Banff, family, poems

May 30th, 2005

Banff, family, poems

Because I just tried to summarize my trip in an e-mail to a friend, and managed to write several hundred words about only the basics, I've decided to forgo sharing a lengthy account here. I'll be adding more images to my Banff photo album, as well as captions for all the photos (check back in a few days), so I hope that will tell the story, or at least the best parts of the story (though every part was the best).

In other news: My brother left this morning for Illinois, where he'll be starting his new job next week. (He arrived safely this evening and says the city reminds him of Spokane, near where we spent most of our childhood years.) And my grandpa is living with us (indefinitely?). And I'm still moving into my attic. So our house is in a state of uncommon change. I think I'm adjusting. The heat, however, is not as easy to adjust to. After the cool mountain climes, 80-plus degrees is a bit excessive.

And now, because it's been a while, a poem (or two):

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The Urn of Bitterness
5-11-05

You would like to believe the world is flung wide, a cape
to cover your dark shoulders, a net of velvet and lace.
You would like to step down from your posture of elegance.
Don’t stand so still. Your hands could warm the moon
if you could reach that far, if you could unhinge the sky
and push the sun back on the shelf.

It’s only a cupboard, this life, built to hold
a mug or two, a crystal bowl bought as a wedding gift.
The wedding was canceled. No one knows why,
and you couldn’t return the bowl.
You knew the store, the clerk. It’s a small town. People talk.

Today a child woke for the first time alone, in the sunshine.
His mother walked away. Just opened the door, stepped out
to test the weather, walked away. The street was empty but for cars
going by, people on their way to work, school, meetings.
Taking their grandfathers to the dentist.
Life goes on---the simplicity of it all---and she walked away.
This is the snapshot.

He will learn to play the piano. Not for skill, not for show,
but because it is there. His hand, the piano, time.
“Keep the rhythm,” she always said. “You cannot own a word,
but you don’t have to be a genius to move.
You don’t have to remember anything except your heartbeat,
your pulse, your breath. It changes, it stays the same.”

One day I’ll ink out a prayer that will last. One day I will collapse
into the world, finally myself. One day I will write true stories.
I should keep silent more often. I should let myself be still.
A hand to the wheel, a hand to the pen. No hand left
to tie up my hair, no hand left to paint my lips.

© 2005 April K Szuch

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Crabapples, or Nearing Daylight
5-28-05

Home among people and weather and things---
all my things, books, clothes, pictures, dust.
Could I not keep moving, ahead of the dust? I must
live somewhere, put down roots and build a home.
I want to leave again, take a book and camera,
drive away, walk away, linger in all those unknown places.

Nothing is ever finished: not my living, not this conversation,
nor the laughter, nor the waking hours, nor the darkness.
I am not content to let things remain incomplete,
yet completion is of the gods; perfection is not for me.
Let us speak more slowly, let us quiet our hands
and stop counting our steps.

My legs are half shaved, hair unwashed, glasses speckled
with dust, my companion of one week: 192 hours
is gone, these windows are full of winter’s grit
and I’ve brought more dust home than I can sweep away.
My mind is full of remembered smells
and I want to hear again the music our laughter made.

Some things soak in too deeply to be
anything but

© 2005 April K Szuch