SIMPLETON

 

Upon further reflection, I think that I should like

nothing more than to become what was once known

as a simpleton -- that shapeless, shiftless,

unassuming character residing in the corner house

handed down by one kind family member

or another, concerned, naturally, for his wellbeing --

yard wildly overgrown, weeds and wildflowers

interchangeable, shuffling out to the mailbox

in bathrobe and stocking cap, humming something

nondescript and long since out of fashion,

speaking to the neighborhood cats

as old friends and familiars. I would endure

the unintentionally cruel laughter of children,

and the exasperated sighs of adults with

the patience normally reserved for fools and saints.

Never again would I be burdened by others

asking my opinion or insight on any given thing.

I would eat my simple meals and enjoy my

simple pleasures, all based around the simplest

routine; and should I dare to call you friend

or ask your honest advice, you would understand

it to be meant with no ulterior motive

or guile. I would be too simple to explain

my thoughts beyond a nod or shrug of affirmation.

But you, by far the wiser, would have

learned to listen well.

NARRATOR

 

I have always questioned

everything, but now,

with the signature of so

many years becoming

indecipherable, I question

most the one asking

the questions.

LAST PHOTOGRAPH WITH MY SISTER

 

I don't know why this photo, the last that

we took together, is muted in grays and sepias,

as if the West Coast sunlight was somehow

being filtered through an antique lampshade,

or a scrap of newsprint held up to window glass.

You look so small on the bench beside me,

bony shoulders folded into themselves,

your kind face hovering somewhere between

a smile and a vague sense of surprise.

Your matchstick legs could barely hold you,

not for long, your balance swimming

in and out like some uncertain dance partner,

seemingly at random, Yet you insisted on

walking me through Chinatown, buying

a handknit sweater and chocolates for your niece,

those red paper lanterns suspended across

every street, as if the streets themselves,

narrow and directionless, were merely

an afterthought; you insisted on seeing the

enormous Christmas tree lighting up the wharf,

sea lions barking their hunger, as always,

for all to hear, each blubbery mass and voice

calling out indecipherable from the next.

We are waiting, in this moment, for one last

taxi to the airport, as ordinary as that.

But the sun was much warmer than it looks,

the palm trees behind us alive and swaying gently,

while the snow back home, three feet of it,

was a few short hours away. I can't blame you

for not missing it, not missing it at all.

SITTING WITH MY SISTER

 

When I received the news today of your

passing -- a fact somehow known

before I touched the phone to listen --

I wanted only to keep it to myself,

to not speak to anyone during those

long, slow minutes, their silence

demanding only more silence,

their time more time. I wanted to hold

you there, secretly, perhaps selfishly,

between that cave of heart and ribcage,

to hold you suspended like a single breath,

or a seed that I was neither able to

swallow nor spit out. I wanted

to hold that moment, hovering like

a thought unformed, not simply

for the sake of sparing others but to sit

with you one last time, as we had

near the end in your tiny apartment,

too quiet for you, and those drugstore

Christmas lights blinking on and off

against the smoky California sun.

I wanted merely to sit with you once more,

just us, before picking up the phone,

handing you back to the world of

the living, the realm you had so recently

left behind, weightless and wordless

now, suddenly beyond the endless

aches and ailments of matter, your absence

only beginning to make itself known.

STORM

 

We are staying up late, my young daughter

and I, to watch and listen -- sleepy

though we are -- to the summer lightning

storm outside, which flashes, matchstick quick

and seemingly at random, across each

small window of the flimsy French doors.

This light show is more exhilarating

to her than the storybooks stacked beside us,

which wait patiently until the world

becomes once more calm and ordinary,

in need of retelling, embellishment, magic.

For now, we wait, counting out loud

the seconds between flicker and crash,

the dark shoulders of trees and angled outlines

of rooftops, lit up for a moment, then gone.

When we startle, it is merely with delight.

We do not speak -- not now, not today --

of the horrors of the television news,

the once unimaginable now commonplace,

school children crouched under desks,

their backpacks cradled close, utilized as shields

against a hail of bullets from every direction.

For now, the danger is far less specific.

For now, we are snug and safe in this

boat of a bed, letting the wild wind-swept

currents surrounding us have their say,

our small, indeterminate patch of the universe

throwing off sparks, shifting, nearly breaking

apart, reminding us of what we live within.

When the storm at last seems spent,

I rise to close the curtains, our plastic moon

of a nightlight standing in for the one

which we cannot see. But we know it's there,

as the stars are there, and the far away sun

of tomorrow, like all good things,

and it's enough -- for now, for now --

to rest, at ease, in that simple knowing.

FEATHERS OF A DOVE

 

How many trips did we make back then

to the hardware store, as summer

leaned lazily into autumn; how many

dusky shades of blue and gray

holding their secret oceans of light

were mixed on our behalf, a seemingly

endless variety of color swatches

laid out like narrow, unframed windows,

opening onto a bright coastal morning

which no artist could ever have gotten right?

How elegant and whimsical their names,

dreamed up, I imagine, in some drab

and lifeless boardroom, and labeled here

in practiced script: English Chamomile,

Whispering Mist, Feathers of a Dove.

We read them aloud just to hear their music,

the unassuming romance they promised,

the time we longed for most of all.

How many thoughtless brushstrokes

covered the wall at the end of that narrow

hallway, as if the smallest of decisions

could make all the difference for us?

How many weeks before the baby arrived

to parents who could not agree

even on this, our days together already

beginning to flutter from our grasp, restless

and unfinished, all but flying away?

THE MOON IN MY HAND

 

Today I held in my outstretched palm

a smooth, flat piece of moon stone,

black, ordinary, impenetrable,

nothing you would consider otherworldly,

nor containing even the smallest

fragment of mystery or light.

Nothing asking to be named or known,

merely a door opening into further darkness.

When my daughter was very small

she would exclaim in joyous wonder

from the balcony, "The moon! The moon!,"

greeting her nightly friend once again.

But this, this cannot be the moon,

I think. This is mere flint, shale, asphalt,

chimney soot swept and hardened

to a coin of no value here below.

No miner would bother to claim it.

But a child can easily see light where

our eyes cannot, can spark a new

world from nearly anything within reach.

We add our stone to the fish bowl

full of earthly ones, our own small piece

of moon, which we read has traveled

hundreds of thousands of miles

to be right here beside us, where we rest

and dream another day into waking.