Song of Shipwreck
Gallantly plopped, pleasantly, and finally, in the back garden, must I go inside when my neighbor chooses this time to trim his weeds? He doesn’t have many, and soon he’s around the far side of his house. Besides— the newly active breeze quickly commands my attention, ringing a single pipe of the chimes hanging under the pear tree. Gong! Now I enjoy hearing the cars on the old county road and the freeway beyond— everyone going and coming: mothers picking up preschoolers, businessmen headed to Salt Lake, Amazon trucks ferrying what we want and need, perhaps even someone on a lunchtime dalliance friskily tossing out his creed. Even the billowing clouds above move with purpose. They seem confident, capable. A passenger jet, with its long white tail, reminds me of my desert youth looking up and guessing about the green and fertile lands waiting for its arrival. Two barreling black bumblebees use the lilac as a place to flirt. A lone lavender butterfly emerges and pirouettes around the garden, never staying too long in any position. Beautiful. A fine fluff ball of cotton floats over from the neighbor's cottonwood. Don’t be fooled by its nonchalance— it's on an errand, planting seeds far from home. The birds too are busy as always— sparrows darting into the eaves to feed their chicks some snacks. My favorite wild bird is the one sitting somewhere to the east who's advertising: "Cheap, cheap beer! Cheap, cheap beer! Cheap, cheap beer!" A mockingbird lands on the drying-clothes rack and just pours out his heart. This troubadour opens mine, and I cry. But I am broken. The song slips through the cracks of this shipwreck, my body. Memory stirs at the strength of that metaphor. Thoughts of family— but not really thoughts. Pictures. Faces. People I knew, know. I close my eyes and see the strange red-orange biological lines of my eyelids, weaving a moving spider web. I am full of new spun webs— and old cobwebs too. Last week, my mother died. Like snow melting in spring, her white hair on the pillow faded quietly away, up to the clouds. And I find myself older than I was before— suddenly older. This gradual, gradual rotation of the earth, this gradual/sudden burst of the season. Within a blink the preschooler is studying organic chemistry in college. The businessmen are out of a job And on their way to Vegas instead. The lunchtime dalliance Is gone. The lilacs, already browning at the edges— why can’t they stay all summer? The spring green of the aspens, playing at ease, showing off like children at sport-- And me—this ongoing story hanging around-- I don’t want to play. I don’t want to work. I don’t want to sound. I don’t want to feel. I don’t want to be— not until the perfume of rose and lilac climbs stealthily back into my lungs, and brings me pleasure again. A thought rings the doorbell of my mind suggesting that perhaps I should gather these observations and put them in a vase on the table for guests at five o'clock happy hour. The bold white of the hydrangea blossom calls again with a promise of the casual, sweet days of summer, the feel of this body climbing into cool, clean cotton sheets and falling peacefully to sleep. Can it be that a few tears are shower enough to cleanse the soul— to send me out of this chair and into the world whole again? In any case, I must. My patient cat is losing patience for the next meal. And I do sense these lazy lungs, these bulky bellows, these simple sails filling again with air and determination— blowing this old ship back out onto the wide, wide, wide open sea.
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