The death of his (the ex) memory came
in the letting go. So did the worship of
Buddha, chanting mantras, writing down
affirmations. Meditation. Things started
to happen for me then. Shelter (the silence of
my bedroom became almost lyrical). Salt
and light touched the morning, my breakfast nook and toast.
The sky cold and blue even on a summer’s
day. The forecast was that protest has its
own pace. So did the kitchen table bathed
in orange light. I too had a public image, a
front and a private one. As did my father and mother.
We seemed to be ghosts tied to each other.
From ankle to ankle. Sworn to secrecy as
to what had kept us together through the centuries.
After reincarnation, our debts to each other
were still not settled. Although we never
returned as ghosts. Each one of us. To roam this world.
Unforgiving. Wretched as death. Our travels
began like any season did. With harmony.
We only had a watered down love to give
that made it difficult to let go of each other.
We walked down the same corridors until
they gave us the knowledge of all things
But that didn’t matter. It never distracted us.
It gave us a colossal vision and we learned
in our own way to love our cares, and our
burdens and each other all over again in an
eternally country way. Every birth was like
a holiday by the sea and every death was a
rural countryside winter. A ghetto. Small child.
Dark eyes. She has a halo. A German nose.
She looks like her mother and her father.
It was a daughter that taught my parents how to
hold each other up in seismic times. It is that
same daughter that is writing this now. The facts of her life.
Filling in the blank spaces of longing for a partnership that
could carry her all her days for the rest of her life.