recuerda mi corazon

the art of remembering, the art of letting go

the sight of anyone.....

total strangers, saying goodbye 

on any corner of the world frays at my soul. 

the simple gesture of the open hand

waving back and forth in the gathering sky, 

like bright tissue paper kites darting this way and that

too far above us,

or the distant cry of a summer loon....

remain so hauntingly out of reach.

the way; in the autumn of life,

we know goodbyes separate us from the ones we love,

sometimes forever.

the wave of youth

 is not a wave of longing, or melancholy,

 it does not catch in the heart of holding on.

it is a faster, fiercer wave that throws caution to the wind;

sends its love in a furry careening off  towards adventure,

 rarely looking back.

(i have a young son and recognize the unencumbered velocity of youth

moving forward like a great unstoppable wheel of wanderlust 

 propelling him ever forward to places unknown.)

 

when i was sixteen my best friend moved to sinaloa, mexico.

after countless months apart

i convinced my parents to place me on a tijuana southbound bus  for her, and springbreak.

the two day rosary swinging on the dashboard of a treacherous ride ferried me away

to a small village where i would awaken to an exotic world

that would shatter the cookie cutter mold of 

my lily life.

 i am sure i waved goodbye

 with the same wild abandon i now see in my son.

  and although i jumped on the over crowed  bus

 with an electric sense my world was just about to burst open,

 i did notice my father's eyes, his pure unguarded love

 and something that seemed to catch in his throat like thickening darkness.

 an unmeasurable weight on the heart i recognize now to be

 the pain of letting go.

my father lived his life as bright 

as all my favorite memories combined.

he had an uncanny way of encouraging anyone who waked into his world

to feel their import.

he always had time to listen 

with the kindest blue eyes that held everyone in acceptance.

he had a way about him. 

a way of making everyone in the world belong.

i could write on and on about the ways my father enriched our lives

with his open and generous heart.

the sound of his laughter, the warmth of his embrace,

the way he always said

just the right thing to reassure a steadfast foothold in this challenging life.

for all the ways he enriched the course of my life

i have to say

the last gift he gave me remains priceless.

the gift of facing death without fear. 

for when death arrived wrenching all our hearts,

he turned his impossibly blue eyes 

and faced the ultimate letting go with utter grace.

his peace gathered like a wild awakening into

the measureless sky.

 all the moments of a lifetime of unconditional love finally rising together

into that last wave of departure.

the man who made living so intensely heartfelt 

paving a steady path for me in 

the the ultimate letting go.

 

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the art of remembering sarah jane

i remember

that last frozen grey morning.

all my friends 

waking to familiar belonging,

our hands and laughter

all tied up in the patted roundness of

a single snowman.

beneath the enormity of night,

morning waved stark white sheets in cold wind.

they clapped like thunder

as life threw a dark ribbon of pavement 

before us. 

we were gone before 

the last star disappeared.  before

anyone woke with a pounding red thrill in their hearts 

to return to each other

and all that 

snow.

 

connecticut for california

in the half dark morning.

i leaned across the back seat to

watch life as i knew it,  grow smaller and smaller

retreating from the dark window like a silver necklace pulled from view.

strange how fast everything

we know can

disappear.

 

 

 

tennesse.

look out mountain,

pockets full of arrowheads

waiting in musky drawers. 

old train tracks blowing past  

the textile mill grandfather managed

all his working life, never missing a single day.

my father rolled our car to a slow stop.

he looked so fondly up to the window of his youth.

something filled his voice,  thickening it like honey in water.

words so golden with bright longing,

they formed stairs that took him back,

so perfectly back.

"we use to walk past these tracks after school

and stand right below 

that window where dad worked.

he always knew when we would go by and threw

us coins...copper, that rained down to jangle and bounce

like a hard summer rain at our eager feet.

we scrambled for them and flew off waving goodbye 

for the soda fountain and penny candy".

 

 

grandmother.

her never cut hair in a halo of braids round

and round the crown of her head.

her kitchen, enormous,

as were her meals.

together at the round oak table

where all her now grown children once labored over homework,

celebrated birthdays,

and when times were lean,

hoped for that last piece of corn bread.

every christmas

an old round tin arrived from that

chattanooga kitchen all tangled up with the smell

of time, wrapped in brown paper,

tied with tired

twine.

 

 

for as long as she lived,

they arrived like the last chorus to an ancient song.

her handwriting on the brown paper

wore away the years

until it barely recognized itself.

fruitcake dense with the work of her hands,

pecans from her trees.

trees where my brother and i fed squirrels

kneeling together, quiet for the chance.

almost like a prayer,

beside the long covered porch on the edge of memory,

we had to leave too soon.

 

 

endless road stops, the unfolding and refolding of maps,

sibling quarrels, car games,

 a journal within reach to draw pictures

of what i was sure waited.....

open windows without screens,

begging me to reach out and pick from the 

abundance of always blooming flowers.

warm night air whispering 

under the hem of stars.

a new neighborhood 

to wake up in the 

company of

friends.

 

california.

sarah jane and her husband dan.

ancient, childless relatives on my mother's side.

we filled their san diego bungalow 

with the clamor of family life, as our house was built.

she filled my hands with needle and thread,

the endless possibilities of imagination, cloth, and creation.

she filled my heart with the miracle of making,

the grace of sharing, the mercy of caring.

 

 

for one languid summer,

i lost myself in the sanctuary of their yard.

where abalone shells nested in the roots of fragrant trees

...that tossed their white flowers

spilling over me, over me...

the iridescent shell pools catching the warm air,

the tiny flowers,

the quiet voice of  solitary yesterdays.

where life held me suspended like a bookmark between chapters,

while sarah jane embossed my heart in the perfect art of being.

before i dove once again,

flat out into the gregarious life of growing up.

 

 

sarah jane 

i will never know

who needed the other more,

the childless wife or the friendless child.

but i  know this.

she was the open window, the warm air. she was the abundance

of always blooming flowers.

she was shelter and love that never left me,

kindness, mercy and compassion on

 my road to belonging.

***

the art of remembering 

 

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the art of remembering

do you wonder as i,

the way the voice of someone you love

enters you.

perhaps it whirls and arabesques in thin air 

like a thousand wings of shadow and light. transforming 

oxygen into longing until it fills you

like a holy choir with a million

particles of love.

perhaps a prayer too

becomes a tendril of smoke rising from a bright flame 

a plume of hope circling outward

until it makes a soul migration

never settling until it

is a cocoon wound each and every heart. 

the very pulse of living earth,

i am certain,

presses its mystery into our life blood

from our first breath,

until our last.

and thinking back

i recall a soul murmuration,

the moment of becoming the very essence of

life's current.

floating in a windless summer day

up into the holy light.

my mother beside me lost in her memories

as i too followed mine.

the balloon lifted us to the hem of dawn

and hovered there bright as a child's toy floating in the sky.

where light danced across the heartbeat of the canyons

below, cactus, the gleaming bits

of stones along the small animal paths waving up to us

with their secrets.

a perfect stillness

no current or breeze, the sky a glass lake

of waiting.

we opened the urn and handful by handful

offered the ashes of my mother's mother

to the open palm of sky.

that is when frida's ashes became a million particles

slowly curling in,  then out;

a shadow cloud of dark swirling.

slowly, like tendrils of some exotic vine content to

grow in the welcoming air.

suddenly turning towards us,

then faintly away.

a soul ballet 

of a life well lived.

where the currents of being 

moved in and out and round,

so perfectly round

before becoming nothing then so suddenly

becoming all.

like the flame of a prayer

or the voice of love entering

 forever.

 

welcome to 

the art of remembering

 

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the art of remembering

 

the art of remembering

each offering a snippet of memory honoring a loved one now gone.

each story a bright flame allowing all the differences of life to fall a way 

gathering us in the light of love.

recuerda mi corazon invites you and your memories for

a sacred gathering every sunday in october.

if you think of all you love of someone,

they are with you.

the art of remembering

perhaps the most touching and compelling meme of the year.