I practiced from the very beginning
machines made me breathe
strangers touched me with love
for my first three months these sustained me
gave me reason to return again and again
I did not know I was not machine
unrelated to the always present gentle hands
I have never forgotten those earliest teachers
and now dying gets easier every time
he saved me from desperation
train trestle desolate water razor edge
perhaps discerned, I never knew
he called me over to join him
warm smile and gentle handshake
such generous welcome brought tears
he nodded, “it’s okay to cry”
we talked about childhood pain and getting old
he died, and I mourn that I never told him
he died, and I mourn that he is not here
he died, and I will always rejoice
that I knew him as a friend
we fought a silent war in a battlefield that changed
sometimes clothing, sometimes names, sometimes behavior
the ground remained the same
she said I was a girl though disdained me for a daughter
I knew I was not, had always known, refused to back down
that was really what she hated, that I would not be quiet
her campaign became scorched earth
since she could not win, she would simply destroy
to prove herself right, she threw me to harm
a girl can have horrible things done by horrible boys
a girl can have terrible things done by terrible men
still I talked and said what they did, what they were allowed to do
a girl can be told that she makes things up and worse
a girl can be told that everything was her own fault
I was not the girl she tried to make me become
I walked away after all they did and all she said
I found my own place in the world
they/their/them
Because there is no beginning no ending
Not even an ouroboros but more a writhe of serpentine time
I revisit the past reexamine my roots reword my existential stories
Who I am today changes who I was but who I was influenced who I became
A twisted entanglement that cannot be teased into separate threads
All or one or some lead to who I will become but really
All eventualities are present in each moment of my becoming
And voidness too is there in the pause before
This happens just so this happens regardless therefore no need
To try any harder than I do no need to make my eyes see the back of my head
It is there or not a hand clap a finger snap and I know
Just breathe
Cold is the country where I grieve,
Standing there to watch my only one fade,
Sending them all the love we’ve shared
In vain hope it will ease her way.
My eyes glitter with glazen freeze;
My heart fragments from forced overfill.
But always would I choose this,
Small pittance for immeasurable joy,
Her worth beyond that of rubies.
Events have produced
A perfect concatenation of discomfort.
My body is now aswirl with wild radiating pain
From the mundane acts of attempting to rise
Or taking a breath.
My mind is filled with heated clouds and seizured fancies
With little accompanying surcease or rest.
Yet I do not suffer overmuch.
The foreknowledge of falls, fevers, and failing health
Has been a gift granted to me since a child.
Unsure if these would be my lot
Or if I would struck down by a sudden catastrophic blow,
I did not anticipate reaching this age.
Belying my private expectations, I have done so.
The structures of wonder and appreciation
I endeavored to build even so shelter me now.
And I remember that yesterday you took my hand.
Again I walk the loneliest streets,
Stumbling over the rough pavement
Or perhaps my own grief.
I listen to the clangor
Of the railroad being rebuilt
And wonder if I could do that
With the worn out structure of my heart.
I shake my head at this and say no.
Now I’m drinking black coffee in a bare room,
Reading the savage words of Aeschylus
And occasionally pausing to look out the window
At the vast indifferent city night.
This is where I’ve always lived.
This is where I’ll die.
I walk on crumbling pavement in derelict streets
To gaze upon abandoned buildings with boarded doors
And dusty signs that advertise sorrow for closure.
I travel to the overgrown fields
To visit wakes of vultures with avid mien
And clamorous geese that fly overhead to nowhere.
The lowering skies and threatening clouds provide refuge
For a journeyer such as I, hooded in gray and solitary.
When all ground is unsteady and every kindness a threat,
I take comfort in the evidence of decay.
With knowledge of such dark glory, can misery abide?
Time and memory are fluid,
Running through us with marbled colors,
The psyche as malleable agateware.
The bayous and cypress trees of childhood
Exist vividly alongside now-beloved mountains draped in smoke.
The Shearwater cup that held tea,
Then favorite pan-fired gunpowder green,
From which I sipped early in the musky mornings before grade school,
Sits still on my mind’s shelf with successive handmade tea cups.
The paintings by my father and other local artists I see on the walls,
Together with current pieces of artwork.
The past is never that, though we can try to pretend
And even attempt to banish it from our being.
Better I’ve found, to accept this and embrace a multidimensional life,
Observing the interflow of old and new with detached curiosity.
Such mixture will inform all that we experience, however we decide.
I choose awareness. Let this bring what it will.
All things always in flux.
How to mourn you?
Only with detachment can I find room
For kindness and compassion towards you.
You struggled just as all do,
And I wish to think you did your best.
Some of your actions and words still linger with gray-tinged hurt,
But now I can feel sorrow over these rather than resentment.
When I speak at your service,
I will recount one of the few memories I have
That cast you in your best light.
May you find in this death peace from suffering,
An end to chasing illusory dreams, and the fade of your red anger.
I laid down the burden of these long ago.
Now may you do the same.