Urban revelation

Pain sears through the blocks, clearing the traffic, clearing the sky.
Love comes like this, life too.
Big days and bigger nights. How can we balance our deaths so that they don’t tip us
off or over, into or under?

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Celebrating 60

My daughter is preparing to celebrate my sixtieth birthday.
A few hours earlier, here she is:

My son and daughter asked me what I would like to accomplish in the next year. Life is so full now, I told them. As my personal future diminishes, the present intensifies, almost unbearably at times, with what is. What I hope for is to be present in its unfolding, a few more days, months, years. But I also know that my responsibility is not over. There is more agency ahead, even though now I’m in the back seat.

Sooner or later, the time comes to pack up. We’re on the road again, moving forward.

Christmas day–play, hope, and love

Couldn’t we combine faith and hope–stolid fides and eternally springing spes–to open up space for a new third in the dynamic that is driven by love? Faith-keeping play, faith-keeping hope, and faith-keeping love? A bit clumsy in the phrasing. But children–and dogs–know that play is what combines the elements of water, fire, earth, and air.

To make snow, of course.

I saw three ships come sailing in on Christmas Day, on Christmas Day.

I saw three ships come sailing in on Christmas Day in the morning.

Rage

I raged.

I said horrible things. I said them over and over because she’s ninety and can’t remember one sentence when the next one is spoken.

I said I hate your disgusting G-d. Your decrepit bible decaying on the dining room table nauseates me. I said, when I needed you, you prayed. You never asked me, how can I help? I repeated the bile, dragged it up again and again. 

Until she remembered this: I don’t want to hear, “I’m a terrible mother.” I want to hear, “I love you.”