Reflections

A Poem "By" Valerie

Alex and I wound up staying far later than we planned in SoCa, because the experience of being in Val's home, with her beloved friends, talking, piecing together the puzzle, going through old journals and clothes, weeping, eating, drinking and talking some more seemed impossible to finish.  As a result, we wound up arriving in Berkeley about 3AM Monday morning, no small decision for parents of a toddler who wakes at 7:30 AM every morning without fail.  Luckily Nana had him, and we didn't have to retrieve him until 9.

While in Val's apartment, I happened upon a beautiful journal which consisted entirely of blank pages except for one poem, which appears below.  Val's roommate Jennifer confirmed that she had written it. It was so beautiful, I somehow didn't believe it, not because I didn't think Val was capable of writing such a poem (and until this moment when I googled the first line was prepared to credit her), but something about the voice.  In fact it was by Francis William Bourdillon.  The versions I saw differed slightly, probably due to varying translations.

But again, I quibble.  The fact of this poem, standing alone in an otherwise empty journal, given the circumstances, spoke volumes.

The night
Has a thousand eyes
The day
But one
Yet the light
Of a whole world dies
At the set of the sun

The mind
Has a thousand eyes
The heart
But one
Yet the light
Of a whole life dies
When love is done

and just now I feel inspired to add this:

Your friends
Have a thousand hearts
And you
But one
Yet the light
Of community dims
At your setting sun

The End of The Day, Valerie

It’s the end of the day

And relaxation

Doesn’t come easily most nights

Nor this night

When I’m alone on what’s meant for eggshells

And I’d like to ooze into something, or someone

Not sure what or whom

And he’s in there with her

Not 24 hours into Valerie killed herself

All knotted up inside with No it ain’t so and Why the

Fuck, and can we please

Rewind

Pissed off at the dead girl

Who died owing him thousands

And a million-dollar explanation

He doesn’t care about the money, stopped waiting long ago.

Still: she never met our baby.  How could someone…

All mad at the one who can’t give an answer

We might get this weekend

An understanding of how come

She’s so still and not hooting and grabbing us like she did

Of why feeling good and doing better after drug rehab

Leads to a final goodbye

She never liked herself, he says

As if any woman had that come simple

Or no one could survive the lack

Hell, we’d all be dead.

She was so vital, I say,

It was a show, he says.

Walking across the street in a daze,

A woman in an SUV shrills,

Could you walk any slower?

If she knew she’d be quiet, I think

Quick, like Lucille ball

Red hair, painted lips, movie star figure
I remember the photo of Val wrapped around Alex, so happy

A note, saying wrap this blanket around you when its cold

And think of my hugs

I remember her telling me what a pain

in the ass Alex was, telling her, smoking,

is a character flaw

Huh?

Men’s brains take so long, some years

To become more

Like women

She brought tiny tools one year

Had a pumpkin carving party at our house

Ideas for businesses she’d start

One day

She flirted with me

Alex said she’s scared of girls

I said, ha.

All that’s between any woman and bisexuality

Is a can of whipped cream, a bottle of wine, and pint of ripe

Strawberries

Given the right company, of course.

But I wanted Valerie

For how happy she made Alex

The smile on his face, the stories told in that way

Only a person who heard your crazy words then

And still loves you

Can tell

It’s just the end of the day

Another day

When nothing we meet in the night

Nor any amount of morning sunwash

Nor even our guts wrenching in prayer

Now or decades hence

Will rewind time so he can ask her, Why?

Why, Valerie, why? Like he was all day.

Maybe hold her in his arms
Remind her what a pure treasure she is
Give her something.
Give her something.
Give her something.

A Wedge of Life with Edges Sharp

Suddenly a single parent with a disabled partner

This week a triple-decker sandwich of loads of dishes

Followed by loads of laundry

Followed by collapse

Feeding the tall guy

Feeding the short guy

Feeding myself, when I remembered

My heart inside out stretched over myself like skin too dry too taut

A tiny bump and I am bleeding

I ache for the long silence that grows between beloveds

Before a long-anticipated kiss

I miss myself with myself, in the unfolding space of quiet wee hours, or

Between blades of tall grass by the ocean

Getting reflected back by that great sky, the one I forgot

To look up and see

Alex hacking his lungs up so hard and so long

With skin the wrong color

His face like his dad’s dying

My survivor’s mind goes to how I will make it without him

And I keep moving forward

Wrap around him at night

Though I can’t really sleep for the hacking

My heart stretching more for wanting to relieve his pain

Sounds from his mouth like I’ve never heard

And hiccup spasms that won’t end

Til we find the 100% cure on the Internet and they fly away

Each morning I know it’s all on me again today

I tell myself, over the world mothers make do with so much less

And I could, too

I am lucky

Privileged

And I can do this

The next round of meals

Half thrown on the floor

Half left uneaten, asked for something else

The next round of dishes to unload

I forget, I am sick, too.

I need to rest, too.

But I can’t sleep

Yearn for replenishment

A deep Shabbat

A renewal

Spring in the field of my body

This week I learned how each step forward is sacred

And a few random glances that make you bleed

Nothing that could interfere with that next meal getting on the table

Or the pills getting to the guy in the bed

But just make me ache a little more.

Got to get outside.

Got to get outside

Stepping Out of Kosmic Line

This very water of five billion years

falls onto the earth, rises up, forms new clouds, condenses

until it bursts, and wets us once again.

The same dust births us from primordial particles

Into which we crumble, in a moment.

Did it begin here?

Do we, like rain, find each other small and wanting,

form a larger    thing, and

gather our likeness into some new form,

Move closer and closer

Until we burst?

Or do we like flesh, struggle to stay apart

yet come together like something wants

to form new life, create a new species

of commingled cells?

What love, then, flies above like a raptor,

Watching us run, hide, peek, stalk, 

tear into flesh like so many  talons

Then drops a feather to tickle our softest skins?

The way your tongue, eyes and fingers find me

A corpus made of water and dust

Seeking the perfect soil

In which to root

Turn away or fuse; it matters not

We die with our feet on, mid-step

And our hearts in our chests

Never finished loving, only to be

Born as new mist

With barely another minute to our name

Hungry to form a fuller drop

Molecules and cells

Tears and flesh

There is nothing new here

Except what wants to be

What will

Be

Our tiny egos, infant minds

Have nothing on the five billion

Times before we came together

I’ve always been with you

We’ll touch again

A moment

Or a world

Away

Alone on A Saturday Night

It’s a cranky, clanky night, this one.

Things banging outside.

Things banging inside me, too.

The dog protesting the former.

I wonder at the moon, how fat she is,

     where in the sky.

A smile or a frown, greater than

or less than. Equal to. Neutral?

Where does peace come into our hearts?

Your dog barks, and I soothe her, while you

dance with other women.

It’s a cranky, clanky summer,

these long days pulling us          into darkness.

I stand listening for a voice wiser than mine

telling me how hard to pull you into me,

how much dark I need before light,

how long to sit in this chair with my insides tumbling.

Some nights the moon doesn’t show her face at all,

and the streets make no noise.

Our minds rush in with images, sounds we need to feed our stories.

We dance to their rhythms, on the corpses of the day,

whose ghosts rise in triumph.

Now, now comes the power of the dream;

of the details floating up from tiny scraps of happenstance;

of the ruses; the traps, the elaborate webs, all spun out

of that ethereal mentalplasm.

So soft.
So real.