A Eulogy to Time, and Place, and Memory

Written 3/27


I remember after Jonathan passed away,  we visited his wife's, 
my friend's, apartment. I remember walking into the bathroom
and seeing his glasses, and his cologne,  sitting there by the sink -
the only physical elements associated with his person
that I had ever seen, only days after he died. I wanted to touch them,
to connect myself to him, but I was too afraid to move them. I suppose
I put too much weight on the sentimentality of time, and place,
and memory. Those glasses, last touched by him, are connected 
by a thin thread to the past of his living existence.
A shroud, or veil, still surrounded them -
as if the time and place hadn't yet caught up with them. They didn't know
yet that he was dead - to them, he was still alive, as if his hands 
still hovered over them, and they expected to be picked right back up.


That same consciousness follows me here, in my grandparents', 
now only my grandmother's, home. "Just use my bathroom," she said to me,
as I prepared for a nightly vigil on an inflatable mattress in the study
next door. I did so, noting once again the placement of everything,
wondering which items, layed askew once before with little importance
or weight, might suddenly trigger that same path, that same threaded
connection  to the living past. There is a vanity here, at which sits a stool,
a white towel draped across it. There sits her brush,
her vitamins, a dollar bill - out of whose pocket, I wonder? - 
a small mirror, which was once attached
to a stand, but now is held together with duct tape, sitting dustily, 
face up, beneath a canister of ointment and an unplugged nightlight.
I wonder, how young was her first reflection out of that small mirror? 
Was it a special gift?  How long ago was it placed there,
used for the last time before accumulating dust,
oblivious to the present moment and remembering an earlier reflection?
If it were touched, to what moment in time would she find herself
connected again?


There's a quiet, awe-inspiring majesty and grace to the widowed matriarch.
Taking a shower in her, once their, bathroom, I discovered only 
a small bar of soap, a container of shower gel, mostly full, and
a small container of hotel conditioning shampoo.
It's amazing to peer behind the scenes of a woman so strong, so 
put-together, and find a half-full bottle of travel-size shampoo -
behind the scenes of the woman  who, only moments ago,
made sausage biscuits for everyone,
whose bright eyes peered so wisely and agëd from over her mug of 
hot chocolate at the head of the breakfast table, the mug she
absent-mindedly had to reheat  twice in the microwave as we
talked about my grandfather's final hours,
interwoven with the story of their wedding
(how strange, these narratives of time). "We just told the congregation
there would be a wedding after the service,
and those that wanted to stay, stayed."


Now she glides throughout the house, in a simple black dress and 
strings of pearls, making sure we're all well and have everything we need 
to get ready to attend the memorial service - 
one by one, people leave the house to "meet us there."
Will we be the last to leave, the ones everyone is "meeting there,"
turning at the door to say those words to nothing but an empty house,
the haunting void of which may ache from his absence,
but cannot come with us to pay its respects?

The White Flag: A Prose Poem

Written 3/24


Granddad passed away around 12:30.

*

Why is it always death, and pain, and the enormity of human emotion
That open up our minds more closely to the poetic, the sublime?
Is it because of the vastness of the unknown?
Is it because we deal with such large, incomprehensible matters
In different abstract ways? Is my writing an attempt to
Encapsulate my feelings upon facing the divine?
Whatever the cause, am I selfish for celebrating those revelations,
Discovered in death? The insights back into windows of Houses
I thought forever locked?

I'm with my dog, as I write this, in the field behind our home.
The city noises are limited here. I poise, journal on knee, pen in hand,
Atop a fallen tree dragged on to of a pile of organic rubble from
A previous and perhaps long-forgotten field-clearing project.
The dog has tired of running and stands guard beneath me, panting
From his joyous morning of exercise and discovery.
I sit here, shirtless, above the ground, like a white flag in the
Wonderfully forceful wind and warming sun. 
I came here just to take a moment, to connect, to reconnect,
To meditate, and what-have-I, before plunging back
Into the noises and sounds of the busy world - 
The world my grandfather just left behind.
Perhaps, just perhaps, for a moment he has joined me here,
In the wind. Perhaps the tree on which I sit 
Was once a grandfather, too.

Night Sky

Written 2/20, edited 7/30


If the stars could speak, what would they tell us,
With their light that began so long ago, when
People wiser than we are first looked up at
The sky and asked from where they came?
If the eyes of my lover carry my reflection,
Can I gaze into the eyes of night like I gaze
Into yours, and catch a glimpse of the faces and
Upturned glances of other, ancient young men
Who first saw Orion with his belt, hunting through
The sky?

What secrets do they hold of me, these eyes,
Watching me those nights I spent atop the canyon's
And caverns where I finally discovered what it was
For which my soul ached, and what it was I wanted
To come into the walls of my heart, like the water
That carved those walls on which I stood,
Or the tendrils of galaxy that carved the heavens?
Stepping out of my tent in the middle of the night
To watch a shooting star that witnessed the moment
The first man told me he loved me?

Or were you watching as more words, other loves,
Were sent like your own light
Across vast distances to find me? 
Words, like shooting stars, bearing the weight
Of all those ancient, stolen glances, an entire
Universe of existential questioning,
Traveling across time and space
To carve deeper and deeper into me,
While I drank in your eyes and softly kissed
Your lips.

Trilliums; For B-B-

Written 6/26, edited 7/30

 The trillium is a three petal, three leaf flower
That grows on the forest floors of Michigan State Parks.
The tour guides will tell you this, but you won't
Believe them. Not until your eyes adjust to the darkness.
Then, you see?, they're everywhere, and always were.

 *

 I sit in the bookstore, on my lunch break,
Across the table from you as you read, and
I contemplate the shuffling of feet through
 The forest floor, and the discovery of
 Hidden treasures, revealed. I think of how the
World moves, how we move with it.
 How the world moves with or without my hand
In it, with or without my assertion - The
Universal movement still happens, energies
Collide, doors unlock, people learn and love
And grow all across the world,
Even if I don't write these words,
 Or drink this coffee,
Or make plans for a future more fulfilling
For myself, or for others, or with others,
Than that set before me, without my lifting a finger.
 And the epiphanies - that many of the bad,
Negative, or stagnant states of mind or habits
Into which we fall are the manifestations of
The frightened children inside us,
Facing traumas as amalgamations -
That every pain or trauma in the past opens up
Feelings from past trauma and winds itself up
Into a tangled skein, where there's almost no hope
Of avoiding the hooks and snares.
 Remarkable, that we have to be told that the flowers
Are growing beneath our feet on the forest floor.
Such beautiful flowers, that we cannot see on our own.
When darkness comes, our eyes will adjust,
 But we'll only begin to see them once someone
 Comes along, takes our hand, and points them out for us.
And once you see one, soon the forest floor explodes.

[unfinished]

I wonder what it would be like
If the process, the creation of art
Were something that could be witnessed
Or exhibited; if the artist and her subject
Were there, in rooms behind glass
Windows, lining the halls of museums,
And we were all privy to the colors,
The sounds, the feelings that capture
That moment when the eyes meet the object,
The muse awakens, when souls or words
Connect over thin air. An invisible moment
Made visible, made beautiful to more eyes
Than those so keen to absorb the beauty
That is seen and preserve it in oils,
Acrylics, or lines on a page.

- began 3/4. Still in progress.

Silence

I can't be okay with all this silence.
Instead of a calm, settling quiet,
A gentle veil or shroud to muffle the
Aching noises of the day to day,
Your silence is a raging river, a vast
Hollow echo that magnifies every move
I make until I'm forced to face the vastness
Of the empty space I occupy.
I find silence in abundance here.
Draped across chairs, stacked
In piles on the kitchen table or inserted
Among the books scattered on the shelf,
Those put up in a hurry whose titles aren't
Even visible to me. Your silence has the
Smell of neglect, and a certain dampness
That hovers just above my sheets, yet
Disappears just before I touch them.
I sweep up your silence on all the days
It's not too hard to push the broom.
The silence you always carried in your mind
Is the silence that spilled out into my everyday,
The mess you'd left behind for me to clean,
And I'm faced constantly with the magnification
Of the hollow beating of its heart
(or is that my own?),
As all the sounds forced inward now are only
Covered by the muffled cries of what used to be
Regret.

1/31, transcribed and edited 3/28

His hands

Another poem written about my grandfather, before he passed:

My grandfather still has a firm grip in his hands,
The hands that reared children, built homes,
Nourished strangers, travelled far, helping many;
The hands that took the lives of countless deer and game
To feed his family, while bringing new life to the world,
In children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren,
And thousands of souls through baptism and from his pulpit.
These hands rest now on the sides of his hospital bed,
The weight of the world pushing back on them
With a force finally greater than the force he was
With which to be reckoned. His hand still grips firm,
Even though his arms no longer keep himself afloat
In the sea of blankets, armchairs, wheelchairs,
And dinner trays. And I watch with subtle awe as
That hand, that held so much, that still grasps firm,
Finds its greatest comfort in the soft, tired, but true
Grip of another, as he smiles into her constant face
And slips into another perhaps less troubled sleep,
Still not letting go with his hands.

1/24/11