Four Aprils old
His heart knows
Only joy
Proud and brave
He stands up straight
In uniform
My girl intent
Upon his lunchbox
Putting in
Taking out
Balancing . . .
Her eyelids not quite dry
I look at her
She looks at him
He waves at me
We spin in a ring of love
And recognise the day
Child of my child, I
scoop you up and hug you, breathe
you in and keep you.
Four Aprils old
His heart knows
Only joy
Proud and brave
He stands up straight
In uniform
My girl intent
Upon his lunchbox
Putting in
Taking out
Balancing . . .
Her eyelids not quite dry
I look at her
She looks at him
He waves at me
We spin in a ring of love
And recognise the day
Of separation
The music filled the room
We pushed the table back
Stacked the chairs and
Formed a ring to watch
My daughter dance
Spangled eyes alight
With joy of movement
She whirled, birled
Arms and legs abandoned
And while she whirled she changed
Grew, evolved, emerged
A stranger unconnected
All her own self, on her own
Future firing headlong
Detached from my detaining hands
The beat drummed louder
Finished and the stranger sank
Triumphant, flushed and
Laughing, enjoying our applause
Turned to me for confirmation
My girl again
But never quite the same.
Many books have very disappointing endings, especially thrillers. The last few chapters are boring dreary things with the detective/policeman/woman explaining in tedious detail how she/he unraveled the plot. With other genres it’s as if the writer flounders a bit and doesn’t know quite where to finish the tale. But then there are wonderful books with wonderful endings and here are a couple of them:
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
“Quoyle experienced moments in all colors, uttered brilliancies, paid attention to the rich sound of waves counting stones, he laughed and wept, noticed sunsets, heard music in rain, said I do. A row of shining hubcaps on sticks appeared in the front yard of the Burke’s house. A wedding present from the bride’s father . . . Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat’s blood, mountaintops give off cold fires, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.”
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
“And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next.”
Ablutions by Patrick de Witt
“I will try to be happy, you think, and your heart and chest feel a plummeting, as in the case of the hurtling rollercoaster, and your heart wants to cry and sob, but you, not wanting to cry, hit yourself hard in the center of your chest and it hurts so much but you drive on, your face dry and remaining dry, though it had been a close call, after all. Time passes and you shake your head. Work will drive you crazy if you let it, you say. You do not speak for a long time after this.”
I can read these books any number of times. Every word is in the right place, the last sentence as important as the first.
The punch is spiked with glory
My senses leaping and alive
For tonight to listen is enough
And through the music of the music
Runs an old familiar voice
A thread of scarlet joy, moving
In my blood, weaving through my heart
And lungs and lights, pulling tighter
Ever tighter ‘til I scarcely breathe
Caught like a bunch of doe-eyed pansies
My eyes are dark and wild with wonder
At such intensity of being
That I must weep for being almost whole.
amazon.com/author/elizabethmerry
embookstuff 