Addressing the Dead, and: On Our Thirty-Sixth Wedding Anniversary

Addressing the Dead

I

In dream my dead sister is comingto visit me, I realize I haven't madethe necessary arrangements for her,reserved a rental car, the problemneeds to be solved immediately.How can the dead be transported,what vehicle will permit them to gowhere they need to, find their wayin our lives' heedless ongoing?We invite them into our lives,try to find a place for them butthere is almost always some vitaldetail we've forgotten, some lapsein our attention that leaves themstranded, stymied, outcast.

II

I dream my dead sister tellsher granddaughters our motherbreastfed me till I was nine.My mother never breastfedany of us, when I was ninelost her breasts to cancer,died of it. To understandmy sister's jealousy, have Iput words that explain itinto her dead mouth?

III

When my small grandson shows usa letter of condolence on the deathof his uncle, saying it's ''from'' him,his older sister says no, about him.But child, the dead do write to us,in our dreams, in absent wakingmoments. Comforting or mocking,challenging or enigmatic presences,they rise up, full of themselves, fullof our relation to them. They speakand we listen; we talk back, butthey cannot hear our responses.Our words are useless as breathsthey no longer take, irrelevant asoxygen or bread. In our mouths,the sacramental bread we offeris empty of their bodies, crumbturned ash, void, inert.

On Our Thirty-Sixth Wedding Anniversary

Past, present and future are all immediate in the mind.

st. augustine

I

It is the morning of our thirty-sixth anniversary.Here, now, at January's end, the oaks hold onto their dead leaves, even the skinny stripling

pin oak, not two winters old, in front of our house.We are closer than ever, in ways we are separate,apart. Are we close to parting? Not by choice.

We are on a cusp with future and past heldin sight. Memory and longing have marriedto create the lens that holds them both.

II

The faces of houses on Tonawanda Streetare whiter than moments ago, beyond themthe sky is palest blue. Sun infuses the light

glazing the half moon crown of Miss Rose'shouse, pale yellow-rose. What curios, whattokens shall I put on the now clear surface

of the dresser in our bedroom that servedtil just days ago as changing table for ourgrandchildren, Katie and Sam? As it did

decades ago for our son, who is their father.Dried flowers, seed pods in a vase? A piercedbowl of potpourri? A pair of champagne

flutes? I'll put the past, present, future there.''The present of past things, the present ofpresent things, and the present of future things.''

III

At times these days it feels as if wehave our son back from a distancehis fatherhood created. Last nighthe knocks, comes in at ten, sayinghe's seen we were still up, he's justread that it's possible for atoms to becolder than absolute zero, wants totell his father about it. We've beenreading the Odyssey; we're throughthe Telemachy, about to launch intoOdysseus's adventures. The son beforethe father, present before the past.

IV

Why does the wily Odysseus invent such anelaborately fake tale for his swineherd, painthimself as the illegitimate son of a godlikeking? What is the purpose of this story?

Odysseus you are a bard manqué,invented by a bard, lauded as bardby the bard inventing you who does not,I suspect, think of himself as inventor.

You are a different kind of hero thanHector, that pure figure; though braveand strong as he, you are shape-changing,elusive: protean and sly as a god, a bard.

V

The ornamental grasses in this friend's gardenare swaying, notes of straw color against snow,stones...