ASHES

 

For weeks, then months, they sit undisturbed

on a makeshift shelf in your brother's musty garage,

the gray-white residue that once answered

to your name packed neatly into a surprisingly

small cardboard box, unadorned and anonymous.

Drums of exterior paint and car exhaust

surround you now, boxes of tools, and bulky

winter clothing packed in large plastic containers,

the ordinary stuff of life in process.

This is not the respite that I would have wished

or imagined for you, dear friend; though

you will be relieved to know that this stop is not

final, only a way station before the long drive

out of state where you will be scattered,

per your request, out near the railroad tracks

which run the length of your old hometown,

where your mind -- always too sharp and too busy

for its own good -- could wander with neither

weight nor interruption, and your body

could walk and walk never losing its way back.

It's a walk I can't make with you; but should I hear

the call of that Illinois Central, rising

above the chatter of birds and traffic hum,

declaring its own speed and distance, at just

the right angle, I'll say they're playing our song,

as if I could remember the words or tune,

as if the grain and grit of your slender bones

were somehow able to dance again.

THE PAST

 

So much of life is past tense

these days, even when spoken of

in what passes for the here and now.

So much becomes after the fact,

though the facts themselves

remain anything but clear.

I still look for you when I enter

those musty white rooms,

my mind waltzing between what

I know and all that I cannot.

You know I never learned to dance,

or to feign forgetfulness.

But the past no longer requires

our presence, no matter how often

we wander through, touching

one item, then another, as if we

might be found within them.

Our fingerprints stick to nothing.

CEMETERY GRASS

 

I remember, too, you brushing your hair

in the morning, never gently, but with a quiet

vengeance, as one would rake a field

full of fallen leaves. I imagined, still half asleep,

the sound of claws digging through

deep undergrowth, sparks of electricity

thrown this way and that, lightning flashing

with your frustration below the surface.

"I'm a hag!," you would call out,

and on a good day you would be laughing,

throwing that calico brush to the floor

like a weapon no longer of use.

But I loved your hair, thick and stubborn

its springs and tendrils always reaching upward,

shining like sunlight through whiskey,

threads of silver arriving much too early

for your liking. You said they were your ghosts

returning to have their say, too many

forgotten lives for you to keep track of.

Now, I dress for an early autumn, no matter

the weather, a far cry from the young man

you once loved; and you have become

another ghost to walk beside me, stirring

the trees, brushing the clouds aside as easily

as spider web, curtains, or breath.

TURBULENCE

 

Flying into New York for the first time,

all those years ago, the plane gliding through

wisps of white cloud, waving and vanishing,

before the gray and the darkness

rose to meet us, rough knots of wind

jolting us one way, then another, as if God,

having failed to reach us through other means,

was again trying to get our attention.

Lightning broke like a crack in the glass,

the plastic curtain of the window falling shut,

while my anxious mind immediately began

to map out the details of our demise,

engines coughing and sputtering into silence,

the passengers behind us praying without reserve,

the strangely serene drop from 40,000 feet

to some abandoned field, your thin summer skirt

with its pattern of daisies blending into

the long, wet grass, the shapes of our bodies,

appearing to be running -- whether toward

each other or away -- imprinted into the earth.

But just as quickly, the darkness gave way

to sunlight, the clouds began to erase and rewrite

themselves, shapes of commas and ellipses

trailing off, above and below, the brief story of

our life together -- part comedy of errors,

part tragedy -- still being written, still in search

of an ending that would make sense.

THE LAST TIME

 

The last time I saw you, after so long apart,

I was, I confess, startled by how small you seemed,

as if you had somehow perfected a means of

walking away while standing perfectly still, or were

trying to slip out of this world unnoticed.

Your shoulder blades shown through your frayed

gray sweater, your blue eyes drifting further and further

into themselves. Perhaps our former lives always

seem smaller when we wander back in, or perhaps

we are merely the worry dolls of anxious gods,

worn smooth as river stone with time.

You were having trouble eating, you confided,

and trouble sleeping, too -- though

this malady was certainly not new to you,

your mind forever leaping from one thought to

another at the most inconvenient of hours.

Would I have wanted to know in that moment

that this meeting, seemingly insignificant,

was also a kind of parting, that you would soon

disappear into the shadow world of self, no longer

calling or answering the phone, no longer

reading, or bothering to venture outdoors?

Would I have spoken something disguised

as wisdom, or offered you some small comfort,

a prayer which you would almost certainly have refused?

Would I have thought to ask for forgiveness,

or simply to thank you for the years we walked together?

I do not know. But we parted with smiles that day,

not the slightest taste of bitterness lingering

between us. We were kind, as we had been

at the beginning, as we were meant to be, two

old friends softened into unexpected middle age,

adept, at last, with the familiarity of our leaving.

RETURNING

 

For the first time since your leaving in the cold-dark of winter, I turned the car onto our former street, houses and cars grown sleepy in the warm afternoon air. Even the songbirds had grown quiet. I walked slowly down the narrow sidewalk where once we walked so many years ago, the breeze upon my face and neck like the breath from another world, an old friend sending back word. The once-manicured lawns had reverted to an urban wildness, the neighborhood suddenly trying to save the few bees that remained, offering them whatever small sanctuary of earth they could. So the daylilies had grown tall and strong, the long grass waved at its ease, and the ghost-heads of dandelions sang their silent choruses, letting their wishes blow wherever they may. In the dim window of the old place, smaller somehow, the face of a tabby cat -- round as an apple -- looked out, as if you had placed it there. I smiled slightly, knowing you would have approved, nodding to myself, moving back into the day.

ODE TO THE NORTHERN STATES POWER PLANT, circa 1974

 

In the damp stillness of summer, and long into the fall,
we would hear its buzz and crackle,
a continuous drone below the surface of things,
as I watched from the slightly uneven steps
of our foster home across the street on Atwater.

It seemed, to me, to be a city unto itself,
living and breathing, strung together by endless wire
and cables, thick coils, and transformer poles,
lights, near and far, signaling like lazy stars at all hours
in a time signature which continually eluded me.

I could while away the better part of a day perched
in front of the plate glass window, gazing
at the enormous trucks, their tires tall as doorways,
their lifts gleaming above the sunlit trees.

I didn't know where my mother and father had gone,
or why, only that their stories did not converge
with mine; but I liked the grown-ups here,
who laughed easily, and spoke without shouting,

I liked the smoke and the hum of our humble street,
and those men in their white hard hats
who arrived daily, with their clunky black lunchboxes
and their clunky black work boots, men
who held the structure of our daily lives together,

driving back and forth through the heavy iron gates,
past the signs reading Danger: Keep Out,
and past the razor wire reaching innocently from
one angle of blue sky to the next.