Long before our terrible story your birthday was already
the feast of Servites pruning winter roses. I cling to that now, all the other days this day could be:
Obstinate mountains lumber into obeisant seas
Lame men whole, blind men see
Dead men rise and shake off their shroudy bindings
impossible things all around ya
If only you will
See
We are surrounded by angels
Some live
Just the other side of the spectrum of visible light
And some in fluorescent-tinged hallways
Their aura mixed with the pointillism of city lights and leaving
notes of reasonable return and the glow, unmistakable glow of
Lullabies
Which remind us they are always undiminished
While we are merely
sleeping.
25th birthday
I go to
The-cards-for-pariahs section
Away from all the other
Greeting card confections it is
lightly and surreptitiously attended, although I myself come here often
Oddly situated on a half-aisle between
plumbing and luggage
The cards here are all in shades of ocre
Sometimes the clip art is unbearable, smudged, or just incomprehensible scribbles…macaroni mosaics where all the pasta is long-gone,
All’s that’s left: glue ghosts,
No words left to signify anything but metaphysically inky
Noon-to-3
at the edge of the edge of the silver dance
the stuff of space becomes so attenuated that
a single floating atom
cannot see the ghost mama
(because there is, by definition, nothing there)
Yet she is.
Curled around her lone, fetal darling
So much smaller than a human
blastocyst
Just a nucleus, protons, the usual electrons
Would be panicky lonely
Except for the unseen but still
so present
Modern ghost.
The day I lost you I sent you a letter. I sent a letter I knew your adopted parents would never let you see.
Just like your real name.
Just like your mother, your brother, your sisters. So many beautiful faces.
Taken from you.
I say this because you do have a real name and you do have a real story. And unlike most children adopted under spurious circumstances, you have a paper trail–articles in the local papers, a federal lawsuit. Questions about a very bad judge.
I knew that if I lost you, I had to send out every possible sign that you were and always would be loved.
A mother should be able to celebrate her children’s birthdays, but for your mother each day like this is a reminder of what was stolen from her.
Losing you broke my heart, but not mine alone.
All I ever wanted was to make sure you know, really know, you are loved.
So think of yourself as the magic princess, little one, whose royal parents send out lanterns on your birthday,hoping, just hoping you will see them.
All for you. All this light for you.
Elealee's Blog 