Here's the Thing

Here’s the Thing
For Janice and Phil
Slowly the news of your reality came to
Most of us in this modern age on our screens -
Distance made into almost none at all
We could hear the curtain pulled along the track on the ceiling-
Drawing a tight circle around her bed and each other
Visibility really didn’t matter as your words conveyed the gravity of it
And the lightness of your love
Until the observers in their waiting rooms were almost blind.

There were her fine features and perfect presence
And the obscenity of what you both were suffering
And You: making a way out of no way-
Not one of us didn’t know how lucky you were
Even in this horrible juxtaposition of
Fall of dice and shuffle of cards.

I knew your walk. I could almost feel the fire of it.
You, doing the smallest things with the greatest care.
Somewhere in the time of it, the blanket that was
Wrapped around her was pushed slowly 'til it
Folded and piled upon itself and
Became the velvety ridges
Of the mountains that she knew by heart.

And here’s the thing:
What you (both) showed us is as steadfast and
Obvious as those accordion pleated stones.
How it must have been for her, the comfort in your hands,
Robbed of everything and nothing -
Standing against the erosive quality of disease
triumphant in her choices, in her judgment, fortune, wisdom, and grace.

C.M Carroll
3/19/11

~

photo source:

http://www.eschlaik.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/blue-smoke-park.jpg

Saturday Evening Post

Thrills & Chills

Yet all how beautiful!

Pillars of pearl

Propping the cliffs above, stalactites bright

From the ice roof depending; and beneath,

Grottoes and temples with their crystal spires

And gleaming columns radiant in the sun.

~ William Henry Burleigh

Friday morning, somehow, I had a few extra minutes as I was making my way to my car door. Time enough to stop. Time enough to notice. And it is closer to spring. And therefore, closer to day when I am making my way to my car door. So I could see the frost on my old VW's back windshield. And I could fetch the camera from my bag and stop to try to capture it. And I did. As my hand reached for the door handle , I glanced across the roof-line of my Prius and saw something even more beautiful and stopped to capture that, too. What made me happier? The lovely fractals or the closer-to-spring light? I think I caught the last bits of winter in those photos above... because the next day, equally early in the morning, I noticed something of the coming season that thrilled me just as much. I will post that soon!

Up rose the wild old winter-king,

And shook his beard of snow;

"I hear the first young hard-bell ring,

'Tis time for me to go! Northward o'er the icy rocks,

Northward o'er the sea,

My daughter comes with sunny locks:

This land's too warm for me!"

~ Charles Godfrey Leland

Although it is Wednesday...

... this cannot be wordless. Today it is ten years since my father died. [ Long pause here for long tears. ] What is the word for the moment when everything changes? My father was significantly younger than my mother, and my mother was sickly most of her adult life. No one expected my mother to outlive my father. When he was suddenly gone, I felt the weight of the world lodge solidly on my shoulders. My mother. Several 'spinster' aunts. No buffer between me and total responsibility for the care of half a dozen elderly people. And my father was gone. Yes, that would be the moment when everything changes. AND my father was gone.

I drive the roads my father drove every day. I like that about my driving. I listen to the radio station he would tune in to for traffic reports. I think of him and of being in the back seat when I round particular corners more than others. I don't know where life will take me, and truth be told I am rather surprised by where it has taken me so far... but if I never get far from here, it will be because I couldn't bear to leave the roads my father drove and the comfort that that offers. And truth be told, I would give anything to be in the back seat again and hear him ask "You warm enough back there?" And truth be told, the answer will always be no --- because there is no warm enough when your father's been gone ten years.

~

My father drove a white Volvo most of my young years, but the following Marc Cohn songs are linked here because I think he captures something about parent-child relationships perfectly in them....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2L9N7XsWhk

Watched it coming up Winslow

Down South Park Boulevard

Yeah it was looking good from tail to hood

Great big fins and painted steel

Man it looked just like the bat mobile

With my old man behind the wheel

Well you could hardly even see him in all of that chrome

The man with the plan and the pocket comb

But every night it carried him home

And I could hear him saying

Don't you give me no Buick

Son, you must take my word

If there's a God in heaven
He's got a Silver Thunderbird

You can keep your Eldorados

And the foreign car's absurd

Me, I wanna go down

In a Silver Thunderbird

He got up every morning

While I was still asleep

And I remember the sound of him shuffling around

Right before the crack of dawn

Is when I heard him turn the motor on

But when I got up they were gone

Down the road in the rain and snow

The man and his machine would go

Oh, the secrets that old car would know

Sometimes I hear him sayin'

Don't you give me no Buick

Son, you must take my word

If there's a God in heaven

He's got a Silver Thunderbird

You can keep your Eldorados

And the foreign car's absurd

Me, I wanna go down

In a Silver Thunderbird

Down the road in the rain and snow

The man and his machine would go

Oh, the secrets that old car would know

I still hear him sayin'

Don't you give me no Buick

Son, you must take my word

If there's a God up in heaven

He's got a Silver Thunderbird

You can keep your Eldorados

And the foreign car's absurd

Me, I wanna go down

In a Silver Thunderbird....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqyc7lWi9xc&feature=related

I don't know much about you

I don't know who you are

We been doin' fine without you

But we could only go so far

Don't know why you chose us

Were you watching from above

Is there someone there that knows us

Said we'd give you all our love

Do you laugh just like your mother

Will you sigh like your old man

Did something skip a generation like

I've heard they often can

Are you a poet or a dancer

A devil or clown

Or a strange new combination

Of the things we've handed down

Wonder who you look like

Will your hair fall down in curls

Will you be mama's boy

Or daddy's little girl

Will you be a sad reminder

Of what's been lost along the way

Maybe you can help me find her

In the things you do and say

And these things you have been given

They are not so easliy found

But you can thank us later for

The things we've handed down

You may not always be so grateful

For the way that you were made

Maybe some features of your father's

That you'd gladly sell or trade

And one day you may look at us

And say that you have were cursed

But over time that line has been

Extremely well rehearsed

By our father's and their fathers

In some old and distant town

The places no one here remembers

Called the things we've handed down...