4/25/13

Rewrite for Deathbed

I'd never seen a deathbed before.

It looked like any other kind of bed, I guess,

except for the sterile green hospital sheets.

I'd seen plenty of them, too - just none with

my grandmother on top, laying on her left side

because the shattered remains of her right hip

couldn't support her weight. 

she was a bag of broken glass and whispers,

When we talked, I had to kneel down right

next to her face -

her ribs had punctured her lungs, and it made it hard to speak;

She fell trying to change the channel on the television,

never could figure out that damn remote -  her old

bones had simply said: "enough."

At First we laughed about it, she said "Baby bear,

I told you, that TV is evil!"  Then, her laughing

turned to fits of coughing, her face got dark red

and stern and she said "I'm sick."

I said "I know, Grandma."

  

and she said, "Be true, it's worth it."

I said "what?"

and she said "I love you."

I'll be damned if I ever really knew what those words meant

before they were her last utterances to me.

and I'll be damned if I ever really meant those words before

I echoed them back to her.

she closed her eyes, lay back,

her brow smoothing like ripples dissipating

in a pond, and that was it.

I didn't know it, but she'd never speak again. 

and as I left the hospital room, I wasn't thinking of her broken body,

no.  Her words began to weave themselves into melody, the melody rhythmically telling me

things I should have already known.

If it takes death to release these feelings then something's gotta give - so it might as well be me to interpret the words my grandmother deserves to have spoken, her half broken body forgotten when you're lost in the sounds.

C'mon now people got to live for the moment can't you speak every word like it was your last breath.

C'mon now people got to live for the moment can't you speak every word like it was your last breath.

and what would you say if you knew your time was

limited to simply minutes

would you spit a few definitive sentences

or begin some sentimental sentiments full of derivative bullshhhhhhhhhh

or would you just lie silent, and pass on

or pass on

truth, knowledge, history, religion, tales, hell just say something

cause I got the ghosts of million people behind me who have never been heard... some were

never given voices but of those that were: 

nobody listened. But my grandmother christened me permissively with her last words

passwords into my soul where they live as legacy egging me on & making me stronger

with every poem.

See this is an oral tradition, these words keep us from being alone,

I will join voices with my grandmother and those singing from the marrow in our bones 

standing on roof tops shouting down the unknown, 

I will grow my own garden from the seeds she has sewn

My lungs are her instrument, this chest is her home:

So we say:

Come on now people got to live for the moment cant you speak every word like it was your last breath

Carousel

We took the long way home from preschool
that day.  She had been uncharacteristically
quiet when I arrived, her fingerpainting
wilted in her hands, her little brow
furrowed as she waved away my
overcompensating cheery falsetto
questions: "How was your day? Did you
learn anything new today?" 
Nothing.


I watched her from the rear-view
mirror,  her gaze lost in the undulations
of the power lines passing by
outside her window.
when she finally spoke,
her voice was tired and heavy, the words iron anvils
and railroad ties:
"Daddy, do you think everyone is pretty?"
I stuttered a response as best I could:
"I think everyone is beautiful in their own way, sweetheart."
Hopeful butterflies fluttered from her mouth:
"But what about me, Daddy?
Do you think I'm beautiful?


Childhood wraps our sons and daughters
in layers of innocence like halloween costumes
they are princesses and astronauts
and we can only watch as the world
slowly and carelessly unravels them,
threadbare and exposed.
I wasn't halfway prepared for this
on a Tuesday afternoon navigating
the backroads of the Oakland hills
My daughter's friends had ranked
each other on the basis of perceived
beauty and Isla:  my mermaid queen,
my unfettered star child - resplendent and dazzling
was at the end of the line.


I told her that she was the most beautiful thing
I had ever seen, that sometimes I had to look
away just to stop my heart from bursting from
her magnificence, but mine were practiced words,
shiny and brittle, and her schoolyard friends
had exposed their cracks and the rust underneath
looked a little too dangerous.
She didn't believe me.


I did the only thing I could - took
a detour to the park for dinner ruining
ice cream and a ride on the carousel.
These were attempts to rebuild
that childhood chrysalis around her.


Shiny distractions.  I asked her
which animal she would like to saddle -
"I don't know, daddy.  The prettiest one there."


The carousel was packed.  When we
stood on the weathered platform
there were two choices left - and
she could not decide between

the unicorn or the frog.

One, standing stiff-necked,
left leg cocked in a false march.

Its saddle festooned with red beads, mane full of ribbons and glitter.

The other, oblate and knotty -
paint chipped and peeling.

One sad eye the only handle.
She hesitated at the proud beast,
absently stroked its bright flank,
t hen slid onto the back of

its squat neighbor, like an easeful

coat. She whispered low words,

her cheek pressed against its

faded green head. It must have sounded like music,
for they danced and spun, those two, like mythical creatures.
Like golden threads respooled.