The Persistence of Memory
His love, outside of time, beyond the illusion of forever, was immemorial as it was eternal.
Long before the human genome had been discovered and deciphered in cold, impersonal laboratories, his epigenetics had been warmly at work, laying down inheritable sentiments for his progeny. He built up a latticework of devotion to her where natural selection had no relevance.
His love would persist through the ages. It always had, hadn't it? Some certainties persist beyond memory.
His was just a trick with amino acids, bonding junk DNA to the otherwise silent portions of his genetic helices. But there she straddled, fresh and alive; lovely and kind; and generously giving.
And inheritable.
Alas, he never taught her how to do likewise. He couldn't. It was a process so private and inherently esoteric that he didn't quite understand it himself. How could he translate such mindful machinations into words of instruction? He might just as easily deconstruct love, grief, or loneliness, all of which ensued upon her death.
But love and grief and loneliness are constructs of a genetically derived mindfulness, apart from his epigenetic love letter, and ne'er the twain would meet: his completeness by her was immune to the instructions of mere proteins or hormones.
Each time he visited her grave, the tighter his epigenetic bonds became. They stood out--little bombs easily packaged for sorties to his offspring to come.
Each time he visited her grave, he would sink to his knees, crying, "I love you eternally. My love is still here now, and will so remain, until it becomes the stuff of stars themselves!"
Hundreds of years later, great-great-great-grandchildren, now unrecognizable to each other on their family tree, visit her grave driven via a powerful, mysterious compulsion. Chance had summated perfectly: three strangers--two men and a boy--know they must be there but don't know why.
Prudence Planchard
My Forever Love
May 25, 1757 — September 5, 1785
The older man said, "I love you forever."
The younger man, added, "My love is still here now..."
And the boy added, in a sentiment well beyond his years, "...and will so remain until becoming the stuff of stars themselves."
They departed, but would certainly, in love, cross paths again.
Fraction
And there I stood silent
in a vast empty field
with the East wind
flowing steady
against my brow
And there I
swallowed memories
of past horizons
every emotion
illuminated by the sky
in teal blues
emerald greens
And there I heard
your voice
echoing gently
on the skin
of the black sea
whispering
eternity
to the lost
believer within
In Blood
Dear Plexiglassfruit,
Of all the letters I may have sent, I have never written to my mother-- my real mother. I suppose I never believed that she was there, waiting, as recipient, and I'm not sure what I would have said, in years past, on paper.
My mother-in-law says she cannot imagine, as a mom, not being proud of me. She is very kind. There is pride, and Pride; and I have understood that for my mother I am on the cold inverse of the sentiment. Mother puzzles over me and makes comparisons. I tacitly admit the rationale. I make odd choices; everyone voicing an opinion, has told me as much.
Mother has graciously let it go after all, as notable, but uninteresting. We both know that I don't have anything to offer her--- I am useless as a backscratcher. There is simply nothing I can do for her, pragmatically. She has lived life as a sort of barter, with the eye on always coming up ahead. Having expected a man to take care of her, she has learned that money takes care of her. She steels herself to this state of affairs.
She told me a few years ago that, for Enlightenment, I am not ready.
(*My sister, yes; She has paid her dues, I suppose.)
I can only marvel at the confidence of the proclamation. I lay no claims, and wouldn't dare cast judgement... I guess I hadn't much thought about reaching Enlightenment, sitting out here in the dark peripheries of our misunderstandings. My childish hope was that we take care of each other.
If I were to write to my Mom, in abstraction of all that binds us in our interpersonal experience, I would write something she would likely dismiss as "dispassionate essay:"
Dear Mother,
Motherhood is not at all what I expected.
You cryptically said to me, a couple years in, when my child was almost three that "Now" I understand, and know. Truly, I do not. I rather sense some discrepancies in our perceptions and acknowledge the inaccuracy of my own viewpoints. The insinuation I feel is that, now, presumably I understand what it is to be pegged. Saddled. Of course, with affection and responsibility. Because that is the sentiment that I associate with our family reflection of child rearing-- The burden wrought.
And I observe the key differences that may or may not have been fully voiced. That motherhood "happens" in different ways. It has been expressed as lament, in our family circle, as the limitation of self. The facts remain, Mother, that you yourself said you were "not ready," and my sister though eager, was "surprised" by pregnancy. You've each countered that I was so reluctant and calculated as to "sap the Romance out of it"... well, certainly everyone's notion of such fantasy is varied. I have never doubted anyone's Love, in the short- or long-term.
I understand that having a child, or children, is tiring. The state of being on alert, all the time, is not necessarily shared by all parents though. I have learned this in watching the families of my preschool students. I also know it, from being left, so often unattended as a child, without adult supervision; under the care of my sister, two years older, and sometimes not even that. I understand the impulse that sometimes overwhelms and makes a parent want to withdraw. I have felt it.
For whatever it was that made you want to pull away, Mom, I am sorry.
I hope I never hit you, pinched you, scratched you, spit at you, demeaned you or otherwise made you feel faced with contempt. I am wracking my memory for any such incident and cannot remember. And I cannot think of a thing more heartbreaking, abusive and demoralizing. A form of domestic violence that has no legal recourse, the abuser being a minor and outside of the law.
So, as you have doubtlessly wondered: what then do I think of Motherhood? I have not found that being a parent is aww and diapers, sleepless nights, and adventures. That was understood. To be sure, I expected it to be, for lack of a better word, "work." I hoped for Motherhood, as an ideal; an opportunity I suppose. I was looking to be fully present, and now, have these constant questions: ...Have I done the right things? Where have I gone wrong? ...What can I do to make a correction for my apparent, yet undeciphered, errors? ...for surely, the evidence shows, if only in my own sight, that I am doing something not right... to have fears about my child.
Of all of this, naturally, you are unaware. You are not here; pictures sent show only smiles, and I have said nothing, except the underlying truth that yes, I am happy to be a Mom.
Perhaps it is of these misgivings that you speak of... when you say, "Now...you know."
M.
Asleep on your Shoulder
I fell asleep on your shoulder
Window shut out all the light and the clouds
I would've watched the sun fall
But I guess I'll fall instead
We have tea and little marbles
Rolling like fate's dice through outstretched fingers
Interlocking puzzle pieces
Over and over again
Sugar water and vanilla sticks
Sun burns across our necks
I wish I could fold you up like a love note
And bring you with me in my pocket
Sluggish thoughts in the middle of the night
But I know the shape of your face
Colorless dreams and creaking silence
Let's fall asleep again,
My head on your shoulder
Just like it should be
running
I’m smarter, more successful
Also sadder, more stressful
suffocating
Pit fever burning
waiting and yearning
Stomach dropped nerves
no straight lines
it‘s all curves
taking me at breakneck speed
I should be on top of the world
but I’m chasms deep
high pressure
high stakes
low faith
another mistake
time ticking to the dead line
my brain screaming it’s not fine
guilt sits, Atlas shrugged
anger burns, anxiety runs
Before all things you were
Before all things you were the
Dance-- a cadence and cadenza
Without form --
Like water and
Air in brass are born -- to be
Nourishment and to become
Song-- edelweiss white like
Keats' dove swimming without
Reflection -- the language without
An inflection of sadness, you are
Like the lillies coursing on
The surface-- but already passing the
Shadow of their flame long eidolons
Into these depths
You come to me shade-like in days
Of relaxation, days of duress
The curtailed mesh of the Firetrees
Falling in unison over the Cyperus
And the fireweed-- above in
Whisper is the flanging
Orange of blossoms and their
Fruition
They fixate the light- transparent
They lance the dusky shadow
Of blue-- lucid, my mind's
Language moving through
It in minuets
Flaring on the sea the algae--
The cambric of your moss and
Mountain meadows
And cooling - the Cyperus and
The vert Eucalyptus
I make of my heart like the brass
Waiting for another song of you
To blow through. I ache without you
Before all things you are
The cadence and the dance
You traffic to me in dreams
You came into being
Older than Adze prior to the Lance
Before the pen- supposed arrow - had to become this
Blunt axe in the hands of these poets
Shifted, before the poets before the
Quinzana and quincunx-
You are ancient as purple maize
That dots the earth wave upon
Wave, interlave into one
Impression
I have wagered my way to find
You-- for always is the Cuneiform
Of your language weaving through
My dreams-- you the formless
Language before being, words bow
Before you-- like the wheat
Bows to wind -- original and
Invisible force born within
Sheaf upon sheaf of me
Courses with evidence of
Your presence
Oh-- and neither the concave
Shelters of wake or dream can
Wreck it. Warmth of the sands piling
On sands and knowing what rest is.
Beneath the artifact of a hidden
Message. Will it ever be found?
Sometimes silence is
Everywhere -- and reading
A poem is all that
Can break it. Then water
Molds the clay, the unmakes it.
That is the intent with which
I ask you to read this poem.
Wherever the lucid day is
Whatever the lucid day is