AN OFFERING
When a creature dies ... the flesh
and soft parts of the body rot quickly.
All that is left are the bones and teeth.
(textbook entry on 'fossils')
Sometimes. You, mother,
dying, left what was hard first:
bones weeping into
your veins like flutes, teeth
vanished on some hospital
lunch tray. In your last
mute days you parted
with one more hard thing: the gold
ring I was to save
for my child. As your
hand offered that bright circle
(only seen as a
whole now, when empty)
did your thoughts reach, like mine, for
your first wedding ring?
You took that one off
when I was seven or eight
and sent it spinning
from a car window.
I can still feel the wet blades
of grass slipping through
my fingers, night dew
coming on, you and father
loud in the parked car.
I searched there as if
life spilled from a ring that lay
somewhere out of sight
but within reach, hid
where only the crickets knew.
I took the scraping
of their mating calls
for crying, as if they shared
loss -- my childish heart
consoled by a soft
'as if.' The consolation
carries on: their song
(light as air, softer
than voices) plays through my thoughts
about that evening
and fills the lost ring's
hollow with life's most lasting
part, cries for new love.
When a creature dies ... the flesh
and soft parts of the body rot quickly.
All that is left are the bones and teeth.
(textbook entry on 'fossils')
Sometimes. You, mother,
dying, left what was hard first:
bones weeping into
your veins like flutes, teeth
vanished on some hospital
lunch tray. In your last
mute days you parted
with one more hard thing: the gold
ring I was to save
for my child. As your
hand offered that bright circle
(only seen as a
whole now, when empty)
did your thoughts reach, like mine, for
your first wedding ring?
You took that one off
when I was seven or eight
and sent it spinning
from a car window.
I can still feel the wet blades
of grass slipping through
my fingers, night dew
coming on, you and father
loud in the parked car.
I searched there as if
life spilled from a ring that lay
somewhere out of sight
but within reach, hid
where only the crickets knew.
I took the scraping
of their mating calls
for crying, as if they shared
loss -- my childish heart
consoled by a soft
'as if.' The consolation
carries on: their song
(light as air, softer
than voices) plays through my thoughts
about that evening
and fills the lost ring's
hollow with life's most lasting
part, cries for new love.