Age of Wonder/Age of Horror

In these binary years
I suppose the greatest thing
You could say about someone 
Is that you don’t know
Where they stand;
You might think you do
But you could be wrong.

And so this is a note
In praise
Of ambiguity.

***

Alas,
This is also
A notice
Of some personal alarm.

I have been thinking 
These past few days
Of granting my sister,
Who views me as an albatross 
Except when she doesn’t,
What she has suggested
Quite strongly 
In the past,
What she so fondly desires

Which is to make
An informal exit
From the life
Of the most important person 
In my life.

Which is to say
My niece.

***

One year ago
Yesterday
I saw her in person
For the last time.

This is pandemic time
And so time is relative
For everyone 
But I take this one personally.

Five years and six months ago
She was born.

Five years and four months ago
I spent my first week with her.

Five years and three months ago
I spent two months watching her all day.

Four years and four months ago
I began watching her for a whole year.

Three years and four months ago
That age of wonder ended.

Three years and two months ago
An age of horror began.

One year and six months ago
I had to say goodbye.

One year and one day ago
I got to say hello
And goodbye
On the same day.

And now it is today
And I wonder
If I’m not doing myself 
More harm than good
Pretending that I can keep this up
And not go mad.

She is young enough
To forget me.

She has a family,
Even a baby brother
Born last year.

She does not need me.

She may still delight
At the thought of me
Now,
Glow in effervescent seconds
During video chats.

Well.

I made a mistake this year.

I miscalculated.

I tend to do this.

Bask in an illusion
And perhaps wallow
In equal delusion,
Afterward,
When it seems to shatter.

I wrote something 
For her,
As I have every Christmas.

I sent it around
To family,
And received silence
In return.

My Christmas 
Was a silent night.

Except this one 
Was not hope.

It was
Despair.

So now
I wonder
If I should be,
As the world
Seems so intent 
To be,
Binary.
 
To switch off.

To quit trying
To balance
The wonder
And the horror.

And to let
My niece
Live her life
Without me.

***

The fraught ambiguity
Remains
That in the great span of years to come,
This might not matter.

She might not forget me.

She might
And she might not.

Or,
When she is older
She might rediscover me.

Or, as anyone who
Watches a child grow
Must do,
Glimpse her works
From a distance
And be content 
With that.

***

I am not the first one
And I will not be the last,
To be asked,
Or worse yet,
To ask myself 
To leave a child’s life
Early.

Alas.

Were that the world
Did not accept such cruelty.

Such is life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Twenty Years

Twenty years later and this is still the only day in American history like this. (Except the burning of the White House, War of 1812, 8/24/14, a response to York.) That is what  we felt in those days. In WWII this is what Europe looked like, a continent. This is what it looks like when war happens. This is what traumatized  a nation. In twenty years  many things have happened since. Incredibly, it took no time at all to forget how that day felt. No time at all, and there were people who argued it was staged. That’s the world we live in. No time at all and politicians started thinking, “We will lose power if this remains the narrative.” No time at all and the reality of a war became a preamble to twenty years  of claiming it was America that turned aggressor. Twenty years and they still work to identify  the bodies. Twenty years of victims. Twenty years, a lifetime  for a new generation  born after and growing up in the shadow of fallen towers. Twenty years after a morning in which I wa
Read more

The Rat Was In the White House

The rat was in the White House. Vile, Diseased, Infested, Vermin. And yet for all that There was also Something exotic, Challenging every preconception, And sometimes that Provokes Inspiration, Shaking loose The doldrums, The humdrum, The routine. It was an interesting four years. And it will be For many years To come. History won’t soon Forget. Although, You know, Stranger things Have happened.
Read more

All My Favorite Colors

I don’t know, I’ve never particularly  Had a problem Integrating the world. But that’s the problem That so often happens  For others, And I think It’s the biggest problem. It’s great to know How things are different  But to keep them Locked up in little boxes, Separate, Apart, Deliberately, Defiantly, Angrily, Defensively, As if something will be lost... And I get it, Sometimes  There have been efforts To lose identity  By force, To integrate By eliminating  A minority’s features, And that was always wrong. But it’s also wrong To repudiate The melting pot. It’s wrong To rob yourself Of the ability To embrace unfamiliar things Because you think  It might threaten  The integrity Of what you’ve got. But listen, You have no integrity If you fear such a world. You lose far more Than you retain If you hide from The possibilities. If all you experience  Is an echo chamber Then eventually  You go deaf. So this is a message For all my sisters and my brothers.
Read more