Born when the hearse
was drawn by powerful black horses
one hundred and three years gone.
In one small room of himself
sitting for hours, weeks months.
Years of sleeping, or sitting still,
seeming to study the empty air
unmoving in his chair
staring into the distance
serious face expecting nothing.
Nothing changing. Not even the chair.
Not since mustard was the favored color
of naugahyde lazy boys.
He died in winter, blind buds waking
in wet beds too soon.
I remember the warm silver drizzle
of rain, the usual barrenness of trees
shining forth in a cloud of strangeness,
pussy willows bursting from branches
like sparked flint torches burning holes
in January’s ashen sky. I remember
the river was high. The quiet glow,
how even the water looked solemn,
tide slow as a curtain closing.
When I asked, was he meditating,
was he perfecting stillness,
he shrugged, hopeless gesture
of emptiness, “ No “ he said, “I can’t stop
my mind wandering. I can’t stop
worrying. Its not peaceful in here”.
I used to think the only bead left to worry was
who shall deliver him from his life
buried, yet surviving in the dry tear of memory,
a rise in the Dow Jones feeding him like scripture.
The winter I was fifty, I sat with him, waiting,
by his bedside watching
the full moon of his mouth, the open“O”
full and empty, one last syllable drawn in
circle of time gasping, shuddering
wound and portal,
as if the death-tide rising in his throat
were lover, as if all the waters in him
were reaching up for sky
eyes fallen inward, aliveness imploded
as a star burst inside him so all I could see
was light, the eye of his heart opened outward
to the world
a man blind all his life, lost and bewildered,
now lit up and burning like a torch
a light in the wilderness
we all saw it. We all felt the sweetness pouring from him
the softness, kindness,
the hard flint of his life surrendered
spark of absolution
touching us all
burning the knotted cord
of hurt between us
nothing left but the body’s butter lamp glow
spilling its light in darkness,
one being, one body
touching and being,
released and releasing
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