Memorial Day
It isn’t that they’re anxious for earth,
or the curious experience
of rain that does not touch,
but my bones feel
so heavy
when they stand by your grave.
It isn’t that they’re anxious for earth,
or the curious experience
of rain that does not touch,
but my bones feel
so heavy
when they stand by your grave.
“Follow astrological seasons and you
“So is this your baby off to school in the fall”
Yes…my youngest
“Mine too…isn’t it so exciting for them”
Yes…I am so excited for her
“Oh is your baby a girl? I have two boys.”
My oldest is a boy
“I would think letting go of a daughter would be harder”
Letting go…of parts of your own heart…
Boy, Girl, not sure that matters…your heart is your heart.
In our Victorian 40 years now. Two Generations.
You’d think we owned it by now and
we do, on paper, but really we’re just tenants.
A hundred years before us, maybe a
hundred years after?
Called the Joseph Smith house on city records—not the
prophet— a pharmacist downtown who had the house
built in the 1880’s and sold it less than 5 years later.
Hardly left a footprint but who does?
5 years? 40 years?
The neighborhood was Frontier Lexington
140 years ago, almost country.
Scary Northside 40 years ago ( Is it
safe? asked a friend.)
Now it’s gentled as they call it and we’re the
old folks In the big house—the only legal sign
we’ve been here a Joseph Anthony notation
in city records. Joseph Smith and me.
That’s something at least.
But you have to go look for it.
sonder, n: the realization and understanding
that all other people have lives
as complex as one’s own.
-Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Ever had someone
crash into you
like a meteor?
Spring into your life like kismet
propelled by cosmic certainty
completely balanced
like the sun and the moon
being the same size in the sky?
Like your souls have already speaking to each other
long before your bodies have gotten the chance?
This person shares a space with you
for a night
for an hour
for a moment
leaving you
forever improved
like you never would have reached
your fullest self
without their touch.
I’ve seen stories explode
from opened beer bottles
and perspectives changed
in hotel conversation.
Someone once saved my life
with a perfectly timed smile.
I want to know everything about you
and the worlds that created you
before sending all of you in my direction.
Tell me your tales of love and disappointment,
joy and grief, success and failure.
Show me what makes you you,
the magnanimous individual
gracing my skies right now.
Give me this, and I will do the same.
For we are creatures craving connection
and that creates moments beyond logic
of meeting people and unequivocally knowing
they’re supposed to be there
however briefly that ends up being.
Just the mere existence of you
has already made me a better man–
stronger, with a greater capacity for courage
from uttering that single hello–
so it doesn’t matter to me
if we never share another word
in all the time we have left on this world.
But how much more
could a lifetime
of knowing you
offer?
The porch boards creaked beneath our chairs,
worn smooth by years and summer air,
while lightning bugs blinked in the holler shade
and Granny brought the beans we’d gathered that day.
A galvanized bowl sat at her feet,
green as June and smelling sweet,
and she’d snap each stem with weathered hands
that knew these hills like they knew the land.
“Now don’t waste nothin’,” she’d always say,
as bean strings curled and fell away.
Her voice was soft as creek-worn stone,
steady and sure as a churchyard home.
The mountains rested blue and still,
their shadows stretching across the hill.
Somewhere a whippoorwill called low,
and the evening breeze began to blow.
We’d talk of kinfolk, living and gone,
of hard winters and gardens strong,
of coal camps, floods, and Sunday clothes,
and things only mountain people know.
The sun sank slow behind the ridge,
painting gold on every bridge
between the past and where we sat,
with a lap full of beans and a porchside cat.
I never knew then what I know now—
how time slips quiet somehow,
how one day you’d give anything
to hear again those beanstrings sing.
For Granny’s gone, and the porch stands bare,
though her spirit lingers in the mountain air.
And every summer when the gardens yield,
I find her waiting in the bean field.
I snap the stems the way she showed,
following that old familiar road,
and for a moment, the years grow thin—
And I’m stringing green beans with Granny again.
The cake that an aunt used to make
In addition to the German chocolate one my stepmom used to make
And my Cookie Monster sheet cake
My mom earlier used to make
Thank you, you beautiful ladies
What can I serve you, what can I bake?
