Ode to the End of the World

Today, I stumbled across this poem, "Ode to the End of the World", which I wrote in 2012 for the wonderful poetry site, Bent Lily. It feels fresh as new and, perhaps more relevant than ever, today. So I'm posting it here because LIFE and because ART and because LOVE.-----------Ode to the end of the world-----------Oh, how can I write about the end of the world when this year’s lavender,lush with so much rain, keeps drawing me from the pageout-of-doorswhere the garden isbursting/teeming/overflowingand so green;When the branch of lilac that we cut, six years ago – from the tree behind the house wheremy daughter balanced equationswith her math tutor -has become a tiny tree;knee-high, still not quite ready to bloom;When the tomatoes are plumping on the vineand the cucumbers that my sister-in-law brought to me, have flowered.There is so much to live for:the smell of coffeeThe micro-burst mist of lemon zest when I slice through the peelThe gift of creamand this Thyme that crept back around the stone my husband placed on top of it.I am not afraid of dying -not afraid of dissolving back to light:It’s forgetting that frightens me -losing my place,dropping this thread that I’ve been passing over and under these other threads,for so long:The book,the marriage,this garden;and the culling of memory for this poem.On the day when the meteor strikes,the tidal wave crashesand lightning shatters the sky -what will become of memory:the sunlight flickering on the lake;the dragonflies darting;the mossy scent of algae pooling in the cove.The wind, rustling the leavesin the afternoon;as we lay on the grass or the bedon a white cotton sheet.—-What of all of these books that I’ve read andThe Sunday Times anddriving with dad to get the bagels, the cream cheese, the lox;What of the smell of turpentine, the piano recital playing on WQXR, as my mother in her studio in the white cotton shirt that she wore as a smock-smeared a canvas with Gesso;smoke curling from her cigarette as it balanced on the edge of a red coffee can, splashed with yellow paint.And the bottles she dug out of the hillthat circled the kitchen on a shelf,arranged in a patternthat only she could read.—-The world pours through us;lifts us from the sandy bottom and tumbles us, head over heels,boiled in a wave of broken shells.We flicker, light through the branches of a tree;water, gurgling over brook stone;lakes.We are all lakes, mossy-bottomed, deep, mysterious.“You really can't hang on to anything,” Suzi said. She was calling from her family’s summer house, which had been sold last week, and she’d driven over there to say goodbye. “It’s all just pouring through you."She'd walked through each room – the curtains her mother had hung still on the windows, the silverware still in the drawers.Then, she came out to the lake, walked out on the dock and lay down. She called me as I was writing this poem about the end of the world.“It is what it is,” Suzi said. but her voice broke when she said it.“I know,” I agreed.But I didn’t know.I don't know.I keep feeling for touchstones -The swing on the oak tree,My sister running out of the house behind me;the chipmunk that I captured every evening in a waxed paper cup.This is what happens at the end of the world.We reach for things that matter -the photo album,the feather,the journal,the special sweater.We make piles,sorting our marbles into groups -glassies, cloudies, clears.Later,when it’s all overand we’re sitting in the silencestripped barewashed cleannew again,will we find, in our pockets,these round and polished stones?Will we remember, feeling their smooth surfaces with our fingers,Or will we wonder,What were they for?—-IIIt happens so fastthe coming and goingthe being and doingthe packing and departingWhen my mother sold my childhood homethe moving van arrivedbefore she was ready.There were paintings in the cellar and an old wooden trunk filled to the top with shells.We sat on the floor counting white stones.the treasure of a lifetime.What will you keep?What will you stuff in your pockets, your purse, the trunk of your caron the day they announce the end?—-IIIthe floorboards of these houseswhere we walkthese impermanent roomsthat seem so sure….“There, in that house, there was always time,” Suzi said.“Generations of celebration – and also not celebration.Whatever happened herea lot of it was good.”—-IVMy mother would drag me to museumsThe MetThe ModernThe Guggenheim, which spiraled ‘round and round.She studied the paintings; I held onto Beth’s stroller, dreaming of the cream cheese and jelly sandwich I’d been promised if I was good.The Natural History,the dinosaur bones,and the blue whale suspended from the ceiling.I remember:counting the rings in the wedge of the redwood tree;and, at the planetarium, the galaxies spiraling over my head.You can’t really hold onto anything.The rain sp-lash-ing.The smell of bacon.Soft-boiled eggsSalt and pepperMusic.The red maple in the back yard that flickers red, copper, red copperas the wind rustles the papers on my desk.Anything…the weight of my newborn son in my arms, his tiny hand on my breast, patting me as he fed;the swirl of hair on the top of his head.and thenhis sisterand the moment in the car, in the dark, on Christmas Eve, when my 16-day-old daughter, in her stretchy red sleep suit, looked deep into my eyes.we are all tumblinghead over heelsIn a rushbroken shells, beach glass and blue marbles.—-VLately,my husband has been leaving me gifts– branches of blossoms: dogwood, lilac, and this pink one that has shed every petal onto the pages of the cookbook I left open on the kitchen counter.—-VIWhat is it for?this pink yarrow that Katie and I plantedlast week,in a shiny red pot by the doorThis stone, grey-speckled with bird prints which I found on the beach at Cuttyhunk Island – 22 years ago. I was pregnant with Katie. Max held my hand. Beth was there, and Kate and Natalie. I remember carrying the stone back to the cottage; packing it into the suitcase between the swimsuits and towels.—-VIIThe rush of the match, the spiral of the flame; the crackle and crash as the log collapses to ash; the song my friends are singing, their faces, flickering into and out of focus in the pitch black night.My daughter’s friend, Isabelle, brings her newborn son, the first baby of the next generation, to sleep beside the fire. Adam, 21, leans over, touches the baby’s cheek. “He’s so real,” Adam says.Over our heads, the moon, fingernail, crescent, pearl.Light, and the way that it pools beneath the lampshade as I write.The gentle and persistent hum of the inside of my body.Life and how we cling to it, so desperately,knowing, as we do, that it will end.~ Amy Oscar, 2012