I Have Lost Someone I Love
Thinking about my sister today.
Snow Storm
[quote]Tumult, weeping, many new ghosts.
Heartbroken, aging, alone, I sing
To myself. Ragged mist settles
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty.
The fire has gone out in the stove.
Everywhere men speak in whispers.
I brood on the uselessness of letters.
Tu Fu, Translation by Kenneth Rexroth
Naïve, idealistic, vain. Scatterbrained, always well put togther. Beautiful in spite of her hair, over which she never really prevailed. High cheekbones, thin lips, petite. She snorted when she laughed. And she laughed a lot.
She loved movies, especially musicals. She knew all the words to all the songs in The King and I, West Side Story (Gee, Officer Krupke), South Pacific. After Christmas, Oscar night was her favorite day of the year.
She always came into our house without knocking, which drove my wife nuts but was fine with me. And she never came without some gift – a jar of jam, something for the kids, some herbs or oils.
“She is wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters.”
Suzanne smuggled a bottle of champagne into the hospital when Shelley’s son was born.
Shelley would have been 64 today. I know, because I am 64 and for two months every year we were the same age. Irish twins, she called us.
Am I sad? Yes, I suppose so. What makes me sad is thinking of her and feeling how far short I fall of the virtues she embodied. If I could keep her more prominent in my mind, I would be a better person.
It’s Shelley’s birthday.
The vines should be heavy with fruit.
But fall came early.
She was always my sister, my first friend. I didn’t realize until after she was gone that she was one of my best friends.
Snow Storm
[quote]Tumult, weeping, many new ghosts.
Heartbroken, aging, alone, I sing
To myself. Ragged mist settles
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty.
The fire has gone out in the stove.
Everywhere men speak in whispers.
I brood on the uselessness of letters.
Tu Fu, Translation by Kenneth Rexroth
Naïve, idealistic, vain. Scatterbrained, always well put togther. Beautiful in spite of her hair, over which she never really prevailed. High cheekbones, thin lips, petite. She snorted when she laughed. And she laughed a lot.
She loved movies, especially musicals. She knew all the words to all the songs in The King and I, West Side Story (Gee, Officer Krupke), South Pacific. After Christmas, Oscar night was her favorite day of the year.
She always came into our house without knocking, which drove my wife nuts but was fine with me. And she never came without some gift – a jar of jam, something for the kids, some herbs or oils.
“She is wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters.”
Suzanne smuggled a bottle of champagne into the hospital when Shelley’s son was born.
Shelley would have been 64 today. I know, because I am 64 and for two months every year we were the same age. Irish twins, she called us.
Am I sad? Yes, I suppose so. What makes me sad is thinking of her and feeling how far short I fall of the virtues she embodied. If I could keep her more prominent in my mind, I would be a better person.
It’s Shelley’s birthday.
The vines should be heavy with fruit.
But fall came early.
She was always my sister, my first friend. I didn’t realize until after she was gone that she was one of my best friends.
