Looking over my life I see a rich panoply
of people and things scattered across time
through place a fullness a trove
of stories schemes disparate but
intricately connected seeking a fierce
new heroine fitted out and eager
for adventure ready for the next big thing.
Where oh where can she be?
Putting another month to rest
I look back across and see thirty days
I am pleased to have lived thirty days
placed gently in my brain’s cupboard
with all the many others lying modestly
there glassine layers in a stack asking
nothing of me expecting nothing
just lightly being all the days that
together form a singular life one which
no one else will ever quite know
nor will I theirs and on we go carrying with
us our little packets of secrets that we could
not share if we wanted to.
We sat in canvas chairs watching
The Fiddler on the Roof under the stars
on the evening of a hot day
an unexpectedly cool breeze
traveling through the park
crescent moon lazing
behind a cottonwood tree.
Just a local amateur production
with plenty of off-key singing but
evocative nonetheless. And I flipped
easily through my brain’s catalog
of evenings spent just like this
as a girl in the free seats at the St. Louis
Muny Opera with my mother my aunt
my sisters and later my best friend
once or even twice in the ticketed seats.
The night air blew through in just this way
that same moon hung above just like this
cottonwoods swayed beyond the stage
the sky took on that very shade of blue and
eventually the first star popped out for a wish.
My dreamy girl’s heart opened wide back then
to the romances played out onstage and I
longed for my own imagined future
in which True Love won out grandly over
the mundane of everyday life.
The love I was absolutely certain I’d
one day have; the mundane never.
One wonders yes
one wanders and ponders
mysteries of life
curve of the Earth
flight of the planets
minuscule matters
repairs of the heart
slow onward march
of time life death
no more no less
than mystifying
gratifying
stupefying
high flying
death defying
undying
love.
Hurtling towards the earth
a life unfurls its tiny parachute
flies up again
floats gently down
to touch ground
rocky grassy jagged smooth
as chance will have it
recalls later none of this
so that the whoosh and shoot
of later leaving astonishes.
White cat poses in a window
two girls walk to school
cardinals call forth and back
a screen door opens closes opens.
Life rolls on out beyond our
awareness past any boundaries
we understand weaving us all
together endlessly loving our
children counting sorrows
and blessings observing each
other through our own lenses
knowing so little.
A rainy dreary day as I take my friend
for radiation wondering if every day
breaks bleakly facing cancer hair loss
radiation God knows what else?
And me with my happy circumstances
old wounds healed afterglow of my sons
reunited here at home with me
my Peter with his lovely Karen and
oh the contrast of one life to another
at a given point in time can be breathtaking.