A voice calls out when I see the sun cast a
light softer than pink in the sunset upon
the beach. Some mornings I wake, and
I don’t open her door. Some mornings,
I wake and remember the wish to hear
her
is a want and a wish without grounds
in this reality, but upon the sun’s
stroke on the ground, I raise my
eyes to the branches of trees twisted
as threads
in a rope.
I ask a question myself:
Who calls my name and bids me
to walk out on a winter dawn
when frost covers the grass with a
green like an emerald
when its luster is gone?
Questions come to mind in the
quietest of moments broken
only by the bark of her puppy,
soon-to-be dog, I walk in the
field still mown by my John.
I remember her love of the
puppy I walk when I miss
her and my Jack …
gone to sleep two months
to the day after her when
a car hit
him and left
him to die.
So soon the months go by,
and with time people
return in masks to the grocery
store and buy their baked chicken
for Thursday’s night’s chicken-and-rice.
But
Time does not easily erase
the wounds given out in May,
and there are questions I ask
myself just as I wonder who
calls my name on this
morning, to me, so enduring.
Yes, I confess, I prefer it to May.
I question why I didn’t just
bring the puppies inside for
two minutes while I let them
run around, so I could feed
my son, and I wonder why …
Some pastors still preach
praises from the pulpit of
a demagogue’s lies when a
real leader of the people
stepped up to do his job.
This same man took to his
duty not long after he lost his first
wife and young daughter
in a wreck. Sworn into
service next to his young
and injured sons. Still he
proclaims to have faith.
There are questions I ask
myself, such as: Does he
still think of Naomi,
and later his Beau,
and hope someone
will say their names
the way I hope
people will still say
my Corrie’s name?
Again I hear the voice that calls my name
in a certain way when she says, “Mom-mae”
as if she’s at the kitchen door, and
I’m in the field with the puppies as
they run. Jack, and not Corrie’s
Jasmine Rose, brings the ball back to me.
Now, out of such gold and glitter
memories, I look to the ground,
and there I see sparkles upon a fawn
leaf. It glitters so bright in the sun
and the specks of frost glitter. How
they remind me of the shades of a
prom dress Corrie might wear in
my daydreams. The gleam grows
brighter from the white and the
faded green on the lawn. I see her
spin, and again I hear her say,
“I’m not a dead child.”
Questions, still, sometimes haunt
me against the blitz of 1980s’ music
that reminds of her legacy: There’s
no such thing as too much glitter,
the way I bundled the baggy t-shirts
she sometimes wears when she
performs into a scrunchy, and the
need to dance when there’s no
formal reason at all, and the belief
that unicorns really do exist.
I question if I had only listened to
the sometimes stomach pains and
how swollen it was even if there
were no other signs.
Even when others say
the fault’s not mine.
The shadow fades when I again
see the sparkles upon the field
fail to fade, and Corrie’s Jasmine
Rose barks. I hear her voice call
me, “Mom-mae,” and I see her
throw glitter in a room with
Whitney Houston and balloons.
Corrie's Season 