MY MOTHER AT EIGHTY-SIX, RECOVERING FROM AN ISCHEMIC STROKE

 

This isn't the first time she has left this way -- hovering between sleep and awake, speech and silence, breath and no breath. When we were kids, the pills and the Stoli nearly washed her away, bringing her only partway back. The ECT and barbiturates softened her eyes to a blue-tinged fog, a weather we could not grasp. But this time she seems closer to the further shore, more resigned to stand among its trees and shadow. Her body sleeps on one side, like a child nuzzling closely in the first chill of autumn. The words that come now, if they come at all, tumble out in fragments, like the torn scripture of some long lost gospel. They break free of source and context, uncertain but continuing, trailing off like the memories she has spent a lifetime trying to erase. This woman, stubborn as the sun and moon, whose version of Jesus brandished a sword toward the open sky, offers neither confession nor consolation. She travels silently on wheels now, waiting without expression for her lunch and medication, for whatever can be easily recognized, waiting for her own version of leaving to return.

VISITING AMELIA EARHART'S HOUSE WITH MY DAUGHTER

 

We slow to a stop on Fairmount Avenue, the gentle swaying of summer Ash and Elm rising above us on either side, casting an imperfect net of shadows around our sneakered feet. The tall Victorian house has been well cared for, newly painted, as though lifted from another century and gently placed on this small slope of earth. People still live here, so we are mindful not to step upon the freshly-clipped lawn, or to gawk too long into the small curved windows above; though it's easy to imagine the face of that young girl looking out, dreamy and despondent in this foreign place, a harsh Minnesota winter swirling outside the glass. Was her adolescent mind already in flight, mapping a course amongst the heavens which no one else could see? My daughter and I wonder why some details seem clearer when farther away, ponder whether the sky is the greatest of all distances, or in fact its opposite. We have no schedule to keep, and nowhere in particular to be on this day, which makes such questions come more easily, if not their answers. The earth is tilting, though we cannot tell from where we stand; the afternoon sun is both warm and receding.

RASPBERRIES IN NOVEMBER

 

Walking my daughter home from school,

the autumnal sun clear and bright

all around us -- though the wind is sharp,

undeniable, an uninvited guest looking

for a vacant place to settle in.

We stop to pick the few remaining

raspberries along the way. They are cool

to the touch, trembling slightly,

tiny pistils of hair standing upright

on their flesh, offering back to us the rain,

sun, and soil of the season's passing.

She picks one, and places it in my hand,

while I reach for two more at the top,

placing them into her palms one at a time.

Sweetness offered, and sweetness

returned, I think to myself. So simple.

"This is the best raspberry that I've ever

tasted in my life," she exclaims.

She has said as much more than twice

over the summer. You would be forgiven

for thinking it mere exaggeration,

a childish excitement, but I'm quite certain

that it has been true each time,

as it is here and now. For both of us.

MAP

 

My little girl is learning to draw her world.

Rainbows, ships, bridges, monsters,

and waterfalls -- all of them executed

in bold strokes of color -- decorate

our walls, floors, and tabletops.

She draws me, her old man, with black stilts

for legs, a small cloud of chin whiskers,

and white balloon of a hand, five-pointed

like the sun, reaching for her own.

In another, the family has merged into

one great being, impossible to tell whose

outstretched hands belong to whom,

or whose feet are leading the way.

But today she gives to me a blank sheet

of paper, folded neatly in quarters.

"This is your map," she says calmly,

"so you will always know where you are."

I accept with the gratitude of the lost.

I treasure this one most of all.