A Leaf Falls

A Leaf Falls

The whirs and beeps of life-sustaining machines no longer intrude on my consciousness; they have become as natural as my breath. Nurses rustling past my door are ghosts from a distant memory. Warmth arrives as my daughter gently tucks in my blanket, protecting me from an omnipresent flow of cool air. Sounds are distant, mostly irrelevant now.

At last my family recognizes and responds to infinitesimal signals – the upward curve of my mouth, a tiny wrinkle appearing in my forehead, an escaping sigh. A lifetime of hurt where words never sufficed has passed. 

Harsh feelings and miscommunications were the patterns in the days when I longed to be understood. Now -- when I yearn to take my journey alone -- people focus on every gesture and sound, and hold me here. 

I'm a dried leaf clinging to a dead branch, assaulted by a chilled wind. Release, I need release.

My parents and grandparents attend me without words. They know I will come to them when I can – when the living allow me to leave. Smiling, my ancestors wait for me in the blazing sunlit corner of the room. Untiring arms reach out, extending an invitation to join them.

The wind nudges me again. This time I open my hand and let go. I glide away from the tree as the wind lifts me up. We dance, the wind and I, for a precious moment. If I plummet to the ground and am no more, this brief instant of freedom is worth it all. 

He sets me down gently beside family and friends. I am warm.

Guest Poet: Jack Gilbert R.I.P.

As is Synchronicity's way, this blog post was pre-scheduled to run today. Yesterday, Jack Gilbert's heart blazed white-hot as his earthly fields perished.

May your Love grow ever brighter. I shall think of you every time I see a rowboat or hear an oar touch water. R.I.P., Jack Gilbert. I for one shall risk delight.~~GH

Getting Ready

What if the heart does not pale as the body wanes 

 but is like the sun that blazes hotter each day 

on these immense, perishing fields? What then?

~~Jack Gilbert

What, indeed. ~~GH

And if you have a little more time, contemplate this one.

A Brief for the Defense, by Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God Wants.

Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.