"smile, would you?" she looked at me with her big fishy eyes. teeth hidden under 5 year old lips. My heart leaps. I smile for the first time in a week. She holds the fish together. mouth touching mouth. all I see are 2 eyes and her smile, like a teacup. upside down.
II.
Lost in the mountains
never been here before
i'm lost. i'm wet. i'm tired.
the maps are useless.
my sense of direction is useless
hell, the only things that aren't useless are my legs,
my sense of humor
and this goddamn British accent.
This food, this empty water bottle,
even this frustration, fear is useless.
He is pissing me off. We are laughing.
always.
speaking in British. Bloody hell.
Pumpkin pie and a hot tub
I feel it now.
with whipped cream. yum.
we'll be fine no matter what
a little hungry, a little tired
we'll be okay
we shouldn't have gone this way. oh well
let's just get back.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then you shall truly dance.
III.
She's gone?
no. it's not real.
Her smile, her laugh.
Goddammit, here's her phone number
next to her name
here's a note from her
her god-fucking-damn facebook page
she fell? how? what? No.
I just woke up. So confused. gone.
God.
Never see her again. how?
this doesn't happen. not like this.
it's fine. she's fine.
I just talked to her a couple days ago.
Trust your dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity
IV.
utterly still under the falling earth
the world all astir above
a million leaves alive in the wind
and what do we know?
At our dinner together, the dead enter and pass among us in living love and memory.
V.
I began to feel that something was required of me.
Sometimes something would be required that I could do
and I did it.
Sometimes when I didn't know what was required,
I still felt the requirement.
Whatever I did never felt like enough.
Something I knew was large and great would have happened.
Stronger than me all my life.
What could you do?
What could you do that would be anyways near enough?
I could feel the greatness of life and death,
and the great world endless as the sky swelling out
beyond this little one.
And I began again to hear from that requirement
that seems to come from the larger world.
The requirement was telling me,
"Do something for her. Do more than you've ever done.
Do more than you can do."
I came to do something for her, if I could,
and instead she had done something for me,
and I was more in debt to the requirement
than ever.
VI.
O saints, if I am even eligible for this prayer,
though less than worthy of this dear desire,
and if your prayers have influence in Heaven,
let my place there be lower than your own.
I know how you longed, here where you lived
as exiles, for the presence of the essential
Being and Maker and Knower of all things.
But because of my unruliness, or some erring
virtue in me never rightly schooled,
some error clear and dear, my life
has not taught me your desire for flight:
dismattered, pure, and free. I long
instead for the Heaven of creatures, of seasons,
of day and night. Heaven enough for me
would be this world as I know it, but redeemed
of our abuse of it and one another. It would be
the Heaven of knowing again. There is no marrying
in Heaven, and I submit; even so, I would like
to know my wife again, both of us young again,
and I remembering always how I loved her
when she was old. I would like to know
my children again, all my family, all my dear ones,
to see, to hear, to hold, more carefully
than before, to study them lingeringly as one
studies old verses, committing them to heart
forever. I would like again to know my friends,
my old companions, men and women, horses
and dogs, in all the ages of our lives, here
in this place that I have watched over all my life
in all its moods and seasons, never enough.
I will be leaving how many beauties overlooked?
A painful Heaven this would be, for I would know
by it how far I have fallen short. I have not
paid enough attention. I have not been grateful
enough. And yet this pain would be the measure
of my love. In eternity's once and now, pain would
place me surely in the Heaven of my earthly love.
VII.
I stand on the rock, raising my height to half that of my brothers
Reaching with arms outstretched, I graze it's skin
tip toes. almost. got it.
I wrap my arms around its one immovable arm
dancing upwards
always upwards.
We sit forever watching the world below.
an Illinois' mountaintop.
We throw ropes weighted with jewels from the garden
heaving them higher and higher
and like animals we swing to and fro.
watching us play,
the holder of countless pinatas,
bearer of many a 6-year-old experiment,
the hideaway of ghosts on a cold night,
the storehouse of neighborhood treasures.
a grandmother watching us quietly
a friend holding us tightly, wiping our tears
concealer of spies, coverer of the vulnerable.
ash to ashes.
leaves fall each year. and leaves fall for good.
living love and living memories.
that 6 year old, the watched, the vulnerable, the playful
won't forget. not ever.
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