As Her Body Failed \ Catching Water In A Net

Alan:  My mother’s last months were hard.  Moved to the nursing unit, she showed increasing signs of dementia – “sundowning,” as we learned to call it.  Yet, even as her nights became paranoiac phantasmagorias, when day returned so did a measure of her characteristic common sense.

As Her Body Failed

As her body failed

her hearing grew sharper.

Always good, it now detected

signs of another, distressing

universe

tapping maliciously

on the panes

of our own.

She could hear her name

whispered conspiratorially

by nurses

up the hall,

but when we’d check

there’d be nobody,

or just the meds lady

bending over

clipboard and cart.

“They were there again last night,

shouting!”  “Who?”

“The inspectors,” or,

“Those union organizers.”

“They’re going to close this place.”

“They’re planning a strike.”

So much commotion

on the graveyard shift!

Wild parties erupted

in the darkness below her.

“Dancing again, and so late!”

I thought of the yawning

common-room and the

empty, muffled

midnight halls.

It was hard

to picture her in her

narrow, alarmed bed,

dreaming badly,

hardly daring to roll over,

waiting to be tossed

out on her ear

or trampled by a crisp-fronted,

turn-coat mob.

She asked me once

why no one believed her.

I mumbled something

about each subjective state

having its own world somewhere.

She told me I should take

more time off from my job.

The last time we spoke

she was downtown

with pneumonia.

I thought she might hint

of that chariot a-comin’

or the approaching pulse

of mighty wings,

but all she said was,

“I’m eating my custard,”

so I just said,

“I’ll call again soon.”

Nancy:  Twigs and branches tangled together are enough to slow the rush of tide and storm.  The water brought with it silt and seeds and a mulch of marsh grass which settled out of the quieted waters. Now what was a raw gash in the bank is a thicket of shrub and healthy  vegetation.  What a relief not to feel like the lane is teetering on the edge of disaster.

Catching Water In A Net

Every year the sea bites deeper,

and roots fail, and clay fractures,

and nothing holds until I think

of the slash, branches slender

as my wrist: intricate, complex.

And I think of the Tao,

and the way of the sea itself,

and how we pit against it walls,

which crumble, and posts that fall

on the tide: imperious, awash.

To save the road, this: philosophy,

and sweat, to haul the brush, to trust

its yielding strength

to give the sea its due:

to catch the water in a net.