in the morning dark
only care now.
only open hands
in tremors.
you are still asleep
and I remember.
how
I carried you to the shore
before
you could walk and we
sat there watching. you
collected grains of sand.
between your palms
to feel them.
trembling
and then to the sea
to meet with open hand
her power and know her
press against your own.
the slapping sound,
the open palm,
your laugh––
remember.
Hello chaos, my old friend.
Say a tide is rising, and fast. At the shore this is a matter of life and death. But from a great distance there it is again, the same sea.
This morning, something tentative creeps in, a primal anxiety no doubt connected to next week’s return to school, and a sense of how quickly the pace and volume of everything will soon feel out of hand.
One learns early on to keep such observations to oneself in mixed company because if overheard by someone older or a man, this someone may feel compelled to remind you that you control the pace and if it feels out of hand you must simply set a new one. Often this admonishment is happening during a passing period bell, active shooter drill, or rush to use the bathroom between alarms.
At the onslaught of these regular doses of another’s “teachable moment” it is polite to nod as if this is the first time encountering such sage advice and sometimes when nodding while maintaining a facial expression of earnest seriousness, it is not uncommon to hear the voice of a student objecting, “They tryna gaslight you!” and feel awash in a mischievous joy that is not easy to describe.
When the inevitable updates come about who died, is dying, or has disappeared, one’s grief or concern must never publicly extend beyond the prescribed moment of silence. This understanding is critical to the choreography of this theatre. “Compartmentalize!” a principal urged us last year, in the wake of the most recent tragedy. He was one of the good ones so we returned with wan smiles of solidarity. He is gone now. March on, march on.
The Sea, the Sea: The title of the Iris Murdoch novel I am finishing in these final days, set in a landscape entirely different from this one––rocky coastline, weedy paths, long hours of solitude, and the drinking of imported claret at midday. And yet, with people arriving and leaving, whose unpredictable weathers nevertheless follow recognizable patterns.
Here are people who miss the quiet when it shatters, who want to remind others that they may take some of it with them, anytime. Who want to feel as though some measure of presumed authority has been earned. Who know better than to go around unsuspecting. Who are aware that part of what is happening in moments when one feels the rug tugging from beneath the feet involves some sleight of hand.
Who are nevertheless bewildered by it all, even as they walk back out there, pretending to have seen it all before.
Shapes, shifting
In one account, she is the wine-dark carrier of iron-laden sons to strange shores of inscrutable speech. Often, she swallows them whole. In another, she is moved by strong wind through the night to become a wall. Then she falls and swallows them whole.
The yet-to-be swallowed write of dreaded creatures in her waters, of her treacherous subtlety, and speculate that what she is keeping from them is surely a clue to their deaths.
When they get like this, she sighs another tide and wonders with a bright bloom of red, if any of these can remember beyond the tales of monsters and bewitchers, how once she beheld him from below where he stood, looking, and offered back to him the shine of his own face.
At the cliff from which this land begins to slide.
Harpooned by grief, time comes to cut the line
of this dogged continuance and admit the map
language won’t translate. Birds enter water
after fish and we stop to absorb the impact
of what they are doing out there, almost
all of it unknown. We would circle and bow
if we could reach them. Now, we think, is time
to map another language for where has never
been a destination, taking boats that take on
water to pull us into her countenance, that we
will know that we have only ever been a
people of unmarked territories, our names
unwritten where they still against the gums
of uncut teeth.
