bruorton | Entries tagged with life in full

Because my kidneys were failing
and I didn’t have a donor yet I had
surgery on my left arm to prepare it for
dialysis. Because now the circulation
in that arm doesn’t work so well
I carry a little stress ball to squeeze
to try to keep it from retaining fluid.

Because all last week I kept forgetting
to carry it with me I made sure to
put it in my jacket pocket this
morning. Because I still had to brush
my teeth I laid my jacket down on
the table and went into the bathroom.

Because I left the door open and
because the table is visible in the
mirror at that angle and because
my cat loves investigating anything
left on the table I got to witness
him pawing at the soft ball he

discovered, a hidden toy just
for him, prancing in his delight.
Sometimes I lie awake hours feeling
that my life is an immovable weight
I must somehow endure another day
when, from out of nowhere, joy
overtakes me like a flood.

for Lizzie, who is leaving the country

Eruptions in Tonga bring us a rainy season,
we complain about the weather, and
the rivers threaten to overflow. You cannot
step into the same river twice, Heraclitus
opined; neither the river nor you can ever
be the same. There was a joke my father,
a retired philosophy prof, loved to repeat:
Heraclitus’ wife saying “Don’t be an ass—
of course you can, if you just walk downstream.”

Walking through this summer has felt
to me like a favorite childhood book you
never wanted to end, wishing you could
follow the characters on beyond the last
page into that other world, the one
where they go on just living happily
after all adventures are over, doing
the dishes and going about their days.

We reread our favorite books, but give
Heraclitus his due: it’s never quite the
same. We’re always a little older. We know
how it ends. That it ends. We pick up
on things we missed before. But I
suppose that means the book itself
is always new too, in a way.

I don’t mean to be writing a book
myself, here. I just went looking
for a way to say how much I’ll
miss you, how much it has
been raining inside me. The
way it threatens to overflow.

Not to worry. I do trust we’ll get to
pick up this book again at some
point. One day the page will turn
and there we’ll be, our own little Ratty
and Mole, messing about in boats.

We’ll be different, too; older, maybe
wiser. More aware of endings. I do
realize how much of the last few years
neither of us wants to repeat.

But I dare to say we built ourselves
a little haven, here amid the depression
and the heartbreak. A companionable joy.

Of any gift I could give, that’s the one I’m
sending with you. The one I’ll carry safe.

I’ll see you downstream. It’ll all be new.

In the news, the wars rage on.

The terrible and the duped

strive tirelessly to make the world

worse. The world, tired herself,

seems to be complying. But while

the stakes do seem to go nowhere

but up, history would suggest we
have always lived under this pall.

Meanwhile, our attention snags

like a bare foot on every jagged nail

of aggravation. This morning the coffee

spilled. The cat made a mess as you

rushed to get out the door. You hit

every stop light. One of those awful

starts that inevitably heralds, perhaps

manifests, an awful day to come.

It's a survival instinct, I suppose,

to focus on the worst things. But

what is survival, these days? Last

weekend I somehow forgot until

evening the medication I must take

every morning to stop my body

from destroying itself. Behold, a

tiny miracle: I am still here. This

morning I didn't notice until after

rinsing my contacts under the faucet

that I hadn't closed the sink drain

first. A terrible start to the day

that never manifested. And now,

walking across the yard, a raven

is making a hilarious ratcheting

noise with its throat, like those

wooden toys designed to simulate

a croaking toad. Juvenile robins,

summer's first brood to the pair

nesting in the old wreath on the

garage, are flitting about to test

their wings. After two solid weeks

of rain, the sun is only partially

obscured by clouds.

I woke with a poetic thought
simple, spare,
three lines at most.

In the manner of dreams
it evaporated
by the time I was upright.

Several times I tried to reclaim it
but all day my page remained blank
until driving home

I saw the full moon rise
pale, translucent,
in an empty winter sky.

I only wanted to remind myself

that I have heard the quiet voice.

The wind high in the pines on a hill

as the first blanketing snow falls steady, steady.

The muffled, gurgling brook

amidst the frozen woods.

The clarion call of the pioneering blackbird,

returning to stake his claim while there is

still ice on the marsh.

Perhaps you have heard it too,

that unexpected divine voice that

speaks straight to your innermost heart,

on which all the rest of your life
is only commentary.

The moths are everywhere;

when you unfocus your eyes,

the woods are filled with their

dusty featherweight wings.

Their erratic spiraling seems

so aimless it's hard to imagine

how they ever reproduce,

and yet: here they still are.

They even have their own beauty,

if you catch a glimpse of one resting

briefly on a tree trunk: silver and beige

painted delicately on a fine cloth.

K. is on a boulder by the stream

waiting to see if she can spy a fish,

one of the tiny ones so far uphill.

The moths flit about her, ephemeral.

The boulder under her is on

its own journey, out of the epic

glacial past and into an entirely

unknowable future, so slowly

that around it, the lot of us—

the fish, the moths,

even the whole forest—

are all whirling aimlessly about.

I do not know what will happen

tomorrow. Yesterday is still

an aching tooth in my head.

Today is a mystery I have yet to solve.

And yet, here we still are.

The moths of late spring

are everywhere, after all,

once you begin looking.

How do you do it?

Time after time

rising in darkness

whether you have

light to shed

or only sympathy

for the night.

How do you keep

coming back

from the Shadow,

reinventing yourself,

unveiling another month

unlike every single one

to come before?

The full moon is the one

everyone notices, names,

sings love songs to.

But the world is

always being remade

without witnesses:

the infant unfurling

in the womb,

the seed cracking open

in the silent earth.

The true miracles happen
in the utmost dark,

every time. New moon.

New moon. New moon.

Late, late, mid-October and only now

the cold begins to come. White lines

trace the grain of boards on the porch

and the grass is hoary, a beard turned

abruptly grey.

Overhead the sky is cloudless, blue,

blue, and five crows wheel overhead,

harbingers of the dawn, inscribing

their aerial prophecy in looping words

I cannot read.

The rising sun, obscured behind a
steel seamed roof, gleams on the leading

edge of their wings, bright, bright, as if

new-sprung from the forge of heaven

and not yet quenched.

(published in Albatross #28, Fall 2018)

I didn't come out here to stare into the sun,
to try to find the right filter to make sense
of heavenly miracles. I wander through the crowd,
more comfortable (if I am honest) in smaller
settings, simply hoping to find a friend or two
with whom to share a moment standing
companionably outside on such a lovely day.
To lead them, perhaps, to one corner of the green,
neglected in the shade, and admire together
the flickering spaces between the leaves
that have turned all the ground around us
to a carpet of swaying crescents. We
look down at this mosaic spread across
the sidewalk and the lawn, while behind us
the multitude gazes up.

I do not know how to love this world
nearly how I should, but I know at least
that what I love is here, to learn. After the
Ascension, as the disciples stood in shock,
faces upturned, suddenly abandoned, we
are told two figures in white robes came
among them. "Why do you stand about here,
staring into heaven?" they asked. They might
as well have said directly, don't you know how
much there is to do? There are fields to work
in: hay fields, occupational fields. There are so
many kind words needed, so many hands
unheld. And there is so much to learn to love:
strange orbits of the moon, dancing shadows
on the earth, each other, ourselves.

"Grief is love's souvenir.
It is our proof that we once loved."
--Glennon Doyle Melton

You remember that time she got out?
she asks. Of course I do. Years ago,
early January, my brother was taking
care of our cats while we were away
for a few days, and we came home
well after dark to learn that somehow

the younger one had gotten out.

The ground was already covered
in a hard crust of snow and we were

instantly petrified. She never went

outside. She wouldn't know how to
survive, she might get confused and

not know where to come to be saved.

We rushed out into the darkness,

calling, hoping, desperate. We
could not bear the thought of
losing this sweet, affectionate
kitten who had found her way into
our hearts and never grew up.

We could not bear to think of her

afraid, or in pain.

But then, there came an answer.
An anxious mewing, up the hill.
And off my wife charged, straight
through the raspberry thicket to

where the frightened little cat

crouched, shivering, crying out

for rescue.

Tonight it is we who shudder; we

who wonder where home is now.

I would run through any amount
of brambles to have her back,
she says, remembering.
I didn't even feel them.

But we were always running

through the brambles.
We just never felt them

until now. The love we

gave and got has left us

scarred, a crosshatching
on our lives, every laceration
a treasure.

She leans in, conspiratorial. “It’s the Alzheimer’s,
you know,” she says. “It’s total crud.”
Then she brushes my cheek with her hand.
“I don’t remember your name, but I like your smile.”

Her own smile dazzles, her face crinkling into familiar,
well-used lines. “I’m Tim,” I say. “It’s good to see you.”
Suddenly she reaches up and sticks her index finger
into her mouth, pulling against the inside of her cheek

until it pops out, with the sound of a cork coming free.
I grin, and like a good primate, mimic it back to her.
She laughs. “You’re good!” she declares. I give her
a bulletin. She goes off after someone she needs to hug.

She’s a poet -- was a poet. Still a poet. Her poems
these days are about simple things: the sun on leaves,
the sky after the rain. They do not depend on metaphors
or subtlety; they are direct. They say how beautiful it all is.

After the service, on the porch outside, she considers
my feet. (I’m wearing sandals.) “Good job,” she comments.
“They’re clean.” “My toes?” She nods: yes. Then I see
her hand going up, and I anticipate her. Two corks

sound out of their bottles, simultaneous.

I do not know what everyone else may mean
when they speak of the afterlife, the world
to come. I have heard the stories, of course:
of paradise, of resurrection, of going into light.
I wonder how specific, how confident people
really are, noting how often they retreat into

the vagueness of the departed "looking down"
or "being in a better place." Maybe they just
don't want to trespass on anyone else's story,
each of our versions too fragile and precious
to jostle. Maybe to assert it would be to test
it, and they fear it would crumple in their hands.

I hasten to say, I do not begrudge anyone the
comfort that such a story brings. Too many live
lives of such unremitting suffering, and that there
should come an eternal repose of unburdened joy,
of freedom from pain, and want, and fear -- how
could I deny this to them, any more than a warm

blanket to the cold and shivering? I am glad they
have such a story. That is all we have, in the end.
Of course, I have been undeservedly lucky. I have
my share of stories to tie my loose ends together,
but I do not need that one. I know whatever story
we might tell about this, we tell for our own reasons;

we will not know until, each one, we find out for
ourselves. So I think of death as another country,
and as when traveling I try to hold no expectations,
preferring instead to take that adventure as it comes.
When it comes. And if there is in fact nothing more,
and only this moment has been all we ever had,

I am not troubled, holding close a deep assurance

of the Resurrection: that this is my body, to be given
for many; and I, content if it goes merely to a million
million generations of Silphidae beetles and timothy
grass and grasshoppers and moonflowers. For a
little time it was given to me to appreciate as poorly

as I have managed, and I will rejoice in the end to
give it back so that these small and precious beings
might have as well the gift of life, everlasting.

I was belatedly applying the brakes
as I went into the sharp, blind curve
and my focus was on the other car
coming at me across the narrow bridge
so I didn't see the little sparrow plunge
between our speeding tons of metal
until it had already shot through the fast-
vanishing gap, descending diagonally
to flick safely into the tangled bank
flashing past beside the road.
Oh Life,
you wild gambler! Give me more.

I have not slept well. Awake at 4,
I’m too cold to go back to sleep,
and too easily wakened completely
to get up and find my flannel pajamas
and then go back to sleep. Catch-22.

I finally give in at 5 and get up, begrudging everything:
cold, the coming day, wakefulness, the world.
In the stove I lay logs on last night’s coals,
not bothering with tinder; a trickle of smoke
and I desert it to catch flame on its own.

I grumpily measure out water for the morning’s porridge,
two cups, and turn on the electric range, a practice
so rote I could do it in my sleep. Then,
switching off the kitchen lights, I reward myself
by lying on the couch until the water boils.

It’s a sort of lie, of course, a momentary
make-believe that I could go back to sleep.
But the couch is soft, and so is the dark,
and I listen as over in the kitchen the range
ticks into a dully glowing heat

while on my other side the fire comes alive,
a cracking, flickering orange creeping through
the stove door I left ajar to give it air.
And then, from nowhere in the dark room
my little cat appears upon my chest

and begins purring at once, her delicate paws
kneading and unclenching on the fabric
of my robe, her head pushed into the hand
that gropes blindly toward her, her little fire
delighting in all that is right in the world.

            “Annie, Annie, are you okay?”
            One of my students jostles the mannequin’s shoulder, the Resusci-Annie, following the video demonstration to the word. Now, ear poised over the lifeless open mouth, listening for a breath that will never come. Lips on her blank, helpless face, two breaths blown in. A partner listens for a heartbeat on her hollow chest. ABC: Airway, Breathing, Circulation. The partner starts compressions, a device in Annie's torso clicking to indicate sufficient force.
            As their instructor I nod encouragement, but my heart isn’t in it. A month after getting my pre-med degree, the excitement’s worn off; medical school now looms six weeks away like the next inevitable junction in the railroad, going too fast now to jump off.
            I shouldn’t complain; most people in history have faced harder lives, with fewer choices. At least I chose this career, albeit without thinking much about what I really wanted. Truth is, I still don’t know what I want—but everyone else assumes it’s the track I'm on, and all I know is that it isn’t.
            The next team takes the Resusci-Annie, and begins again. “Annie, Annie, are you okay?” Except for us, the gym has emptied for the night.
            This class is just another stretch of track; I became an instructor to burnish my med school application. My students are here for other necessities: renewing lifeguard credentials, becoming dorm RAs, you name it. I know most of them, underclassmen staying at the college for the summer.
            But will they ever use what they learn here? “You never know,” they tell each other, thinking perhaps of how I've told them to practice until the process becomes mechanical, reflexive, so in the slim chance that the occasion arises, they won't have to think about what to do next. But I wish I could be as uncertain as them: I know with a dreadful certainty that I will face dying people, and try to save them. I also know that CPR saves as few as 2% of those it’s used on. They’ve seen movies; they think it always works.
           Airway, Breathing, Circulation. Once everyone’s had one last practice, I call it a night. Two students who work in the gym cheerfully offer to take the training gear to storage while I wheel the television array to the elevator.
           Upstairs, I lock it up and use the bathroom. While washing my hands, I find myself staring into the mirror. It’s all mechanical, I think. I’m just going through the motions now, doing the compressions, but what are the chances I'll be glad I did? If I went downstairs and had a heart attack, would I even want my students to save me?
           The thought jolts me. Is that really how I feel? Could it really be any worse if I did jump from this train?
           You never know.
           I go back downstairs. My students are gone, having cleared up the mats, the infant resuscitation doll, the ventilation masks. But they forgot the Resusci-Annie; she seems forlorn, propped up in her blue plastic case, staring out the window at the parking lot.
           It really could be worse, I’m telling myself again. She’s never even even going to leave this building again. Except in a dumpster, I suppose.
           But suddenly I'm sick of my own reassurances. I am already folding the doll’s fabric legs into the case when I stop, and scoop her into my arms instead.
           “We’re getting out of here, Annie. Okay? Both of us.”
           When we get to my car, I hold her against my chest like a small child while I unlock the door. I set her in the passenger seat gently, belt her in. She stares out the windshield, rubber mouth open in surprise. I know how she feels.
           On the highway in the July dark, it is starting to rain. I flick on the wipers, push down the gas. I turn up the radio. I have no idea where I’m headed.

The jet engines go from low hum to a roar
while for a moment we sit deafened, unmoving—
before a sudden lurch becomes
a drastic rush of faith
toward the end of the tarmac.

Yet the wind somehow lifts us at last,
still true to a long-standing promise.
I close my eyes, swallowing my doubts,
hoping to bear the increased weight

of this extravagant gift of flight.
When I do look out, I am dazzled
by the racing shadow of our plane
traced on the ground below,

the feather-weight of its darkness
flitting across highways and towns,
trees and green farmland,
and I begin to understand

that this is some unaccountable extravagance
that does not ask for something in return.
But that is not to say I am prepared
when the first wisps of cloud pass by

and there is no longer earth beneath us
but only sea, to behold the tiny white sail
of a solitary boat
unfurled amidst the unmitigated indigo—

as if I were all at once not looking down
but up, watching it set forth
across the vast and hazardous night sky,
at its helm a celestial mariner

dedicated to her course
for the sake of waiting civilizations
and the coming dawn,
bearing her glimmering light

safely to the shores of day,
picking her way
among the sharply pointed stars.

Sit with your friends, don't go back to sleep.
Don't sink like a fish to the bottom of the sea.

Surge like an ocean,
don't scatter yourself like a storm.

Life's waters flow from darkness.
Search the darkness, don't run from it.

Night travelers are full of light,
and you are too: don't leave this companionship.

Be a wakeful candle in a golden dish,
don't slip into the dirt like quicksilver.

The moon appears for night travelers,
be watchful when the moon is full.

~~Rumi

(with thanks to Meg Hutchinson)

for

chaiya

If the world was round
like an egg, what do you think
it would some day hatch

into? Each day is
an egg itself, I suppose,
incubating good

or ill. We've all seen
stillborn potential. We know
that anything can

happen. From a book
on multiple-cat households
Kellyann relates

to me how each spot
added to your house -- a chair,
a rug -- represents

to cats separate
territories; each one a
new option, perhaps

home turf. But to get
back to eggs, what I wanted
to suggest was to

consider when you
eat these eggs, how you will use
their potential. Each

moment (I know you
know) is its own world; each meal,
each visit with friends,

each day (even the
humdrum type), each one a world
waiting to break open.