Now Nostalgia

Now Nostalgia

A voice within my shadow wakened me,

a glowing voice: I love the dark

too much—

That voice was always kind; it helped

me now to rest, in its long shadow:

“So much we loved the dark,” it said,

“that all these years apart I have been

here, like this, hidden in your shade.”

                                                                William Stafford

                                                                One Night

Before I remember you’re not there

I bend in my chair and look

for you through the window and into

the sky.  It’s late

April and news of you has arrived

but you alone have not

and now I know you never will and I’ll need

to spend the rest of my life

not expecting you

to.  We’d made plans we never intended to

cancel.  They wait now like children

who have been told their mother has gone

on a long trip and she won’t be back

for a long long time (they never say never)

and the children/plans wait with their lip

up against the sill and hand against sash

where behind the jamb

the weight and chord bears all the glass

muntin of the window

                and ever after the wood and chord of rope

                are hopelessly rotting in the quiet

and we look out and take note

of nothing of the way the seasons are

changing—the day soon will walk into

May and even though it’s been a desperate winter, still

didn’t we all make it, didn’t we

think if I just get today dug out and salted

down they’ll be no need to step

like fawns.  Right?  You agree with me I know

even though you are three decades and more gone off

from all these winters I’ve been accumulating.  Maybe Robert

Frost meant more to you while you ran

through warmer sunrises and toward the shore—

                he lived in Florida too

                and his wife Elinor died  there

                as they climbed the stairs

                collapsed against him and ever after he kept her

                tucked inside of him and away
                from the winter

or maybe you never again considered

New England, having made a life for yourself

somewhere else.  Maybe now it’s just Nostalgia,

who in her warm robes is in the corner rocking

chair, who rises up without much of a struggle

and looks down fondly on the child/plan

because she knows the truth and how to make it

soft, she’s the one who bends into the arriving

light and looks the face through

and takes a cheek in each palm—

maybe in the same way a good midwife will,

who can turn a breach, how she massages, speaks

reaches into the dark

she slides every pain out of the way

like coaxing a stuck heated closed window

and she says, doesn’t she:

                there’s no tonic for you I’m afraid

                waiting is all the cloth I ever make and watch fall

                out of my loom.  I’ll make you

                a coat of it, a shirt and pants, a soft set

                of underwear.  They’ll be

                your going out clothes—

                But shhhh.  Shhhhh.

                Turn away from the window

                and watch me dress you

                in the mirror.  One leg at a time.  One arm.

                That right.  The left one first. 

                Always the left one first.