The circles from our meeting
have rippled out
across the years,
growing faint for a time
from interruption,
and then stronger still,
rolling though seasons,
gardens and snows
and the voices of our children,
over quiet mornings
and hinted joy.
Let me kiss your forehead
and touch your hand,
look outward toward the sea
for just a moment
with a half smile —
another wave on this
simple day.
A pair of corduroy pants
sit folded on the ironing board,
their faded blue almost grey
in the early morning light.
They have passed in turn
from each of our children
to the next,
stories of young lives
worn into the fabric.
The ridges have been
diminished by the seasons
in places where they have bent
for a doll or a puddle,
or knelt for a story,
leaving nearly smooth,
but still patterned,
softness.
They are now too small
for any of our family —
yet my wife has pinned
a piece of cloth,
edges folded and ironed
neatly for sewing,
over a hole in the knee.
She’ll stitch them carefully together
one evening as we sit.
I haven’t asked her why —
perhaps she hopes our youngest
may wear them one more time,
or there is something else
her patching might repair.
I have been holding my breath again,
not leaving you much choice
but to wait.
This has always been my first response
when frightened —
but you learned this years ago.
I feel
your yearning
to speak
after the children have been tucked in
(we wouldn’t be interrupted)
and as the tea kettle births
steam onto the darkened window;
your abiding
in the deep quiet
(so ripe)
that hours later
envelopes us in our bed.
But exhalation
gives life to fear —
merely scratching out a poem,
lightly and in pencil,
would risk too much.
So you bear the silence for us,
even as our skin touches,
the cold back of your thigh
reminding me
you are there,
giving me everything
just by lying still,
waiting for me to breathe.
A long day apart
followed by another
will make these tender ones remote —
but late at night
passing an upstairs window
and caught by the moon
as it mingles with the dim street lamp,
I will pause,
and notice the overlapping snowshoe paths
behind the house,
evidence of our time together.
As a wedding present for my wife
I rebuilt an antique dressing table
that I had found discarded on a sidewalk.
Coaxing the yards of inlay
into the old grooves
wore away awareness of time.
I’d like to make furniture,
and leave my shirts and ties in the hallway closet.
Surrounded by dust
and calloused,
silent inside the cacophony of tools.
If only I had planned for that life,
I could run down from the top floor of the barn
and watch the children step off the bus.
I could speak slowly about my day
and show my wife the curve in a piece of ash.
bussokuseki 