Chance Encounter

The trio of little blues waded in the morning fog,

their bodies  a stark contrast to the dark of the mud flats.

All around, heavy mist rose in wavering bands

that filtered through the red fingers of the sumac. What chance

that I’d be here at this precise moment. That I’d coast

on my bike toward the head of the tide, round the curve

and hear the still-rushing water of the stream

bordered now by purple asters. That I’d catch

 a glimpse of their elegant bodies, so still as I approached,

then graceful in movement as they combed the tidal pools.

I stood in silence. A runner passed. My camera caught

the mirror of herons against rippling water.

Something to take with me.

To prove my good fortune.

Reluctantly, I hoisted a leg over my bike

and pedaled homeward.

The man behind the deli counter—

the one with the helpful tips

about stuffing pork chops

and steaming sausages--

that man was my favorite.

He was a Norman Rockwell kind of clerk,

someone who provided comfort

in an often uncomfortable world,

a good example of what most people

would say they like about life in a small town.

.

That man, according to the Maine State

Sex Offender Registry, weighs 165 pounds.

is five feet, seven inches tall,

and is a lifetime registrant.

I had already noticed that his eyes were blue.

They smiled back at me from behind the counter.

But I didn’t know that he is my brother’s age,

or that he lives in Monroe and celebrates his birthday in May.

I didn’t know that somewhere there is a child

who wakes up most nights remembering his touch.

He was just the friendly man at the deli counter,

and now I’m wondering how to feel about him,

this one who was my favorite,

how to reconcile the words in his record

with my sense of his kindness,

how to watch his hands cut and weigh

my grass-fed hamburger

without picturing those same hands

in a dark room on some child’s body.

Tuesday is the day they make the sausages.

I wonder if he’ll be working.

In the darkness

he makes his choice,

and her life turns in the same moonlight 

that has always silhouetted  the clown

dangling on a swing above her bed

where the hearts-and-flowers quilt

matches the paper I pressed

to the walls of her bedroom

when she was not quite five,

but she is twelve now,

with a body that both confuses

and frightens

as he runs his hands

over her budding breasts.                                                                                                 

He moves in silence

while I, unknowing, lie sleeping down the hall

in a bed we’ve shared for sixteen years.

Each morning, he sips his coffee.

Each night, he takes his seat at the table’s head

intoning the prayer of his father’s homeland:

Alle guten gaben… kommt o Gott von dir…

Through years of oblivion,

I believed there was goodness,

that God did, indeed, bring gifts,

and I made my way, hopeful

that stepping carefully ensured a right path,

that keeping peace staved off the bite of his anger,

that loving my children well offered them sanctuary.

Now, in each moment of surfacing,

I feel the burden of his choice,

and the illusion of overcoming 

slips away.

Too late, I realize that life always follows choice,

sometimes in ways one cannot imagine,

often in ways one cannot control,

and that anger ripples outward

in ever-widening circles.

Life holds sorrow like a weeping willow,

like the trunk of a plum tree

fractured by the weight of heavy snow,

its fragrance forever erased, all these years later,

by the anger that strips bare my fragile heart.

The Ferocity of Grief

A keening cry—

incomprehensible truth—

a father’s fading voice—

regrets felt in the fog

of dreams where,

over and over,

you make mistakes

and  someone is watching.

In one dream, it is your job to prepare

a room for your father’s body.

Somehow, you’ve scratched the floor

into an unholy mess—

hardwood marked by deep gauges.

In another, a woman stands before you,

scissors slowly snipping the threads of your clothing.

A Sudden Arrival

The east wind—direction of spring, dawn and rebirth—brings an eagle,

white tail feathers and head ablaze against dirty March snow.

Out of nowhere, it touches down on a highway guardrail,

then lifts off directly in our path. Penobscot Nation members believe

an eagle comes to teach and only when you are ready to learn.

With Mount Katahdin’s snowy peak to our left, the forest to our right,

we ride on in silence on the day of my dad’s death. Endless asphalt

stretches snake-like before us. Like the eagle, word of my father’s death

had come earlier that morning, and each time I close my eyes, I remember

the startled cry, the blaze of sun on ice-capped snow.

A bridge between heaven and earth, the eagle reminds us to love the shadow

as much as the light. Sacred messenger, it carries our prayers to all that is Spirit.

With each passing mile, I summon the courage the eagle carries.