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Posts Tagged ‘daily life’

When the Ambush Comes

You might be standing in line at the bank,
Perhaps taking out the trash after midnight,
the moon somehow too bright.
If you can predict the quick tears, the tight throat,
that’s not the ambush. That’s just grief.
The ambush comes when you’re laughing.
Or when you’re eating popcorn.
Or when you drive by a parking lot
where once you practiced parallel parking
with the one who is no longer here.
The ambush might come when you’ve just
put on mascara. Or when you’re talking
on the phone to customer service.
Or when you’re dusting the piano
where once your loved one sat
and practiced the theme
to Pirates of the Caribbean
over and over and over. And over.
And then you’re crying again.
Not that you mind it.
Not that you’re surprised.
You don’t even apologize anymore.
This is what happens now.
It’s what love looks like.
You call it life.

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Will I remember this day with its greening of grass,
its blooming of apple blossom, its stilling of pond?
Will I remember the sweetness of my daughter
not leaving the house for school on a Wednesday
because her classes are all online? Will I remember
how she comes to snuggle on the couch during lunch
and pinches my cheeks and teases me about my ugly feet?
Will I remember the terrible yellow sticky casings
of the cottonwood seeds, how they glue to the hood
of my car that rarely moves from the drive? Or
the lavender in the garden that always looks
grey and dead before it erupts into fragrant life?
Perhaps there is some wave of presence
that will carry such stillness forward, a current
of quiet, a tide of tenderness that will insist
on itself for years to come. How forgettable
it all is—and how cherished—this swooping of swallows,
this opening of iris. How necessary, this holding
my daughter while the dark pool of night curls around us,
this cradling each other as we say nothing at all.  

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Daily Round

Slowly
the
mower
the
woman
behind
it
and
slower
the
hoer
the
woman
who
holds
it
and
near
still
the
holder
of
he
who
is crying
and
nearer
his
whisper
her
shudder
his
why-
ing.

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