I Try to Remember

Lying knee deep in a moss-green bed

I wake up and I am teen-aged.

The river rolls by

renaming my fear of goodbyes.

30 bucks in my pocket says

I can make it to college.

In the meantime,

I sing from musical memory

in simple rhythmic ripples

only to remain chest high

in the sun-deep sea.

I stay here because I choose to.

I try to remember little-girl landscapes:

when I’d listen to lovers laughing

in the shade of the cypress trees,

watching tree limbs shake their leaves,

standing silent and still

beside Burnt Mill Creek,

black butterflies dancing in summer heat,

my father pushing hair off my face,

both of us ink-drawing with salt-sweat

dripping off our sunburned cheeks

onto ink-sketched paper.

In between sketch pads,

my father reads Lorca,

speaking in our first language-

the language of his father’s father.

We speak Spanish under Spanish moss.

We are in this frame together,

bonded by blood.

I try to remember.

Legacy

A boy once asked me:

“How do you want to be remembered?”

Just a way of making

casual conversation

to fill the empty space.

I almost said:

“No one is remembered, not really.

We all fade,

and yet,

there is always an effort

to be real.

Everlasting.

Undying even in death.

We are but a flower in the heat of summer, a wave upon the shore.”

No one is eternal.

I did not say that though.

I just smiled,

a liar's smile

and spoke meaningless words.

Something about writing a book.

Ink lasts,

until it doesn’t.

Thoughts memorialized,

the beautiful

and

the ugly.

Ripped, torn, judged by future generations.

Do we want to be remembered?

I never said the last part either.

And so the conversation continued,

lighthearted, insubstantial.

Empty words for empty people.

Soon to be forgotten.

No one wants to be remembered.

An Ode to Emily

My father’s words

Painful in their lovely way

Pierce all that I once knew

He says on high and mighty - this is true

“No matter you, your thoughts, your deeds

You commit with unintentional ease

My heart will shatter your warped needs

My roaring thunder will force you to your knees

My intoxicating sobriety -

A new way to breathe”

“I see now, I see!” I reply

As my colors fade white

As my eyes finally close -

Wondering if this god-like savior

Was really a demon wearing clothes?

His truth was mysterious

His language was real

I wish I could remember

All the rest he said

But too alive in death was I

To realize I was dead.