The Turning

 Things stop.

There is a day before, a day after,

Then and now,

Which change in an instant.

This is the moment I wonder about:

The tractor in the field, its engine warm yet

And the farmer leaving it there

To dissolve into the earth

Over time.  

Time.

Similarly the pickup at the back of the corn field:

Who decided it need never run again?

Things left and forgotten

And the forgetting, an act of will.

This is what I wonder about:  Why?

The list goes on:

The wheelbarrow left to rot

Behind the garage,

Its plywood sides split

And swelling with dampness

Full yet with weeds you pulled

From your flower garden, Mom.

In what moment did you decide

That was the last time for you?

I imagine you felt as solitary then

As your Bean mocs are now 

In the soft light on Dad’s workbench

Clumped yet with the humus from that last day.

Were your lungs tired

After a day in the garden,

On what would be

Your last day fending for the flowers

While Dad watched from the bench

That stands there empty now, its stain blistered and peeling

In the unforgiving sun--

Though for a time I cared for your flowers for you

As you would watch from your bedroom window.

You joked with me, and I laughed,

Though you were dying.

You turned from your barrow;

I turned toward you.

Tractors, trucks, barrows.

How it is outside.

I come inside now and find

Your needlework

Stuffed in a Bean tote in your closet,

Jammed tight between a heating duct and the wall.

I pull, and there it is:

The eye of a wolf embroidered to life.

There is soul in this fabric: yours.

But a day came to tell you

You would not finish this,

And you put it away.

You could not throw it out

But you left it to be found

And with a certain amount of force.

I had to work for it,

Pulling hard to free it from that hidden space--

Unlike the tractor, the truck, the barrow.

And the cancer cap--

A nylon floral covering

With a shirred panel to cover the neck.

You stuffed that deep in the drawer

Of  your Mother’s end table.

Cancer would take your life

Before you would see yourself decked out

Like a gypsy fortune teller.

You put it away when you were alone. 

You would never be a cancer patient or a survivor;

You would fight this and let go on your terms in your time.  

And so you did.

Outside the window, a neighborhood kid cuts the grass

With your lawnmower.

For how much longer?

That will stop, too.

The boy will walk away from it

And leave the grass to grow around

The rustic chairs and table you placed under the cedar,

A cool place from which to admire the garden.

It will happen in a precise moment:

The clock will cease ticking

And Memory will lift itself skyward;

We will imagine the life that came here 

To rain down as solitude, 

To know you have lived

But could not always.

The immense design is waiting for you,

But you needn’t clean up before you go--

Perhaps mustn’t,

That we may find you

In time, in the turning.

For Mom.