In chasing what we want we learn
too late our mistake
an ornate cask unable to hold
anything
a colourless town a dreary task
a heart of love run dry
the sky not blue enough your
kids move far from home
a wasp drowns in your afternoon
coffee
the oyster shell is broken & the
pearl flawed
Open your fist there is a balm
there is an open palm
While I thought that I was learning how to live,
I have been learning how to die.
— Leonardo da Vinci
It will come to you wrapped
in the soft cerements
of the after-dark rains,
will enter your awareness like
the whisper of a long-ago companion.
You will want to stay.
She uses the dishwasher
only to dry what she washes
in the sink. She looks out across
the dry-brown backyard, grass
probably crinkly under foot,
like walking on potato chips
in the carpeted den, just to notice
her son’s square garden, framed
by railroad tie fragments
housing rot and yellow jackets,
with its single jalapeño
or spotted Beefsteak hanging
heavily, waiting for him
to free them from the heat,
from the deer. No one’s around
her now, anywhere near the kitchen,
The sun had lost its glare and some of its heat.
People arrived, stood talking, looked for seats.
Children resisted parents’ pleas to sit
And heard their names pronounced repeatedly.
Vacationers became an audience.
(I sat restless, too old for family road trips,
Relieved the Ozarks were our final stop.)
The drama, not yet underway, already—
Like smoke from burning leaves in autumn—spilled
Into the early-August, evening air,
Lending to it a pre-performance stir,
The scent of a beginning and an ending.
Oh, little moth of clarity,
why do you now hide?
In the past I knew you well—
devouring every disguise,
gnawing my closet to shambles,
exposing the bones inside:
every truth I feared fully clarified.
I should tout your truancy
or revel your retreat.
Yet, for some reason,
I’ve set out lamp tonight.
Little probing, perforating brother,
please, please,
take flight.
“Make every effort to live in eternity’s light, not in time.”
—May Sarton