Saltation, and: Come or Go

Saltation

The mica's shimmer, my son explained,        is different from that of the fool's gold,which he'd been pointing out all hour        when we hadn't found the mica yet.See, Mama? How it's flatter and more plasticky?—        already the expert on a thing he learnedyesterday. We settle fast into the whir        of fingers, taking out bits of sparkfrom the red dirt and placing them on an open piece        of bark like a boat until, just like that,morning is gone. Come afternoon,        we're out in the open field again,where together we're a machine of arms:        I throw, he hits—that cracking soundof the bat, the arc of the wiffle ball as it flies out        over a stone wall. My arm is sorefrom throwing, spinning all our days up in this green,        where sometimes sunlight movesin tiny arcs along the road and sometimes hovers        on a piece of hilltop. The body takesso little time to feel a space familiar, to move        between memory and presence.Tonight in his bed on the slope of old wood,        my son's mind is awake with plansto make a secret alphabet. His body resists        sleep, awake with the excitement of being awake.And of his leaping this night, from one light post to another,        showing a passerby how spiders had woven websalong the edge of every one, a clever trap for the bugs        drawn through the night into the brightness. In dance class, Ms. Dorita used to beat her drum        and we'd stomp across the ballroom floorin morning sun—I loved following that single sound        like a heartbeat, moving in no certain direction,and missed the buzz inside once it had stopped.        After a rain, my son misses the clomping of his boots.After we return home, the mica will sit inside a bag        in the darkness of a bottom drawer.But this morning, how the spark shines in the dirt.        This night, how he leaps from light to light.

Come or Go

            The seais a continuous tomorrow, so unremarkablethat it becomes an exquisite now

—Kwame Dawes

A man in a turquoise shirtsweeps the walkwayto his turquoise house.

His wife kneels in the dirtpulling weeds,the blue sea behind them

as my son and I trade shells,setting aside on broken castle topsthe ones we want to keep.

I haven't told him yetthat yesterday, as we came here,his godfather died.

The hand his godmotherwas not gripping made a small shapeof a wave as her husband's breath went out.

"Why," a young Korean wifeasked me last week, "is it wrong to sayI'll come back to my country?"

You can only come to whereyou are, I'd said. If you're notin your country now, you'll go back to it.

The waves come to the shore, then go.The horizon stands at its post.Exquisite blue before us.

The stars were still visiblewhen I woke and steered the dogin the cold spring dark.

There were only two directionsto choose: turn left or right to walk up or downthe beach, either way the sea beside me.

Almost as soon as the sun roseit was unbearably bright to look atand we turned for home.

What the young wife was askingwas why the place you areat one point in time determines

the verb you use for motion.The dog and I went to the beachand came home when the sun rose.

Or the dog and I came to the beachand went home when the sun rose.The sun came and went.

Come, the man in turquoisegestures to his wife, the sea behind them.They go, and the weeds beside those

the woman pulled are already multiplyinglike the dead. They go, and my friend writes:His absence hurts everywhere.

They go, and the shells we'd saidwe would not trade...