Sweetheart,
don’t think I didn’t notice
how you woke this morning,
your body humming with life.
Don’t think I didn’t thrill with you
in the ecstasy of breath,
the astonishment you felt
in your own being.
I, too, love the lilt of inhale,
the rush of exhale,
but oh, dear woman,
I will teach you to love
the sweet deep calm in between,
that kingdom of stillness
that touches eternity.
Don’t ask me questions
I cannot answer for you.
I will come for you when I come,
and you will come with me.
But even now I shape you,
even now when you
are so in love with life,
even now as you find
a new slant of light to sit in,
even now as you tremble,
pulsing with promises
you have no idea if you can keep,
even now as you throb with joy,
as you ache with love.
Even now, I shape you,
even now.
Posts Tagged ‘death’
Death Writes to Rosemerry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, epistle on November 4, 2023| 6 Comments »
This Is How
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged amygdala, autumn, brain, death, scent on October 25, 2023| 8 Comments »
It’s the chill air, say the scientists,
that allows the nose to delineate
the musky smell of autumn,
not like the warm summer air
that traps and mashes
all the aromatic molecules together.
No, it’s the constricting nature of cold
that lets us pick out the sweet loam
of dried grass and peaty scent of sugars
breaking down in the leaves.
But it’s memory that says,
Isn’t this smell wonderful.
It’s the amygdala that relates it
to the childhood joy
of skipping through gutters of oak leaves
and the adult joy of jumping
in great piles of cottonwood leaves
with my son.
In this golden moment,
I’m every age I’ve ever been in the fall,
and every version of me basks
in low autumn light. This is how
I breathe in the fragrance of death
and decay and moldering,
and think isn’t it wonderful, this life.
On the Birthday of a Beloved Who Is Gone
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, death, love on September 10, 2023| 20 Comments »
for Finn Thilo Trommer, September 11, 2004-August 14, 2021
Though you said yes to something
that was not this life, your birthday
is no less a celebration. Though you
are not here to blow out candles,
not here to wake with balloons,
though you are here as disappearance,
though I meet this day with tears,
my heart still rises to revel in ways
your life still changes my life,
your life still changes the world.
It will never be finished, this love.
It will never be finished, this learning
what it is to be born, to die,
to live into ourselves, to choose love
again and again. Though tears.
Though ache. Though crumple. Though clench.
It will never be finished, this practice
of remembering love. Again. And again.
The Swirl
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, dream, grief, son on August 13, 2023| 29 Comments »
We’re traveling together, you,
me, your father, your sister. And
we’re laughing. You’re talking
about your classes for college,
and you’re nervous about seeing
a girl again, and I have this bright feeling
that you’ve passed some threshold.
You’re a firecracker, wild with potential,
and I can’t understand this swirl of worry
that churns through me like smoke.
It’s only after you race down the concourse
showing off your speed,
arms pumping, legs a blur,
your body quick and slender verb,
it’s only then when you don’t come back
I remember you already made a choice to die,
and in the dream I wail, battered again
by the bludgeon of immediate loss.
When I wake, I’m still wearing
the sweet perfume of promise and hope,
even as tears slip hot to the sheets.
It’s not easy, today, to rise, to step
into this world of heartache and courage,
this world you left, this world I love.
Almost Two Years After Your Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, grief, love, presence on July 15, 2023| 12 Comments »
I no longer pick up the phone to call you.
No longer expect you to walk in the room.
Eventually, the brain learns to expect
the absence, the ears learn to expect
the silence, the body grows accustomed
to the loss of your body and recalibrates
itself in space. But the heart, broken open,
is as full as it ever was.
Did I think it would be parched?
Now I know love as a wellspring,
a continual supply.
Never once has the heart felt empty.
There, every time I look, I find you.
On My Father’s Birthday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, death, father, love on July 6, 2023| 6 Comments »
He was a big man,
and I loved the way
he would carry me—
swoop me up
in his strong arms
and float me around
the room.
Now that he is gone,
I carry the weight
of his love—
the enormity—
only to realize
he is still
carrying me.
New Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, life, life after death, signs, trust on May 7, 2023| 5 Comments »
When the tiny white feather
floats above me in 17B,
when the full rainbow appears
as I drive from the airport,
when I feel inside me
a swelling, an opening door,
the rational part of me says,
it’s just coincidence,
but another part wades deep
in the currents of mystery
until I float on the waves
of what I do not understand—
they swirl me between worlds,
carry me homeward.
One Impossible Hug
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, death, hug, loss, love on February 25, 2023| 4 Comments »
my arms still recall
the slender stem of your body—
oh, sweet empty circumference
One Without a Path
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, love, mother, path on February 8, 2023| 7 Comments »
no footsteps, no matter
there is nowhere, not even death,
where my love will not follow
All Dressed Up
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, daughter, death, father, love on February 6, 2023| 15 Comments »
Before my father died,
he bought me a boxy
cream knit sweater
with crisp straight lines
and an elegant collar,
the kind of sweater
I imagine would be worn
by a woman more polished
than I. But my father insisted
on buying it, as if he
could see in me something
I couldn’t see myself.
Over a year after his death,
I still thank him every time
I slip my arms into the neatly
cuffed sleeves.
I thank him for dressing me
in his great belief in me.
It doesn’t matter
that I never left the house today—
that no-one else saw
how fine the weave,
how smart the cut.
If the sweater could speak
for my father, I imagine it would say,
Roxanne, you’re going to knock it
out of the park today.
All day as I do what life asks of me,
I am held by the love of my father—
a love that continues somehow
to grow. A love I still feel as close to me
as the sweater I’m wearing—
closer than that. Love as close
as the breath in my lungs,
as close as the words thank you
before they even reach my lips.