Closer Look

Thin

How anything
is known
is so thin-
a skin of ice
over a pond
only birds might
confidently walk
upon. A bird’s
worth of weight
or one bird-weight
of Wordsworth.

Kay Ryan

Subway Seethe

What could have been the big to-do
that caused him to push me aside
on that platform? Was a woman who knew
there must be some good even inside
an ass like him on board that train?
Charity? Frances? His last chance
in a ratty string of last chances? Jane?
Surely in all of us is some good.
Better love thy neighbor, buddy,
lest she shove back. Maybe I should.
Itís probably just a cruddy
downtown interview leading to
some cheap-tie, careerist, dull
cul-de-sac heís speeding to.
Can he catch up with his soul?
Really, what was the freaking crisis?
Did he need to know before me
if the lights searching the crowdís eyes
were those of our train,or maybe
the train of who he might have been,
the person his own-heart-numbing,
me-shoving anxiety about being
prevents him from ever becoming?
How has his thoughtlessness defiled
who I was before he shoved me?
How might I be smiling now if heíd smiled,
hanging back, as though he might have loved me?

J. Allyn Rosser

There are many more on this Finlay wall, but this is all I could capture in a single pic.
Huge View
After we (inlcuding Patti’s long time friend, Sally) finished hanging new pictures on this wall, Emma ran to her room to retrieve her favorite photo of her mother.

Early Saturday afternoon, before visiting Flo, we drove Peter and Emma to La Cantina for Peterís birthday, and made sure he ordered a margarita with rocks and salt. Before Paula brought them to our table, I ran to my truck for my camera. When I returned, Emma made a not-another-photo face and I felt a need to explain myself. ìAuntie Sue loves this place and her favorite drink is a margarita with rocks and salt. ì

Chris will appreciate this: After Peter finished his margarita he said, ìThat was good, now if only I could have four or five more.î
Emma eating a cheese quesadilla.

Helen. ìDr. Bieker told me, again, itís time to move closer to my children.î

Me. ìRemember what happened to Lillian?î

Lillian, my motherís mirror spirit, lost her husband of forever, and lived alone for years before moving from Evansville to be near her daughter in Florida. I remember sitting in Lillianís kitchen, with my father, and as she passed arrowheads across the table to me to give to Matthew, she said, ìI never had a thought about my mortality until I turned ninety.î Lillian smiled as she talked about her now tenuous future. She always smiled, even while she was helping her husband feed himself.

ìShe lived about a year.î

ìIím afraid the same might happen to you. Helen and Malcolm moved to Gaithersburg to be near their daughter. May they rest in peace.î

ìThat is what I am afraid of. That the move will kill your father. î

Rakkity is in Spain with the Mrs. and their daughter, KT. He has promised to send updates. Adam, before he and Tricia left for a birthday celebration in Connecticut, sent me a photo to post. He called it a tiny bone. A generous mother, who for the moment will remain anonymous, has provided me with her daughter’s baby pictures. I will post them this week. So you see, though this blog did grind to a temporary halt, it will, like one of those serpentine midwestern freight trains blocking the road in front of you, start again.

Joe Barbato

Kyle’s snake
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Hil stopped by for dinner last night so she and Matthew could talk to us about possible summer plans. Bouncing around the table: A return to Nicaragua, but pick a different city and a different activity. Matt wonít again sit for four hours a day of Spanish lessons. Guatemala, but it is safe? Colombia, but would they return home alive?

Knocked from the list: Costa Rica and Mexico – too ordinary, too safe. South America? Who knows anything about those countries? If they go somewhere, everyone, even Matthew agrees that they should have structure, as in community service, etc. . Preferred by the ërents and maybe even the deal breaker, known contacts in the area.

Anyone out there with ideas?

From the book The Unsubscriber by Bill Knott:

Untitled

Fingerprints look like ripples
because time keeps dropping
another stone into our palm.

From the review of The Unsubscriber in Poetry, the magazine Adam and Tricia gave me for my last birthday.

The Unsubscriber is Knottís first new collection in a decade, and it is something of an event, in part because Farrar, Straus and Giroux – home to Noble Prize-winning Derek Walcott and Pulitzer-winning, John Ashbery, as well as many distinguished others – is publishing it. And a good thing, too, because, as it turns out, Knott is an underrated, or at least an under-read, poet. To be sure, he is also plenty capable of bad – not to mention offensively grotesque – poetry, of a sort that is more unsettling than the average tediously bad poem. But his talent is a kind of live wire: no one, least of all the poet himself, seems to be able to get a consistently steadying hand on it, and if the result is sometimes appalling, it can also make for a kind of terrifying beauty.

ìDo you have children?î

ìI have three. I had three. My son, Rajiv, died when he was a young boy.î

While I stood outside talking to Adam on my cell phone, Maya set a place for me at her kitchen table. I walked back inside to see ìsomething before you begin workî: a mug of spicy Indian tea, a paper cup of water, two round, tan-colored chappathis, two cookies, and a handful of pistachio nuts. She stood some distance away on the other side of the kitchen, and when she told me about Rajiv she looked away, as if into another room.

Later, I walked to where she had glanced and on the kitchen counter was a small shrine . Inside an open cabinet that would normally hide a blender or a toaster was a photo of her son at about four: round face, dark brown eyes, hair cut short, and a smile perhaps coaxed by an adoring mother standing behind the photographer. On narrow shelves above and below his photo were carelfully set Hindi religious objects.

ìWhat God gives, God takes away.î

Maya seemed equally at ease talking about her son as sitting in her worship room with the sun streaming through the skylight two stories above. She wore a red sari, the same color as her third eye dot, with a flowery pattern sewn into the hem. Her white sandles were either on or off depending on which room she entered. She told me sheíd moved to Weston thirty-six years ago and that her eldest daughter had married after graduating from Northwestern.

ìI didnít think Hindus believed in such a God. That sounds very Christian.î

ìWe believe in God, one God, and that we are all a small part of God. All religions are the same. The Jews have a saying, ìWhat goes around, comes around… .î

ìReincarnation?î

ìYes. We believe we have eighty-four incarnations and what you donít learn in one lifetime you learn in another.î

ìBut your son…it must have been rough.î

ìIt was very rough for three or four years, but when my second daughter was born I realized it was okay. And my aunt-in-law told me that if I love my son, I have to let him go. That my holding on would make him unhappy.î

ìEasy for others to say. But you were ready to let go after those years of suffering?î

ìI was, and I watched my husband. Heís so strong and he, better than I , accepted what was happening.î

ìYou must have gotten much closer then.î

ìWe did. We were not close before that. I hate to say it, but we werenít. It was an arranged marriage… ì

ìOf course.î

ì…but not forced.î

ìYouíve accepted your sonís passing… ì

ìIt still hurts. Now and then it catches me when Iím not aware.î

ìDid you talk to him at the end?î

ìOh yes. He knew more than we did. His doctor said Rajiv had the brain of a sixteen year old, though he was only ten. The doctor told his other patients they should be like my son.î

ìWere you able to say goodbye?í

ìNo. I couldnít .. .î

ìYou…î

ìI couldnít face the reality. You know he would have thirty-five this year.î

Today’s required reading
As a Word Doc to read on the plane to Spain.

Room with a view (Thanks to Chris)

Betty toils behind the counter at my local lumberyard. She is short and slim, has brown hair and a childlike Betty Boop sounding voice, which is odd coming from a woman who must be in her mid-forties. Her voice makes me want to go home and watch cartoons.

I placed a quart of ceiling paint on the counter.

ìAnything else you need?î

ìNo, thatís it. And I see you are bundled up again.î I looked around and she was the only one wearing more than a long sleeved shirt. Even teardrop-shaped Al who often wears sweaters sported only pin stripes.

ìNo blood.î

ìNo what?î

ìNo blood. I am always cold and growing up my Swedish grandparents told me I didnít have enough blood.î

ìAnd your parents… ?î

ìMy mother died when I was four and my father was no good. I plopped into my grandparents’ lives when I was four and they were about fifty.î

ìI lived next to a couple who raised their two granddaughters after the girls’ parents were killed in an auto accident. The grandmother lived forever, but not so for the grandfather.î

ìMine lived into their eighties and they died a month apart.î

ëThat must have been awful. I mean, they were your parents,really.î

ìIt was and they were. I was in my thirties then.î

Betty turned away to retrieve my printed sales receipt. I could see another salesman, David, who could play a perfect mall Santa Claus, sitting behind his desk, listening. Betty returned.

ìAnd they thought you needed more blood?î

ìI was hungry all the time. Iíd eat all day and my growling stomach would wake me at night for another meal. And I couldnít stay warm. When they cooked a roast beef they would pour the blood and the fat from the bottom of the pan into a glass and make me drink it.î

ìThat sounds delicious.î

ìIt was terrible, especially the fat. I drank it from nine until about twelve, but as a teenager, they couldnít make me drink it.î

ìItís funny, isnít it? The stuff that gets handed down. In extreme climates like the arctic that fat would be good for you.î

ìNow I just wear a sweater.î

Today’s Art

Last year, Matthew is in his web design class and while he is listening to his teacher heís also surfing the net. He stumbles on someoneís home site with links to music and photos. Matt clicks on ìPeople I know and You Donít, î and standing among folks Matt truly does not know is a year old photo of his web design teacher.

The Burial of Atala, 1767.
Anne-Louis Girodet De Roucy-Trioson
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