love, loss and grief. We hope you take away something in your hearts from the sharing. Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

Poems of the Week: Men's Voices

This week, poet friends, I thought it would be nice to hear from the men. We have poems by Nicholas V. of Intelliblog, Robin Kimber, (our beloved Old Egg), of  Robin's Nest,   Marcoantonio, of Life Whispers, and Cheong Lee San, (whom we know more familiarly as dsnake), of Urban Poems.  Each has offered a unique look at the world. And Robin has a treat for we dog lovers in this feature that will make you smile. Pour a cup of tea, draw your chairs in close, and let's dive in. Enjoy!

Sherry: Recently, Nicholas, you wrote a poem that really spoke to us, titled "Closed Doors". Let's take a look at it, shall we?

Closed Doors 

Our doors are closed –
Just like our hearts –
For these are hard times,
Harder than corundum
Ready to grind down
Any trace of mercy.

Our doors are closed –
Just like our minds –
Free thought causes dissent,
Dissent is disunity
And disunity is weakness:
Far easier for prejudice and fear to rule.

Our doors are closed –
Just like our fists –
Clenched tight, ready to strike:
The best defence is swift attack,
Hit now, question later,
Collateral damage easy enough to justify.

Our doors are closed –
Just like our borders –
For we are pure and superior,
And we do not want to be tainted
By foreign blood,
Content in our incestuous decadence.

Our doors are closed –
But some of us leave the keys under the mat:
We of the generous open heart;
We of the free, open mind;
We of the outstretched open hand;
We of the open borders.

We wait for our door to open
And lay another plate on our table
For our food’s enough for one more.
We welcome change and progress
And we embrace the stranger
For our gods have taught us hospitality’s sacredness.

Sherry: Indeed they have. I love the message in this poem, especially in these days when divisiveness is calling upon us to open our hearts and stand united with those seeking asylum from unspeakable horror.

Nicholas: I wrote this poem because of increasing instances of refugees being refused asylum being turned back to return to countries where their lives may be put at risk. Although we live in times that are hard for all of us, there is a mindset now that if we want to preserve what we have we must protect it and keep it for ourselves and not share it, especially not with "foreigners, strangers, people of other religions, people of other ideologies." This doesn't sit right with me. I have personally experienced the immense generosity of people who did not know where their next meal was coming from, yet their soul and heart were full of riches that billionaires will never have.

Sherry: I have also noted that generosity, that inner joy, in people who have very little materially. They offer what they have with open hearts. It is humbling.

Nicholas: I have experienced true Christian values from people who did not know who Christ was. And I have been given the greatest of respect by people whose ideology was diametrically opposed to mine. We can change the world for the better by opening doors and hearts and minds.

Sherry: I completely agree, Nicholas. Thank you for this.

Let's take a peek at Robin's poem next. I know it will make all dog lovers smile. Dogs are often refugees, in need of rescue, as well.

Image found at www.wannasharethis.com

A WORD IN FOR ME

Now I can just see heaven's gate
Sparkling lights wink a welcome
As angels whisper on the trees
And choirs of songbirds sing for me

What blessings have I to account
To retell my life spent on Earth
They shuffle round in wild array
Are these judges in somber robes?

A scroll unfurled tells my earthly life
It matters not my memory fails
It seems I've not sinned that much
But loved both animals and trees

I've talked to birds and played with fish
I tilled the soil and fed myself
Clearly I have passed all these tests
But then I heard an unholy row

Barking and yelping now was heard
As all the pets I ever had
Now bounded up to wish me well
Clearly they'd put a word in for me

Sherry: Well, Robin, of course you know how much I love this poem. Tell us about it, won't you?

Robin: Thank you for thinking of me for the feature “Men’s Voices”.

My poems are always a mixed bag, although I am sure most readers would associate mine with love and romance. This is of course easy to do for me but when posting time comes round I always seem to have a bag full experiences to draw from to put into verse regardless of the prompt. Writing about pets is easy too if they have been part of the family for most of your life. 

When the family dog died when I was about four, the neighbours' dog jumped the fence and decided us two kids next door were much more fun than the older couple who owned him. So it was that when we went out to play in the nearby fields or the woods with a stream running through it, he sensed it and came with us as we were so much more fun. Once married and with a home of our own, Maureen, my wife, thought it would be good with children on the way to have a dog for company and the same pattern was repeated with me as the big kid and the toddlers walking over the heath land throwing sticks in the ponds for Nero (Yes, black as the ace of spades) jumping in the water to cool off and maybe retrieving the stick if he felt like it. 

When the family came to Australia we were in a more urban environment and didn’t get a dog until the next door neighbour pleaded with us to take a black Collie cross who had to be expelled from the farm of a relative because he had started chasing the sheep. So we had him a for a few years and his main fault was that with a dog pound fairly close to call him when he thought the bitches there were in heat. Twice I had to retrieve him from the felony of trying to break into a pound. 

Sherry: LOL. I love it!

Robin: Our last dog was a Golden Labrador cross rescued from a pound as a present for my elder daughter who wanted a dog of her own as a teenager. She gave him the name Caesar and he immediately became one of the family. Despite having a large block of his own to play in, he decided to burrow under the fences and meet the other local dogs and chase off over the fields and in the streams and pretend they were wolves in the wooded areas before coming home for tea worn out and too tired (almost) to eat his dinner. 

Eventually I made the garden fences dog proof and when my daughter was married he had to stay with us, as her accommodation did not permit pets. I was most upset when he became too ill to carry on and I had take him for his last trip to the vet and be brought home again to be buried in his favorite place in the garden.

Luckily all our pets thought they were legitimate members of the family and quite miffed if they couldn’t join in all family activities. Caesar was the only dog, however, that had the sense to go to pick the newspaper up from the front lawn and bring it inside. However he overdid it one day by noticing that there were papers on almost every other front lawn in the street and further afield, for when I looked out the window I saw he had collected at least 20 of them and placed them in a pile and when he saw me looked up waiting to be encouraged to collect a few more. So I had to be paper boy and try to locate the houses to return them to their rightful owners, quite a number of whom were not all that pleased!

So you can see I don’t regret one moment of my life with our pet dogs and thus had no difficulty in writing the poem to their tribute. I forgot to mention that each member of the family could translate Caesar’s growls, woofs and howls into English, so understanding what he was talking about was no trouble at all.

Sherry: I smiled with joy through every word of this. What wonderful creatures shared your life, my friend. I especially love Caesar, bringing home the entire neighbourhood's newspapers. LOL.

Next, Marcoantonio  has been hearing voices on the wind. Let's listen with him.

WHAT COLOR IS THE WIND

what color is the wind,
when blowing through the forest,
the flora, the fauna, the trees?

what color is the wind,
wisping across the ocean,
over rivers and over streams?

what color is the wind,
soaring above with clouds
and riding the azure sky?

what color is the wind,
i breathe as it flows through
my lungs, my veins, my heart?

what color is the wind,
that gives verve to our souls?
is it not the color of everything,

the color of all ?

Sherry: This is so beautiful, Marco. I can almost feel the wind, sifting through the trees, including us all with its touch. Tell us about this poem.

Marco: The wind is a metaphor for our souls all being connected, because the nature of our souls is the same. But I also wanted to point out the analogy that our physical makeup as living beings manifest a commonality, stardust, without a pre-existing prejudice or bias of color, of ethnicity, of race, of gender, of genetic makeup. Our souls are "one" with life, and integral in the makeup of the soul of the 'Universe(s)'.

Sherry: Well said, my friend. We are all the same in all the ways that matter. Our biggest lesson to learn as a human race.

Some weeks back, I deeply admired Lee San's anti-war poem. Let's take a look.


only the dead have seen the end of war*

when i returned in the dead of night
to our little house
you were sleeping, holding our child
your eyelids trembled, just slightly
that cold draft of air
that ruffled your hair
is the howl from my throat
as an arrow pierces my breast.

you rose in the smoke-filled dawn
when the sun had not yet risen
over the rice fields,
the tiled roofs of the town.
you went to the Wall with our child
scanned the stone towers
with your eyes still red with pain.
you read every weary face
every returning warrior
and with each passing day
the smoke rose higher from the rains.

only the dead have seen the end of war.
only the dead see what your tears are for.

[*The title is a quote often attributed to Plato, but possibly written by George Santayana.] 

Sherry: Your poem takes us into the human side of war, the contrast between  the woman sleeping, holding her baby, then next day her red eyes, her pain, the reality of suffering in wartime. Your closing lines are powerful, true, and so moving.

Lee San: A little background on this poem. It was the Chinese 7th month and I thought, I will write a love story, but with a ghostly twist. The setting was ancient China, during the building of the Great Wall. I pinned it to a specific time, but if you change the setting, it could be anywhere in the world. Rome, Mesopotamia, Vietnam. Then I came across this quote "only the dead have known the end of war", often attributed to Plato. And I used it as the title and, hey, do I have an anti-war poem?

Sherry: You do, indeed, my friend. Knowing the background lends added impact to the poem. 

Lee San: Thank you, Sherry, for this opportunity. I think there are many talented poets in this community, male or female, and there are some very distinctive voices. Never looked back since I found this site :) 

Sherry: And we are happy you found us! Thank you for this poem, Lee San.

Thank you, fellow poets, for bringing us your wonderful voices, poetry that speaks straight to our hearts, and for coming back, week after week, to share your work with us. We appreciate you!

Wasn't this wonderful, kids? I hope you enjoyed these meaningful offerings. Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!