And the Time Is: Poems, 1958-2013

A Toast for the Likes of Two

155 A Toast for the Likes of Two Who was it wrote, “If women had mustaches, they would somehow make them beautiful. Look what they’ve done with breasts!” Who disagrees? Doesn’t the Bible say a woman just an inch from death will keep an eye for color? And don’t philosophers assert that women sacrifice the ultimate on beauty’s altar? And love’s? Why scoff at that? Are the male gods of money, fame, and power more deserving? What’s money but guilt? What’s fame but knowing people you will never know will know your name? What’s power but pride translated into force? Are these worth more than what sustains us to the end? Consider Bertha. Eighty, blind and diabetic, she believed that death’s real name was Harold. “I want to know what Harold has to offer,” she would say. 156 She’d seen her children’s children’s children and presumed she had a poet’s right to give a name to death, if so she chose. Chuckling to herself, she rocked and waited for this last adventure in her life . . . Then there was Jane, who mothered seven and left unfinished all her art by choice as if to prove that incompleteness is the rule of life where nothing ends the way it should . . . or when. Two weeks before her funeral she called all seven to her bed to say, “I hope to see you all again . . . but not right away . . .” So here’s to the honor of Bertha, and here’s to the glory of Jane! Let them be spoken of wherever beauty’s lovers gather to applaud the beauty of love. Let them not rest in peace but thrive in everlasting action, doing what they love the most. Who wants a heaven that’s equivalent to one long sleep? Those crypted, supine saints in their basilicas can keep the dream of their Jerusalem. 157 The soul was meant for more than that. Pray for us, St. Bertha. Pray for us, St. Jane. ...