56 Comments
User's avatar
LeighK's avatar

I’ve wrestled with a ghost of betrayal for 30 years. Over time the ghost has faded but it still hovers in unexpected moments. Your poem is spot on.

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Oh, yes, damn.

Expand full comment
Jeff Hartzer's avatar

Seems there is a lot more to this perhaps ‘preface’ poem. Aside: Never thought about ghosts existing only if thought about by the living.

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Yes, I wonder if there is more, too. But I don't think that "more" is to be written because of personal not artistic reasons.

Expand full comment
Deb Olin Unferth's avatar

This is one of my favorites by you.

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Wow! Thanks, Deb!

Expand full comment
Deb Olin Unferth's avatar

Wow powerful. Beautiful.

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Thanks, Deb!

Expand full comment
David's avatar

lovely work

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Thank you

Expand full comment
Rachel Hutcheson's avatar

I know these words. After my dad passed, I remember realizing I was never going to see him again. It took a long time for me to comprehend this reality. It didn't make sense to me. Now, he has been gone for 14 years. I have seen him in 3 or 4 dreams, though. I have loved those dreams. They felt as real as life to me.

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Thank you, Rachel.

Expand full comment
Caren Z's avatar

I see. I guess I do not fly enough to grasp the possibility of meanings in the image. thx

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

You're welcome. Thanks for the question. Choosing the art is sometimes a fraught business!

Expand full comment
Caren Z's avatar

I do understand. It is only because your art has done much to impact the youth I work with (and myself) that i venture to question. One of the few t sites I of interaction in which I still have faith.

Expand full comment
Michael Mohr's avatar

Yes. Yes. Memory. Some people exist only in memory. They’re always there. Like cognitive ghosts.

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Thanks.

Expand full comment
Blake Nelson's avatar

Proust talks about loss of friends a lot. He talks about it as one of the most devastating loses. And worse because you can often see it coming. And it's not a traumatic event. You just never talk to that person again ....

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Yeah, they choose you and then they unchoose you,

Expand full comment
Nicci Kadilak's avatar

I loved this. It reminds me of the saying “you die twice - when your body dies and then the last time someone says your name” (I’m paraphrasing). It’s sweet and terrifying and comforting all at once.

Expand full comment
Carol Leibiger's avatar

Your number (36,000 hours = 5 years) reminds me of the "Seasons of Love" from "Rent": https://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/rent/seasonsoflove.htm. Can we reduce life to numbers without considering what happens in that life?

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

I hadn't thought of Rent. I think that song gives a more positive sense of time. I wanted to stretch the time to make it feel more difficult.

Expand full comment
Michael Frank Rhoderick's avatar

Makes me wonder who in my past 36,000 hours is awaiting my return.

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Who indeed!

Expand full comment
Wayne Kigerl's avatar

Did you get a return ticket?

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Nope.

Expand full comment
Amanda Wald Rachie's avatar

"Someday, you'll forget

those beloved people

who've forgotten you.

Or maybe you won't."

Quiza sí, quiza no.

Hmmmm ... Now Substack AI has generated yet another Fauvist image -- a plane that could also be a flying fish with three wings about to crash into a lake. Yesterday I had a terrible nightmarish feeling that this whole Substack was AI generated because I learned that AI can simulate voices and styles of writing. This was after I learned from you about the AI generated paintings that you have placed with your recent poems.

Nothing can ever take the place of heart and mind and soul of the real Sherman Alexie. I'm sure of that and grateful for your generosity in sharing your writing here. And reading it out loud.

Although conflicted, I can see your AI generated paintings as an art form. A collaboration between a writer and a mysterious technology created by those whose art is technology.

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

I've decided to not use the AI anymore.

Expand full comment
Caren Z's avatar

Yeah, your choice, for sure. I am skidding on the question of why use the image of a plane, what made you chose?

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Plane wrecks in the poem. Plane flying in the art. A sense of narrative.

Expand full comment
Terry Freedman's avatar

Wonderful. I've just restacked it in Notes

Expand full comment
Harriet Bakken's avatar

Such lingering sadness that we can be forgotten and yet not forget...

Expand full comment
Sherman Alexie's avatar

Thank you, Harriet.

Expand full comment