bruorton | Entries tagged with mortality

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.

We buried him in the high meadow

where he always loved to race ahead

and hide in the tall grass, then pretend

to ambush us when we came along.

We left no marker, with only the edges

of displaced sod to show the grave

which will disappear by next spring—

so that, not knowing where precisely,

this whole field will be his resting place.

Or, at a greater remove, this whole mountain

where once he ranged up and down

with us in all seasons, whether in the dark

and moody hemlock woods, by the stream

as we foraged in autumn for chanterelles,

or up the steep eroded slope, to the hidden

orchard at the top, planted generations ago,

giving still an ambrosia perfume every spring.

But this seems the right place for him

to rest; nothing more is needed.

For a gravestone, simply the sun slanting

on the distant pines. For an epitaph,

the thrush and chickadee calling

from the great and spreading ash.

I awake hot, sweaty, mouth parched.

Sitting up carefully, I let my head swim

to shore. Is this fever? Is that nausea

I feel? It has been some while since I

last fell afoul of it. But this year,

this year.

I make my way to the bathroom,

mind in what passes for racing

in its thickened state. Is this it?

The one I've been isolated for

9 months to avoid, only to find

it incubated at last? I review who

I have interacted with, brought

cookies to, over the last few days,

who I have exposed. I consider

how it will feel to have accomplished

no more than I have up to now.

Disappointing, I decide, but beside

the point. I have loved the world

imperfectly, and been loved in return.

If this is to be it, it is enough.

I take my handful of nighttime pills,

and return to bed, thinking of St. Francis

asked in the garden what he'd do, if the end
of the world was coming at sundown:

"I would finish weeding my row."

I drift off, and wake again in the dark

a few hours later, still too hot, but

this time less disoriented. I rise again

and check: yes, we forgot to turn

the thermostat down before bed.

Long ago, when the sky was still close to the ground, two twins were born. The first burst from a coconut when the sun was high, so he named himself Anisweizu. The second emerged from a kudu’s blood that pooled on a stone worn into a bowl by the rain, so he named himself Pardenewa.

Pardenewa understood suffering, so as he travelled the world he considered how to make life easier. He sweetened whatever fruits he came upon, and softened the knife-sharp grass, and pushed around the stars into patterns that could aid travelers.

Anisweizu found this a silly pursuit. It seemed to him that life was already too easy. And so he began by tampering with things he thought too simple, or too convenient. He made streams and rivers flow only one direction at a time, instead of both, making them harder to travel on. He gave the fruits he found hard pits, or tough rinds. He teased the wind, always a gentle soul, until it became angry and confused and would every now and then throw a stormy tantrum.

But this was not enough for Anisweizu, because it seemed for every thing he touched, Pardenewa made something else less difficult. Finally, Anisweizu decided the way to win this contest was to think bigger. So Anisweizu began to dig. He dug down to the very edge of reality, and he wore the edge of it thin, and then he blew and blew into the thin place until it ballooned out and swelled up until it was almost as large again as the world.

He climbed down into this space and created another world there, an imitation of this one, but one where he could set all the rules. Finally, he created death to pull people out of the real world and down into his own, and he dictated that no one who died could ever, by any means, leave his world again. And there he set himself up as the Lord of the Dead, and soon his land began to fill up with subjects.

( Read more... )

Can I tell you what going through my dead brother's papers is like?
Here is what going through my dead brother's papers is like:
A spiral-bound notebook, with pages upon pages of handwritten
lists from this PlayStation game, then that one,
magical equipment, power-ups, creatures, treasures, statistics.

And then, unexpectedly, the transcribed lyrics of two verses
from The Phantom of the Opera, one of his favorites.
Those who have seen your face, draw back in fear.
I am the mask you wear; it's me they hear.

Or again, a pile of notes for a fantasy role-playing adventure,
again handwritten, on half-page scrap paper. Wandering
monsters: twelve bugbears, armor class 7, 4 hit dice each.
Here is where the lizard men abducted the mayor's daughter,

and where the dragon's tracks lead, after it preyed upon
the abductors. Here is what the hoard is worth, enumerated
in detail, the ivory and silver cornucopia pin (2,500 gold pieces)
and the obsidian panther (5,000) which comes to life if given
the correct word of power. And suddenly, amidst them, a

forgotten list, entitled "What I Want for Myself." At the top
of the list, a girlfriend. Next on the list: world peace. It goes on
from there. "More time with family." "Self-respect."
"A decent, enjoyable job" has the word "enjoyable"

struck out, as an afterthought. Every glimpse
beyond the mask, a blow to the heart.
But he needs this refuge no longer, so it goes
slowly, page by page, into the bin, to overflowing.

"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.

How lightly is the mortal set aside, laughing.
How little is made of it to the anxious inquiry:
"It was a tree branch in the dark," I say,
"but I protected my eye with my face."
Hence this little T-shaped rent, see, just under
my right eye, already sealed and healing.

I do not speak of how I was running full out
in the dark, because I thought I knew my way.
I do not describe the cedar twig, a good finger's
width, snapped off and worn by time as smooth
as a lance, as the shaft of an arrow.
I do not mention the moment of impact,

the bright white flash I saw in the lightless dusk.
The fall to my knees as my hand fluttered up,
a protective impulse come far too late; how
when it came back down it had inexplicably
acquired a contact lens, and a thick drizzle
of blood. I do not try to evoke for them that

instant, when I thought the worst had happened.
I do not recount that it will not be until an hour
later, already with friends and making light of my
misfortune, that my imagination will conjure up
even worse than that worst. Of how easily
that spike might have been hanging there for years

waiting for me to come along and impale myself
on it, to run at it and drive it deep into my brain.

Instead, every time I'm asked, I tell the same little
joke. And every time tragedy unravels, as the
concerned countenance of each friend transforms
suddenly into laughter, like magic.

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.

The rest stop is on a kind of mesa, perched between
the twin canyons of the three-lane interstate. To get there
we enter an enclosed bridge/corridor from the parking lot
on our side, east-bound. The windows look down over

the traffic passing under us, and we play a game it turns out
both of us made up when younger -- can you cross
the bridge without getting "hit"? Perhaps everyone plays
this game. "Oh no, an 18-wheeler, walk faster--"

It's a close call. "We made it!" "Just barely!"
We've played it enough to know that sometimes
there are just too many, no matter what you do.
But once set in the imagination, you can't not play,

it seems. Sometimes you make it, sometimes you don't;
sometimes it's easy, sometimes exhilaratingly close. You
never know. For my brother, for Davey, who always loved
a game as much as the next person, maybe more -- no,
definitely more -- the traffic was heavy, heavy, heavy.

She can't believe what the phone

is telling her. "What?" she repeats.

"What?" The husband of a close

childhood friend has died, suddenly;

his four-year-old found him, thinking

he was sleeping in Sunday morning.

By the third phone call she's weeping

openly. "I can't imagine it," she tells

her mother, but you know that's not

entirely true, because you saw the way

she looked at you when she said it.

For a reason she could never afterward explain,
she turned around while crossing the living room
and there he was, sitting in his favorite chair,
though of course he had died three weeks before.

He grinned at her, not a morbid grin, but his old,
lop-sided, jokey grin.
                               "Hi," he said. She just stared,
part dumbstruck, partly just trying to work out if etiquette
changed for conversations with your dead husband.

In the end, old patterns re-asserted themselves.
Her bluntness won out.
                               "Why are you here?" she
asked.
             He shrugged. "I was concerned about you.
I hope you don't feel guilty," he said.
             "Of course I do,"

she said, "all those years, and I still ask myself whether
I really loved you, or just did everything I ought to have if I did.
Whether it was all an act to convince you---to convince
myself, really."
             He was shaking his head. "It's not like that,"

he said. He looked at her, lovingly. She had forgotten,
by now, that he wasn't real.
                   "You were the best wife
I could have hoped for," he said.
                  She bit her lip. "Thank you,"
she said. She was blinking back tears, and between one blink

and another, he was gone.
                                         "Thank you, thank you,"
she kept saying, though, several times even after
she knew he was gone.
                                She didn't say, "I love you,"
but it was what she meant.

I am the calf, separated from the herd,
the wolves closing in. I am the kit fox
caught in the open. I am the penguin
father who has kept my chick alive
through the brutal cold, and I’ve given it
my last meal, waiting for my mate to come.
She will not come. I am the bear gone
too long and too far without food
lying down for the last time. It was
a desperate gambit I tried in the end
and I lost. I’ve nothing else left.

To an Archaeologist 400 Years In the Future
Exploring My House, Which Was Perfectly
Preserved in Volcanic Ash

Please, come in. With your small hammer
and soft brush, come in. You will find
everything in order, more or less,
though I wish I’d had more time to clean.
As you chip your way carefully into the kitchen

you’ll find the glasses in the cabinet above the sink.
Please help yourself, though I have no idea
what you might prefer to drink.
Considering the circumstances
I don’t recommend opening the fridge.

I’m trying to reassure myself that you won’t mind
all the papers and books strewn about
on the coffee table, the ottoman,
pretty much everywhere really, now I think of it.
If you don’t get stuck on figuring out

some pattern to why they are arranged this way
I’m sure they will assist your research
into how we lived, and what
was front-page news four hundred years
and one week ago.

There is more enjoyable reading in the bedroom,
and personal documents, you’ll be interested to know,
are in the locked filing cabinet in the study.
And under the TV is a real artifact, an old
Atari game system which even has a game

where you can play a tiny pixilated
archaeologist who dashes through Egyptian tombs
nabbing ancient treasures, until he succumbs
to the attacks of sacred snakes, lions, and bats.
Don’t worry, there’s nothing so dangerous in here

unless I have left my shoes out again
for you to trip over.
And somewhere around the house—
cross-legged on the couch, lying on the bed, perhaps
hunched over a bowl of cereal at the breakfast table—

will be my absence, a me-shaped hole
in the ashy rock.
I am sorry I missed you; I’m sure
you’re a fascinating person to talk to, and after all
we both have so many questions.