Gemini poem—for the day of seventy-five
I.
not exactly
intimations of immortality.
unlike one of my daughters,
I have no birth
day recollections. (hers of the dip into
a bathtub wash, scented with dried herbs
and rose petals)
indeed, true that - I trust her recall.
(asked about the time of my birth –
for curiosity or astro calculation,
I confess to not knowing,
though there must be a timestamp
somewhere in my documents to
clock the orrery of the universe
and know, for good and ill, my
traits and fates.
I largely disbelieve it
though sometimes come close – but
blown by the wind of the spheres? I
often do
that which I would not)
I do remember
laying in a bassinette
in sun, on a porch
and seeing my grandfather, Cicero,
bending to look in and smile.
first visage and last for me.
gone before I was much past a year,
he crossed over at 74.
a sweet and misinformed friend
messaged me: happy 85th!
I took it for a typo but thought how
suddenly, grandchildren make me
aspire to such an age
not to mention a planet with which
they might, as well.
let 75 be moment sufficient. let it churn
the pot of this solitary day.
let it summon recollection and ask:
what time is it on the clock of the universe?
the clock of our life?
the clock of my heart?
II.
dismembered recollections of a Gazan infant
end in rubble, intimations of Death with a capital D.
fire strikes a camp and spreads tent to tent,
displaced lives and bodies charred stiff,
bitter foretaste of wildfire and the nuclear storm,
ash in our mouth.
the hands on the bulletin clock of the world
reach for midnight’s end,
held yet back, by What, by Whom?
the movement of intercessions embodied,
the tented communities of learners holding space,
spreading faster than flames,
enduring the gas and official blows,
endowments dragged into the light to be divested,
streets overflowed, bridges blocked,
weaponmakers slowed.
capitol buildings shut down,
state department resignations,
flotillas loaded with aid and courage,
sitting judges hearing, honoring
law between nations,
tax refusal rising again,
poems, prayers, murals, the dance irrepressible,
all refusing to forget.
in-deed, re-membering.
June 2, 2024
