Bildungsroman
My eyes have never been as sharp as my tongue,
but I’ve been trying to observe more than act,
not passive as the breeze but watchful as the wind
bringing autumn to foliage verdant and rapturous.
So, when did you start having the hospital as a phone contact?
Or start sitting in a chair to pray?
Or buying stacks of anti-wrinkle creams?
When did the dark crown of your hair fade to a silvery halo?
When did you begin attending graduations?
When did we begin running your errands?
Or discussing tile options, laundry, and house payments?
When was the last time I held your hand to walk?
You were right — you often (but not always!) are:
it was gone sooner than I knew it arrived, the Before
noted in the novels you stacked by my bedside,
the awkward, wondrous period I dare not name.
I turn twenty soon, the youngest I will ever presently be,
and see the fruit flowering, not bursting forth but untethering
from the weight of frost, sluggishly, slower than I thought
possible or reasonable but nonetheless rising.
It seems tiresome, this test of a journey,
but I see now that one day, after the toil, it will be
as achingly beautiful as you believe.
