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Posts Tagged ‘endings’

Spanish 2, Lessons 23, 24, 25

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 31, 2024| 11 Comments »


 
 
The whole time I walk in Spring snow and wind
I am prompted by a lovely man’s voice
to repeat many phrases I’ll need in Spanish.
I learn, for instance, to ask how many blocks
I must walk to get to the bank, only to learn
it is closed on holidays but will open
the day after tomorrow. I learn
how to ask if you are good at playing tennis
and insist you are better at playing than I am
(which is certainly true). I learn to say Wednesday
is impossible, but perhaps we can play tennis
Thursday morning because it is a holiday
and we do not need to go to the office.
And, in the midst of learning how to talk about
what our kids are studying in the university,
the lovely man teaches me to say, Es mejor
terminar una cosa antes de comenzar otra—
and I understand I am like the recalcitrant
child in the Spanish lesson, starting out
to be a musician and then deciding to be
an engineer. So often I do not end something
before beginning another. It is not so easy
in this life to draw clear lines. At least
not for me. It seems I am always saying yes
to something new while in the midst
of something else. Like the fact I’m learning Spanish
while still finishing the introduction and end notes
for my next book. Like planning my garden
while still walking in snow. Like loving this world
while I am in the midst of deep grief.
I don’t know how to say in Spanish
there are so many ways to do it right, this life.
What doesn’t live on in matter or in memory?
Doesn’t everything tendril out to touch every other thing?
Haven’t they proven long after a butterfly wing
is done flapping in China it will affect the weather here?
Is anything ever really finished, I wonder,
as lesson twenty five ends and in the snow
has become rain that even now is finding the roots
of the spruce. And all I see as I look around now
are more and more beginnings.   

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A Little Pep Talk

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 9, 2020| 2 Comments »

The swirling ash

doesn’t try

to be become

log again.

The flying leaves

don’t attempt

to return

to the tree.

The girl

can’t untwist

her genome

back into

separate strands.

The flour

in the bread

can’t return

to the sack,

can’t undo

the kneading

of hands.

In all things

lives a memory

of letting go

and the chance

to transform

into what

it can’t know.

What do you say

to that, heart?

Good self,

what do you say

to that?

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End Well

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 3, 2020| 7 Comments »

End well, says my friend,

and I think of Beethoven,

how his final symphony

was a triumphant masterpiece,

a unifying ode to joy.

And I think of the time

we ran the Grand Canyon

for weeks and on the last night

we tied the boats together

and floated all night and laughed

and laughed and laughed.

There’s the Rilke poem

about a marble torso

in which he closes with

You must change your life.

And espresso at the end

of a meal, how the dark bitter cup

leaves the mouth

in an warm O of ecstasy.

But it isn’t always easy to end—

saying goodbye to a faraway friend.

Ending a kiss. Leaving the beach.

Turning the last pages of a book.

So I think of the rabbitbrush

that fill the field—how long

they hold their gold. Until

it’s cold and they fade

and it seems like the end—

but then, if I should shovel

across them, or walk through them

in the early snow, oh the perfume

they release then—evergreeen

and earthy, herbaceous and cool.

Sometimes to end well

is to offer more

when it all seems done.

Sometimes to end well

Is to surprise everyone

with one more gift.

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One New Step

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

weeping beside

the pussy willows—

all those tears

over saying goodbye,

I wouldn’t uncry

a single one

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