Archive
11/01/08
Seven Lines
Though it was an exquisite Saturday, An exceptionally warm, colorfully tree-leafy afternoon, A Septemberish November day, if ever there was one, When only a fool would be indoors, There I was, at my office desk, absorbed in my work.
Suddenly, I stirred, as if awakened from the dead, Phoned my mother, whom I knew to be alone, Sequestered at home, despite the radiant weather, As any ninety-three-year-old would likely be, And suggested I pay her a visit.
That was 2:30; she was just eating her lunch. I'd be there at 3:00. Elation elevated her voice. But when I arrived at her house, She didn't respond to my backdoor-bell rings. I used my spare key, turned off her alarm, yelled upstairs.
My voice echoed in the dark halls where I'd grown up. She didn't respond. I left, did an errand, Returned, fifteen minutes later, rang again. No answer. Thinking she was away, with my sister, I drove home, Only to find three frantic messages on my answering machine.
"L.D., I can't imagine what could have happened. I must have been on the phone. I missed you, by seconds. By the time I heard the bell and I grabbed my shoes, Ran downstairs, you were pulling out of the driveway. I could see you, through the dining-room window. I cried."
Not ten minutes later, my phone rang. I answered it. "L.D., it's me, again. I just thought of a poem you could write about." Before I could finish briefing her on spontaneity — How I approach composition with an open mind,
Freeing me to create afresh, Upon imagination's tabula rasa, And how I don't like borrowing another's ideas — She broke into her seven-line poem. "Nice, Mom. But tonight, I'll write about something else."
Now, sitting by myself, in this restaurant, I recall the lines she recited, in her last phone call, And realize that if I tried to write a poem About this afternoon's miscues, bad timing, I couldn't come close to anything so poignant:
"I went to see my mother, But she wasn't there. But she was there, And she had tears in her eyes, Because she missed you, And she ran down the stairs, Carrying her shoes."
But no matter how I try to focus my thoughts On the election or the economy, I can't. And so, her verse speaks for me, after all, Expressing, forever, how disappointed we were, Having missed our visit, this exquisite Saturday.
11/01/08
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