93. I Don’t Know What It Is
Kinder and singing towards the hook,
the chill of late August is a hint,
coming around the last bend of Alaska,
accumulations of accumulations of
memories like grandchild followed
by grandchild, and the hope of
moving from place to desired place,
in the sequence of a life not
imagined but lived, the liquid of it
its necessary unpredictability,
you had an eye on it, like medium rare
lamb and baby potatoes, all the
young things we eat to keep
from growing old or away,
disappointments in a narrow band
of a broad life are enough to bear,
yet not each life is broad, and sometimes
the disappointments are the bulk
of living and letting, and letting go
is the only option, but these have
passed you as you have passed on
to that second life, full of wanting’s
reward, waiting’s replaced, and every
morning is a gift of light and warm,
to the right degree, a birthday for
a woman whose months multiplied
by her days are her months, in number,
a numerological charm guaranteeing
your life and pleasure, the speed
of getting to the speed of wanting,
and the long gaze at the landscape
of land and sky or a baby’s eyes
seeing what it doesn’t yet know it sees,
yet showing all you’ll ever want to see,
the deep blue an eye begins with,
color of the sea a ship’s prows
parts to give the vessel such sights
as every tourist takes and every
eye desires, but it is the time,
not the sight, or if the sight
then the sight and the scent,
and the sound and the taste
of the food and the touch and
the time of it that makes any
experience worth the waiting of
a life out, across, but never through
to see what you might only once
see but will hold with you as
a passport to another country
you will never visit again, even
if your own, even if your own
town, for every experience
is a flowing moment away
from you just as a tiny
grandchild suddenly
grows to a man who
recalls his grandma
smiling at him but
the rest is dim
because she is
whispering now
into his ear
and singing a
a scrap of a
forgotten
song.
the chill of late August is a hint,
coming around the last bend of Alaska,
accumulations of accumulations of
memories like grandchild followed
by grandchild, and the hope of
moving from place to desired place,
in the sequence of a life not
imagined but lived, the liquid of it
its necessary unpredictability,
you had an eye on it, like medium rare
lamb and baby potatoes, all the
young things we eat to keep
from growing old or away,
disappointments in a narrow band
of a broad life are enough to bear,
yet not each life is broad, and sometimes
the disappointments are the bulk
of living and letting, and letting go
is the only option, but these have
passed you as you have passed on
to that second life, full of wanting’s
reward, waiting’s replaced, and every
morning is a gift of light and warm,
to the right degree, a birthday for
a woman whose months multiplied
by her days are her months, in number,
a numerological charm guaranteeing
your life and pleasure, the speed
of getting to the speed of wanting,
and the long gaze at the landscape
of land and sky or a baby’s eyes
seeing what it doesn’t yet know it sees,
yet showing all you’ll ever want to see,
the deep blue an eye begins with,
color of the sea a ship’s prows
parts to give the vessel such sights
as every tourist takes and every
eye desires, but it is the time,
not the sight, or if the sight
then the sight and the scent,
and the sound and the taste
of the food and the touch and
the time of it that makes any
experience worth the waiting of
a life out, across, but never through
to see what you might only once
see but will hold with you as
a passport to another country
you will never visit again, even
if your own, even if your own
town, for every experience
is a flowing moment away
from you just as a tiny
grandchild suddenly
grows to a man who
recalls his grandma
smiling at him but
the rest is dim
because she is
whispering now
into his ear
and singing a
a scrap of a
forgotten
song.
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