Ricardo and I celebrated our 47th wedding annniversary this past week!  What does that have to do with Poetry Friday?  It gives me an excuse to post a love poem that is a favourite of mine, and which reminds me, in an offbeat way, of our own romance.

I haven’t been able to discover anything about the poet, so if you know of his work, do leave me a comment.  I found this poem in The New Yorker, years ago.

                              BEGINNINGS

In a light mist, in lamplight, your perfect face
caught in the black branches and creamy mauves
of the tulip tree–and a moon that saves
itself behind the mist, light that seems less
brilliant as it softens to silver.  Light
could never penetrate the dress you wore,
black below your shoulders’ whiteness, whose white
remembered, is marble laved with rain.  From where

I look back, it still seems as if you’d leave
me then.  That was when I fell in love.
Later, we drank Sambuca in a cafe–
those checkerboard tablecloths–with coffee
beans dropped in to temper the sweetness.  Then,
feigning chess with them: first your move, then mine.
                                                           —John Harney

I see that I haven’t shared anything that has been going on here since October.  We’ve spent that time, mostly, immersed in the process of letting what we understood with our minds move into an understanding of the heart.  This has been very painful, much of the time unspeakably so.

And at times we felt a lot of fear and anger–not at Ricardo’s Parkinson’s, but at the inflexibility of the province’s health care system  in dealing with long-term care placements, and what the financial consequences might be for us.

But, in looking at these issues straight on and trying to understand them, we’ve been able, for now, to move past the anger and settle into the day-to-day of (somewhat) ordinary life.  We’ve been helped in this by Ricardo’s having had a long stretch of good health with few setbacks.

And so I come to my bit of contentment for today’s post.  I’m making a lap quilt for Ricardo, for now and for the future when he will have to leave home for long-term care.  I’m using fabric from Japanese pajamas given to my daughter over the years by a dear friend of hers who travels often to Japan.  As she wore them out, I saved the garments just on spec because I loved the beautiful fabric, and all these years later I decided that these fabrics would be the perfect basis for Ricardo’s quilt.

First I had to rip the seams, making flat pieces of fabric I could cut up.  The piles on the table are mostly the pajamas, with a few other fabrics  I was auditioning for possible use.

The photos here are opposite to the order I wanted, but I’ve spent as much time as I can afford in trying to make them come out right, so please excuse me.  The picture of some of the blocks hanging on the wall represents about half of what will be the finished quilt, just to give you an idea of what the style will be.  There will be a narrow red border around all the blocks, then a wider navy border.  I’m just finishing sewing the blocks together, so soon I’ll have a photo for you of the completed top, before getting the sandwich of the backing, batting, and top ready.

And this represents my {happy} for today.  I love to sew, and it helps me to a peaceful feeling of accomplishment.  Must go for now!  Thanks for reading my topsy-turvy posting!  I’ll make time to check on the entries of others–they are always interesting.

Here’s an excerpt:

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                                   RULES OF SLEEP

In the sludge drawer of animals in arms,
Where legs entwine to keep the body warm
Against the winter night, some cold seeps through—
It is the future: say, a square of stars
In the windowpane, suggesting the abstract
And large, or a sudden shift in position
That lets one body know the other’s free to move
An inch away, and then a thousand miles,
And, after that, even intimacy
Is only another form of separation.
                                       —Howard Moss

TO THE GRASS OF AUTUMN

You could never believe
it would come to this
one still morning
when before you noticed
the birds already
were all but gone

even though year upon year
the rehearsal of it
must have surprised
your speechless parents
and unknown antecedents
long ago gathered to dust
and though even the children
have been taught how to say
the word withereth

no you were known to be
cool and countless
the bright vision on all
the green hills
rippling in unmeasured waves
through the days in flower

now you are as the fog
that sifts among you
gray in the chill daybreak
the voles scratch the dry earth
around your roots
hoping to find something
before winter
and when the white air stirs
you whisper to yourselves
without expectation
or the need to know
                    —-W. S. Merwin

Well, finally I have some contenment around here that I can share.  In our current circumstances, that doesn’t happen every week.  So, here are some examples of happiness in my week.

Lately, when the sun comes up but before it shines into our bedroom, somehow the gold background on this lovely icon just glows.  I don’t know how it happens, but it delights my heart.  Incidentally, we were fortunate to purchase this icon from a local artist.  Isn’t it beautiful?

The fall colours on our Tiger Eyes sumac out on the balcony have been lovely to look at.

You may remember my mentioning our Vietnamese daughter.  She has been so kind during Ricardo’s illness this summer and fall, visiting, texting frequently, and even cooking for us.  She is a beautiful gift.

It feels good to share these bits of happiness with you.  Thanks go to Like Mother Like Daughter for the opportunity.

                             TO SAINT LUKE

Step by step with Paul through scorching dangerous landscapes
You bore witness to the resurrected Christ;
Gave us pictures of those early bands of Christians
As they prayed and preached and argued toward the Light.

Mary fed you, told you stories of His childhood,
Introduced you to the people He had known,
Found you witnesses, believers, He had healed them.
You recorded all the love that He had shown.

As the century runs forward to its ending
And we wrestle with the fears of our own time,
Ask the Spirit to electrify our teaching,
Make us lighthouses through which His light can shine.

Keep us close, Saint Luke, to that tremendous story
Which you told with clarity and constant love.
May our students catch the flashes of God’s glory,
Help us use your work to point to God above.

Three reasons for my choosing this poem today:  I love what I know of the works of Galway Kinnell, and I must remind myself to look up more of his poems;  I’m being very seamstress-y lately, working on a special quilt;  I’m tempted by it to muse on the image of a shroud, and see where that musing takes me.  I hope you enjoy the poem.

                The Shroud

Lifted by its tuft
of angel hairs, a milkweed
seed dips and soars
across a meadow, chalking
in outline the rhythm
that waits in air all along,
like the bottom hem of nowhere.
Spinus tristis, which spends
its days turning gold
back into sod, rises and falls
along the wavy line the seed
just waved through the sunlight.
What sheet or shroud large enough
to hold the whole earth
are these seamstresses’ chalks
and golden needles
stitching at so restlessly?
When will it ever be finished?
                             –Galway Kinnell

Shocked to the root
like the lilac bush
in the vacant lot
by the hurricane–

whose black  branch split
by wind or rain
has broken out
unseasonably

into these scant ash-
colored blossoms
lifted high
as if to say

to passersby
What will unleash
itself in you
when your storm comes?
                          Katha Pollitt

Having lately been shocked to the root myself, I find the final question to be a poignant one.

ONE

I have avoided this blog entirely–haven’t come here for weeks on end.  I couldn’t bring myself to talk about the Big Decision that had been hanging over us for a while and finally had to be made.  We have made, I have made, with the concurrence of our family and doctor, the decision to register Ricardo with the province for long-term care.  As in, nursing home, care facility, whatever you want to call it.

TWO

I have wept and prayed, prayed and wept, and my heart has been so sore.  I still can’t really talk about it.  I’m alternately numb and then so wounded.  Yes, I can face it, but the thought of such a change is horrible.  And that’s just me.  How can I really know how much Ricardo is suffering as he has to prepare himself mentally and emotionally to leave his home?

THREE

We have been getting home help from the province, and today we met with the woman who will be the Care Manager for Ricardo, finding out what to expect, what they will do to support him at home, and what the costs, current and future, will be.  The good is that as long as we are managing here, they will give us the home support.  For a few weeks now, Ricardo has been on an even keel and we are managing pretty well.  However, I know that we’re close to the edge of the precipice (forgive my mixed metaphors) and that a small change in Ricardo’s health or ability could send us tumbling over the edge.  And that would be the point at which he would need to be placed in care.

FOUR

We have decided that our focus for now is going to be on appreciating these days at home.  We talk with one another about our feelings without difficulty, and we’ll do that whenever we need to (good communication has always been a strength of ours), but we’ll prepare slowly and quietly for the transition, finding ways to savor the time we have.  That sounds really sappy and pie-in-the-sky to me!  I don’t have the energy or time, though, to try to rephrase it.  We’ll moan and cry, no doubt, and get very blackly ironic a lot of the time, and that will be part of  “savoring the time we have”.  We’ll carry it out in our own style.

That’s about all I can bear to say, but I have at least set down that much in print.  Maybe, just maybe, that will make it easier for me to come back here again soon.

Thanks for reading.  It certainly is no sweet end-of-summer story.