X Poem

[greenstorm]

Brilliance
by Mary Doty

Maggie's taking care of a man
who's dying; he's attended to everything,
said goodbye to his parents,

paid off his credit card.
She says Why don't you just
run it up to the limit?

but he wants everything
squared away, no balance owed,
though he misses the pets

he's already found a home for
-- he can't be around dogs or cats,
too much risk. He says,

I can't have anything.
She says, A bowl of goldfish?
He says he doesn't want to start

with anything and then describes
the kind he'd maybe like,
how their tails would fan

to a gold flaring. They talk
about hot jewel tones,
gold lacquer, say maybe

they'll go pick some out
though he can't go much of anywhere and then
abruptly he says I can't love

anything I can't finish.
He says it like he's had enough
of the whole scintillant world,


though what he means is
he'll never be satisfied and therefore
has established this discipline,

a kind of severe rehearsal.
That's where they leave it,
him looking out the window,

her knitting as she does because
she needs to do something.
Later he leaves a message:

Yes to the bowl of goldfish.
Meaning: let me go, if I have to,
in brilliance. In a story I read,

a Zen master who'd perfected
his detachment from the things of the world
remembered, at the moment of dying,

a deer he used to feed in the park,
and wondered who might care for it,
and at that instant was reborn

in the stunned flesh of a fawn.
So, Maggie's friend?
Is he going out

Into the last loved object
Of his attention?
Fanning the veined translucence

Of an opulent tail,
Undulant in some uncapturable curve
Is he bronze chrysanthemums,

Copper leaf, hurried darting,
Doubloons, icon-colored fins
Troubling the water?

Comments

[baywolf.livejournal.com]

Do you write any poetry yourself? To me that stuff is always more interesting just because it's so relatable and so in the now. After all I (kinda) know you, and it's quite obvious that you have some talent
"a chance word here and there by Bevan, a fit of laughter and a shared glance with Beth, grooves of experiences with Tillie stretching into the past like the parallel ruts of wagon wheels in mud,"
I write, often with no resposes but that usually doesn't stop me.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

No, I don't. I have conversations, I dance, but I don't have any desire to communicate through poetry. I prefer realtime face-to-face for that sort of thing.

By the way, are you coming to the mission folk fest this year?