Adriana.K.Maxwell
The rain didn't come. First the grass shriveled, then turned brown, then crumbled under our feet. Then the cracks grew as the earth broke from thirst. And then the fires. The mountains were always on fire and we watched them at night, our feet black from soot carried through closed windows.
They let the boy play with the world like a toddler careless with toys, throwing his cars into the wall just to hear the bang.
Blizzard, rope between the house and the barn just to make sure you make it home, your backyard is foreign and invisible for you, there is nothing, only the stinging white and the chaotic wind, pushing you down until you crawl
Asteroid, rock sent through space, hurtling across the sky, locking for a planet to belong to but fearing to get too close, burnt up or shattering when it finally tries
Monkey king, broke from stone, leaping, living, king of his people, death terrifies so he will find immortality not to be separated from his own
Thunder cracks across the sky, the anger rolling through dark clouds, echoing in bedrooms with little kids huddling under blankets, hands over their ears
A long journey, a goal in mind, bags packed, feet sore, but with trusty companions, we keep going, we know it will be worth it no matter what we meet on the way
Reunion, potato salad in line, paper plates sagging under the weight of everything, park pavilion, benches of people I don't know with my father's eyes
The curtain draws back, the babble hushes, now there is only the creaking of seats as restless young ones swing back and forth, trying to peer through the dark.
A poem is a love letter to the world, a pointing out of flowers to the next person on the path, a sunset settled into sentences, hearts still beating after bodies are dust, a sharing of souls, your daughter laying heavy-soft on your chest in the blue light of a show you are no longer watching as you twirl her hair between your fingers, watching the shine shift on her curls, listening to the gentle hum of the refrigerator and the carpet-softened footsteps of your wife as she takes the remote and vanishes the paused figures on screen and tells you that you should go to bed but you just want to stay here a little longer trading air with those you love and you hope you will be able to replay this memory forever, when she thuds her backpack down after high school and when she is tip-toes-happy with a ring on her hand, and when your hands become wrinkled with the blue diamonds of age and grandchildren slip their fingers into yours. This, amid all the traffic and the bills and the flag at half-mast for some new tragedy that you no longer can keep track of, this is worth living for.
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