Another Sunny Day, Yippee!

So sick of sunny, hot days. No rain in so long.
All the plants are suffering and the trees are starting
to lose their leaves. I can't wait to smell the rain
again, the earth after the rain, that musty, loamy
wondrous smell.
*sigh*

*

My sleep patterns are getting crazier. By 8, I am wiped
out and ready for bed, which means I wake at around 12
and then again at 2 or so and then again at 5 and then again
at 6:30. Never feel rested. Just sleepy and tired and my brain
foggy and unfocused. Frustrating, very frustrating.

*

I am not doing well. Unemployment does not suit me. If it
had been by choice and I had been doing something productive
or creative during these 10 months that I have been home,
perhaps I would better, but most of the time, I have simply
been grieving or depressed. I try to be positive, but I am not
succeeding.

*

Molly requires so much of me. So much patience that I don't
have right now. I was so looking forward to a dog. What I failed
to remember was that a dog has to be a puppy first, and puppies
are major work. If she would ever just have a decent day--a day
that she didn't bark at the cats constantly or jump all over people
or chew up my furniture or pull my arm off when I take her walking
or try to lick all the clean plates as I unload them from the dishwasher
or not eat all of the clean (and dirty) socks she grabs from the laundry
basket or off the floor or not pee all over someone who comes in the
door because she's excited, but she does all of those things every
day, and despite my attempts to teach her how to behave, we have
made no progress. I was wrong to get her. Wrong to think I had
the energy. Wrong to think investing time in teaching her things
would make her a good dog, wrong and selfish to want her to help
me through this pain. Wrong because she deserves more. I pray
every day, every day for the strength to take care of her and to
not give up on her.

*

My sister called yesterday to ask me if I knew the story
behind the bird tattoo on Dad's left calf. I don't and I told
her so. And then I started telling her how I made such
a point that night he died to look at all of his tattoos,
to touch them all, to burn their images in my brain,
these images I had seen all of my life but couldn't clearly
see, and that despite all of that attempt, I still couldn't
tell her which tattoo was on his left arm--only that I knew
he had a tattoo on one of his arms that had the name
of the first ship he was ever on, but you know what,
I don't know the name of it. And then I started telling
her about the night he died and going in his room and how
the doctors had left the intubation tube in his throat
and left his eyes open and then I just had to choke back
the tears because I was right back in that room again,
standing right over him, looking into those eyes that would
never look back at me or look at anything else again
and I was sobbing hysterically and saying breathe, Dad
breathe, Dad, breathe. I finally just closed his eyes,
went in the hallway to get my youngest son, and brought
him in to touch his grandfather's still-warm body.

*

Been thinking so often about all the friends I've lost--
to death and just to other interests besides me. The
pain some days is simply intolerable. I don't do well with
all this alone time. I used to beg for alone time or
wish for it. I have learned to be careful what you wish
for. So, I start this day as I have started many over
the last year or couple of years--or hell, maybe for
all of the years of my life--I start it feeling sad and alone
and somewhat angry and a whole lot bitter. Well, not
a whole lot bitter, but bitter. For reasons I'm too tired
to get into. So, the following poem is for all those "lost"
friends.

*

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

Once in a Lifetime

To Mat, who stopped by today and whose presence made my day much brighter.

Same as it ever was

In so many ways, and yes, once in a lifetime, people come to us and our lives are forever changed and touched and we are grateful.

It was pretty much same as it ever was here today but seeing you again and catching up on your life and filling you in on my daughter's life and the rest of the family was so good.

The light is always on here, ok?

What I wanted to say is it's not
even dark yet , but I'm going to bed

You didn't live to see
the birth of your first great-
grandchild, nor the birth of your

oldest son's child. And, after that, another
great grandchild and another. All in this
short time--which has really been such a terribly

long time--without you. And they will not
see you, but they will know you just the same:
the half-smiling seventeen-year old sailor,

the young man with his foot on the running
board of a 54 Chevy, the man who became
father again at 50, the face blowing

out the candles on the day of his double-
nickel birthday, the gray-haired
man holding one of your cousins,

the silver-haired man hugging his daughter
at the wedding of his youngest, the stooped
and thinning-haired man with the big smile

on his face at the family reunion. They will know
you. Today, as the heat intensifies, I wonder
how you would have been making it through

all of this drought and sizzle, if you'd still
be sipping coffee on the front porch,
if the birds would continue to come to your open

hand, if you would still know me, errant
daughter that I am, finding a way to find
you in the midst of a broken childhood,

in the love that survived the all of it.

Vignettes


In honor of you,
I planted a weeping cherry
tree, lillies too.

*

Heat permeates, gives
no respite to lovers, no
hope to the living


*

A woman and her
children play beneath the elm
where death finds a home

*

Garden phlox, Speedwell
stand guard beside the trellis
waiting for autumn

*


Sometimes, my hands swell,
and my fingers resemble
strange things from the sea.

*

When it is not clouds
that darken the heavens, it
is something far less.

*

Three birds found refuge,
perhaps some food, after I
soaked the dying green.

*

I know nothing of
haiku, and little of Eastern
thinking, how sad.

When Things Like This Happen

...I have to wonder why I spend so
much time worrying. When your number's up,
it's up.

Death is all around. It makes no distinction
with race, gender, age, socioeconomic
status, ethnicity or character. It doesn't care
if it's a beautiful, clear, sunny day or the most
bitter day the planet has ever known. It doesn't
care if it's midnight or 2 in the afternoon. It certainly
doesn't care if you're minding your own business or
actively seeking it.

*

Yesterday afternoon, as a local company was
preparing to unload a tractor, something
went terribly wrong. The truck, trailer,
and tractor were parked in a driveway. As
the John Deere came off the trailer, its
weight caused the trailer to lift in the air
which sent the truck, (which had hauled
it to its spot), to start hurtling downhill.

The truck went down a lane, crossed a highway
(missing several obstacles that could have
stopped it), veered to the left (which kept
it from hitting a house), and plowed right into
a mother, her 10 month old son (whom she had
on a swingset in the yard under a shade tree)
and her 4 yr old daugther. The mother and 10
month old died instantly. The 4 yr old is
expected to survive. The report just kept
mentioning what a completely freaky accident
this was and that nothing remotely similar
had happened in recent memory.

*

So, there she way, enjoying the shade and her
children, when this unoccupied truck comes
straight at her. Geez.

*

Regarding Anecdotes

I am sure I never
placed a jar upon a hill
in Tennessee, but I walked
up a hill to a party one night
in Tennessee, if that counts,
and as the party wound down
(or the party goers fell down),
I found my way to a garden,
deeply scented with rosemary
and lavender, and I lay down
upon an old lawn
chair thinking I was alone
with the garden and the night
only to find this very young
man, who was full of booze
and small talk, who had come
from the alleys and attitudes,
who was dark-haired and quite beautiful,
hovering above me, making somewhat
laughable passes at me, there in the chair,
in Tennessee. And so I rose
from the chair, his hands
a strange comfort beneath the smooth
white pits of my underarms,
and at the height of a moment,
I slipped and he fell,
and the chair remained.
And I don't think the garden
had any regard for either of us.

(My thanks to Wallace Stevens)

After the Sun Sets: The Call

My brother calls. He speaks love
and I think means it. His tired
voice, harried but real, gently probes

into what little is left
of my sanity. Memory is this strange
bedfellow (I say to him as I try
to explain the mother I knew),

who lies there beside you
in the near morning hours
when sleep has chosen to visit

another, perhaps more worthy,
friend. His voice gets softer,
softer even than the flesh
of my newborn grandson.

He's trying to reason with me:
me the unruly Virginia Creeper
curling around the delicate blossoms

of an unusually hot summer; me the relentless
crop of ragweed infiltrating the barren
brown fields; me the perpetual low
hum of a thousand hungry mosquitoes.

When I can bear no more of his kindness
or reason, I make an excuse to get
off the phone: The ribs are burning,

the yard is burning, the flowers
are burning, the house is burning!
burning, I say! And in his pragmatic
way of knowing what cannot be known,

he says: It's late. Put out the fire.
Water what can be watered and saved,
let go of the losses beyond your touch.