In the Shadow of the Emperor's Malady
Mors certa, vita incerta
“Normal led to this.” — Ed Yong, essay in The Atlantic Magazine
Rondo, coda
in your presence, the world was vital between the backwater gate and the children swinging over the dark creek when we imagined hope, fear dashed between bank and trees and our hearts tarzaned up the sky and nothing could rattle us, not then not ever
or so we believed
once we were smaller than the meadow grass that caressed us from knee to hip
our laughter barely topped the tips of weeds and in the afternoon we grew, gigantic
August light through shadows riddled the flagging blades and the dandruff in our hair
our scars pink from Calamine after love’s first blush, a scampering brush as we ran through the poison ivy
long before patience shied away and later cloaked us in grievances and school marks
time taught us more then
between the sway of your rocking, the occasional trip down the steps toward the beach
your vision curtained by your unkempt locks and your soft breathing and a blistered nose
what daytime hour belied courage and care and your voice clicking between bicycle spokes
for it was you who knew it all, all along it was I who needed protecting
the nesting nosing of the damp heart and fur and fearlessness what is love if not
the good-byes a way through the dark and tucked in the late autumn light, ours was a life of deprivation
as we buried you along the side of hill with buckets of dirt retrieved at night, a prayer book folded as the family stood 2 meters away, a metric immeasurable in the past
calculus changes in the instant and so did we
the sea and the waves, thousand-eyed and wind-in-the-ear
your roots spread up and widened
the taxonomy of love
the question of the algebra inside us
grief bit down for nourishment and the fever fecund as dimpled light
remember these songs and the years, the shadow’s arpeggio
the organ pedals pushed as you whisper what once was right
speak of love and loss into young one’s dreams at night
but all we have left is the sound in the morning of the trees come alive at long last, awake
do you remember when the tenderness of the world fell away and children grew deep into their sleep unbuckled through the months of fright your lasting constituent,
the last of you removed from the hospice care closet I took, your buckskin coat
frays of leather fell from the sleeves, your arms ghost parts, your drunken songs in winter. as others in black hoped for a funeral that could not come, I wore the burnt sienna, the leather a trick of the light every time I dressed on the coat, your arms around me, eternally again embracing me from the cold, forever and unreal
were we right?
