Suegra: the Phoenix
At the age of
sixteen,
she left her
little village,
with nothing
but the
scars on her
back
from the belt
of her step-father.
This was just
after the war,
when the world
had changed hands.
As she walked
into the capital
of the land of
lava and ash,
she, too,
was born anew.
MR
2021-1002
... and now I can't find the poem that I wrote for mi suegra, for her memorial. And it's not like the poem was even any good, but it had everything that needed to be said, and the service is this weekend and I can't find it and I can't rewrite it because I know it will never be as good as the first draft, that I should have so that I could edit it, and I feel like I'm frozen, stuck, wading through molasses. It's been this way all my life with my writing, whenever I've tried to write anything, it all gets ... stuck.
It is a strange feeling, this feeling of being somewhere yet nowhere at the same time. The feeling that you need to be helping her through this grief, and yet she is nowhere near me. It is as though she has traveled to some far foreign land, somewhere beyond communication, somewhere beyond reach.
How far to wander, she has, in search of her lost mother, in search of that which tied her so tightly to this world. How far to wander. I too, have made that quest, that journey. Decades ago. I barely returned, and I don't think ever fully.
Will I be the lighthouse, then? Some beacon shining on the edge of the land, sending light to lead her home?
Will she see it? Or is she already too far out there, beyond the horizon, beyond the place where sunrises follow sunsets and beyond where the moon chases away all our dreams?
A week before Christmas
When the airplane touched down
connection through Denver
snow-blanketed ground
20 dollar sandwich in the airport cafe
then on to SeaTac
and a drive up to Blaine.
to be the first verse of the track on the album
Hearing it in my head with a rhythm, that seems to be the rhythm of "Holiday Inn" by Elton John
Note typed on my phone 2021-0121
One More Drop of Morphine
You give her water through a small sponge
at the end of a tongue depressor.
Her lips suckle the water but her eyes do not open,
Until you remove it, put the sponge away.
She tries to reach for your arm, she mutters,
"No quiero morir."
Then Ana comes in the room.
"She's in distress," Ana says,
"She needs one more drop of morphine."
A flick of a switch, and soon,
her eyelids begin to flutter.
Ana says, "I just need to rest.
It's been so long now. I just need
to sleep through one night."
MR
2021-0401
Christmas at 50
The kids, gone to the movies,
to see WW84.
The wife, in Washington state,
watching the slow, anguished passing
of her mother.
Me, watching, "It's a Wonderful Life,"
for free on Amazon Prime.
MR
2020-1225
When your
mother dies
You slide into
a half-world
No-one else can
reach.
MR
2021-0103
