Illuminations \ Looking Back

Nancy: Those strong years of childhood, again and again weave like bright threads through my todays.

Illuminations

Tonight, I might write my name on the dark

with a sparkler.  I might write my name, or

I might change my mind and write “Papa”,

at my age life is like that, I might see

myself sitting in the grass waiting for my father

to strike the match, I might see another year

in thunder on top of the mountain, wrapped

in blankets, there are so many years waiting

in sparks, waiting to be unwrapped like the

firecrackers folded in their mysterious Chinese

newspapers.  If I were to light a sparkler my father

might be a young man again, waiting for the dark.

Tonight I might gather my family of dogs and cats

and say watch, I am going to astound you,

I am going to write my life on the dark in fire.

Alan: When someone you love dies, you don’t stop talking to them, even though you know it is just an offering to emptiness.

Looking Back

                                 for Don

In your dream, Uncle

and Aunt and Father and Mother

walk up the long slope, its top

hidden in mist.  Just short,

they pause, Uncle looks back

down at you, takes the last steps,

vanishes.  You wake knowing

he will die first.  You tell me

this, and so it proves.

In my dream, which I

am having over and over,

you are falling, the road flashing

sideways, and I am thinking

“no” and at the same time realizing

that I am looking back

at what has already happened,

your head hitting the pavement

again and again and again.

It is no accident, then,

that I am looking up into the mist,

looking up into the mist and shouting,

telling you this, shouting

into the silence.