Alone
with the airwaves
Yesterday
was the anniversary of your death.
I
did not mark the occasion in any special way;
I
did not light candles or sit cross-legged on
the
floor or any of those cheesy things.
I
spent the day quietly, mindful of you.
I
had fried won tons dipped in soy sauce,
found
the chop sticks you never liked to use;
brought
home two of the paintings I created
up
in the hills where I lived with wild animals
and
birds and conifers the last three years;
I
washed the car, which you liked to do,
because
it was dirty from when I lived
in
that mucked-up carriage house for a while
after
coming in from the frontier;
I
watered the sagging plants and discovered
they
should have been fed long ago,
they
rose up so fast and said hello!
I
told them I was sorry for neglecting them.
I’ve
never talked to a plant before,
not
the way you did. You could bring even
the
nearly dead ones to life again,
your
special talent, maybe, after the way
you
perfected the good times. Times
were
good with you. I tried to remember that,
although
I admit, there’s something hard
inside,
like the stone in an avocado. It just
stays
there all the time, alone, dark, clenched.
Where they all went
I
try to be awake
to
the myriad of stars, the way
they
slide soundlessly in and out of consciousness
as
tangerine coloured leaves of trees
fall
through the still air onto the ground.
Autumn
again. The morning sun burrows
into
the forest behind my house, lights up
parts
of tree trunks and half-naked branches.
An
empty glass that held the Spanish red
from
last night’s party, still stands on the counter.
The
voices of those who were here echoed
through
my dreams all night long, talking
about
libraries and voting booths and starfish
that
grab oysters in the shell whole
and
smother them in their arms.
I
try to be awake in this stillness
to
the thousand injustices that fell on the world
while
I slept. I must have slept because
they
happened elsewhere. Everything happens
elsewhere,
the way a running tide engulfs the shore
with
or without us, the tide moves in like a bank
of
cloud, and all the shells and pebbles
are
left lying
in
its wake.
Kristjana Gunnars is a B.C. based writer and painter. Her latest books are The Scent of Light (Coach House) and Ruins of the Heart (Angelico).