Visiting Wally
2/28/19
a gaggle of good things
Accidentally matching at the zoo, standing in line for coffee, thrilling ourselves with horses on sticks that go round and round.
Charming me.
Birthday 2019
Adulthood, round 2.
There are so many things
you could be and do -
so many you have done and been.
I can see you a famous writer,
or a well-known picture-taker,
or another path - but always fighter.
Courageous, honest, smile-maker.
Wherever you take me, I will go.
Wherever you work, I will assist.
You are brilliant and brave, you know.
(And impossible to resist).
Be it Spain or outer space,
a new home, new state, new child,
whether we replace inventions
or reinvent our place,
I will be with you
and it will be worthwhile
while wild.
-E
Finally, a reason to like Valentine’s Day <3
You turned and said
How will we hear this music
after we leave?
The next artist
talked about the state of the world today
Now
How bad.
The magic of a moment
or its misery -
Neither remain.
(✎E)
Wesley noticed.
After the earth
has shed its skin,
I will roam its raw rebirth.
Step over steppe,
touch over tundra,
trace channels,
walk along waters.
I will find no death,
no war,
no silent killers of souls -
the secrets
every culture, every country holds.
(✎E)
Day two of being stuck inside on our own… we made the best of it.
When her fire is burnt out
and in this cold taxi
and with this cold distance
I have no heat left to give her,
be Warmth
please.
(✎E)
Today we woke up to our first storm of 2019. Snow came for the first time and your dad left on a trip for the first time since you were born — giving us a lot to think about. The day was a little adventurous but mostly it was a lot less warm.
I took you outside and set you down and you got real quiet like the snow. You smiled a little but only at first. Then we watched everything be still. Then you looked so serious about it, I had to tell you it wouldn’t stay that way.
Snow melts, and he’ll be back.
“I want to be like my Dad.” -Mike Dunn
February 26th, 1929 - January 23, 2019
II.
Careful, grandfather:
on this last visit, anything you say
I may attempt to turn into poetry.
How much of what we say gets canonized in verse
depends not on our own significance
but on the skill of the poet.
I am not so good with words
to make mundane days
become magic.
But I watch your gaze
trace blank page space
in between us.
You only asked one thing of me before:
that I tell you what you could pray for.
Now, you leave me, after my third of your ninety years,
with one inheritance.
Now, eyes fogged over but no less locked on mine,
you make what will be your last request of me,
for the moment
and for the remainder of my own stay:
“Would you pray?”
And so the Great Poet rests his pen on the paper
in between us.
Here we share the one bond, the one chain, the one trust
that can free us.
I.
At the speed of light
no time passes.
When I was little
(you prayed for me)
“soon”
was measured in seconds.
When I grew
“soon”
became months.
Soon
“soon”
will mean years.
When you meet him, face
to face,
“soon”
will have been a lifetime.
When you shift a gentle turn
into light
no time passes.
I will see you again
soon.
III.
What great illusion you have left:
your body frail, in a futile attempt
to hide the herculean soul
buried in your chest
IV.
You pressed the issue of consistency,
set the standard: be faithful, stay.
“Walk humbly with your God” as if to say.
You quoted verses endlessly,
were tested, tried, steady-handed, you testified.
“Walk humbly with your God” you implied.
I left you today, soon to leave.
I drove back into dusk;
you forward into dawn.
I will walk humbly with your God
when you are gone.
battering down the gates of heaven
towing your son,
and his sons,
and their sons
close behind
(a few brief decades).
This struggle beneath all struggle,
the war for the foundation of a person:
here it is, well-fought.
Here you are,
and here am I,
going where you went,
following where you follow,
meaning what you meant.
V.
For as long as I can remember,
I will not forget you
because you remembered me.
The day you pass away,
God will suddenly have too much free time.
For as long as I can remember
you have spent hours every day in prayer.
My mom has always credited my faith
to your prayers.
I don’t even know what I owe you.
No wonder death for you
is a small change of pace,
a wrinkle in time,
a wink in place.
I do not know exactly what he told you already.
But I picture something like
“Let’s continue the conversation over dinner.
My place.”
Your heart is weighing on my heart.
Lighter than I would've thought,
but no less in need of art.
(✎E)