Valerie Bacharach
BrokenThe hawks are back across the street.
Male, female flirting from tree to tree shrieking notes of love and warning. In my front yard trees bud delicate green, small white flowers drift among branches. Their beauty blocks my view. My mother shovels oatmeal inside her bowl, thinks the aides hate her, sobs into swollen hands. I ignore her phone call, carry guilt for hours. A penitent’s garb halos me as I go to visit her. Her words twist in air: I thought I’d die before your father. I’m alone all day. I’m waiting to die. I love you. I’m a burden, don’t hate me. The azaleas in my backyard bloom lavender. The pond in the cemetery still wears its bareness, the water broken by two mallard ducks. The male in his coat of many colors, the female quiet in her pilgrim’s dress. The Book of Numbers ~And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai" …count the heads of all the community of Israelites…”
Numbers 1:1-2 I too, take the census—count the years and months and days, add and subtract the moments of his life, the mundane pieces, first tooth, first word, first step, bruises and band-aids, candles on a chocolate cake, ice cream in a turquoise bowl. I calculate the arc of his delicate ears, the crook of his elbow, the scar on his nose, his hands that once fit mine, I count each parcel and part, search for a mystical number hidden beneath Hebrew script, written in ancient dialect, locked in the mysteries of Kabbalah. A number I can manipulate, weave among the hours, and like Moses drawing water from a rock, perform a miracle. The Judaica StoreAnd again
Aisles of yarzheit candles: beeswax packs of four kosher candles from Israel decorative metal handmade and painted designs of pomegranate wooden holders Jerusalem scenes on pottery Hebrew script Jewish stars… And again I choose the same small one. Simple glass. Unadorned. Four inches tall a cylinder of sorrow. No birthday candles for a grown son. Just this-- A strike of a match a wick trembles burns in silence for 24 hours. Then, like him, gone. Burial MoundsWhen I was a girl, a young girl,
I went on a class trip to Marietta, Ohio to see the Hopewell Indian burial mounds, smooth green arcs of grass and dirt. Beneath, in dark soil, remnants of bodies-- metacarpal, skull, half a tibia. I loved maps as that young girl, paper ones with precise pleats like the skirts I wore to school. They had colors, straight and broken lines, legends that marked railroads, mountains, coal mines, lakes. I wanted my mother. Wanted her to explain myself to me, decode my moods, teach me how to be comfortable in my skin. Show me her secrets. How she smoothed ruby color on lips, left an imprint on a glass of scotch. I am no longer that girl, no longer young. My mother has no more secrets. I trace the map of her body, its changed topography, sagging muscles, wrinkled flesh, vacant eyes. Electrodes under skin spark her heart, a rainbow of pills keeps pressure steady, calms sugar’s spike, thins her blood. The looming mass of her wheelchair casts shadows on the floor. JourneysYou lie on the narrow berth, stare
at the bottom of the bunk above. Tears form, overflow, roll down the sides of your face, dampen ears, neck, the flat pillow beneath your head. You make no sound. Silence has been burned into you. Don’t tell your mother’s lullaby. Your questions shuttered behind lips stitched with the thread of your breath. Never an explanation-- A dead father, fraud, poison, suicide. You are 18, away from home for the first time. The troop ship rips through rain-drenched waters across the dark skies of the Atlantic, bound for Europe’s battlefields and broken bodies. You will survive this war, bury its horrors in the hidden place under your bones. But now, on this night, you curl in on yourself, contort your body into the man who will become my voiceless father. |
Almost OneI stand before the small space
where your remains live, a soft bag of dark velvet, what some might call the color of wine, but I call the color of dried blood. A small, soft bag of ashes locked behind glass. Your photo sits next to it, and when the light is just so, my face reflects in yours, merges with yours, becomes almost one, the way we once were almost one when you lived in my body, absorbed my atoms and cells, the bits of stars, long dead, we all have in us, tiny molecules of light that travel the veins and arteries of our bodies. I want to say, my darling boy, do not be scared in the silence of that bag. I want to say I am with you, hanging bits of stars to light the dark. Dear Nathan/Grand Teton National ParkYour dad and I wander along the Gros Ventre river as it curls
its way through rock and trees, water so clear we can see small fish, gleaming tumbled pebbles. An eagle soars in isolation, bison graze by the side of the road. Cumulus clouds pile on top of razor-edged peaks streaked with sun. Swallowtails dart, small dainty birds with muscular speed. We breathe in pine and sage, take photo after photo. You would like it here, where the air is thin and crisp, the sky a cobalt blue. This wild grace might soothe you. Before Things Were Namedthere was no cardinal dancing red on a mud-brown branch,
no flash of flame against grey sky. There were no azure lakes or turquoise seas, no slush-filled streets or cancelled schools. There was no larkspur or lavender-scented air, no one’s mother sitting with her loneliness. Before things were named there were no stories to remember, no photos to be traced with aging fingers, no heartache or sorrow, no strawberries or apples, no glaciers or mountains. Nothing to cherish or regret, no empty arms or vacant eyes. No word yet for grief. The StuntmanIn the car with my brother, my father begins to sing
There’s no business like show business accompanied by Ethel Mermen’s ghost, his voice quivering and cracking with emotion. He is content with a box of tissues on his lap, with soup for lunch and dinner the most delicious soup ever, he booms to an empty dining room. He proclaims himself Chairman of the Board of his successful imaginary business, tells my brother they need to order uniforms for the employees. He might remarry--a nice woman he says not Jewish, but she’ll convert. Tells my brother the woman across the room is his mother. Your mother is dead, my brother says gently. My father scornful--I know, it’s just pretend. My brother asks how he fell from his wheelchair. My father contemptuous--I was climbing up a truck and jumped off. As if my brother is blind to his stunt, his amazing ability, his wondrous new life. The ChapelIt is called The Chapel,
a circle of three massive Redwoods, slightly off the trail of crushed leaves and rock. We are there early, before the buses of tourists wearing high-heeled sandals or flip-flops, before the barrage of cell phones and too-loud voices. Just us. Layers of mist still haunt the lower branches. The air smells holy, forest-scented incense carried by the breeze. We speak no words, keep our thoughts private. But I know what our blood murmurs. A prayer to these trees, this sheltered place. Silent words of love rise, hope to find the ear, the heart, of our vanished son. Science Friday on NPRThe impossible-to-wrap-my-mind-around facts of the velocity
of earth as it spins on its axis and orbits the sun, 1000 and 67,000 mph, simultaneously, spinning like I did as a child, on the flat land of Columbus, Ohio twirling in mad circles as fast as my young legs could move, round and round, me and the other kids who lived in those cheap apartments with cracked blacktop parking lots, little whirling dervishes screaming with delight in the open field that was our playground, certain that if we kept at it we would simply soar straight up, defy gravity touch the clear blue sky right above our outstretched arms. |