GRAND BABIES

—What did you tell them in the end?

—In the end what can one ever say except  goodbye, god be with, live long and prosper. Every cliche I could conjure from my throbbing pulsating pain-filled brain.

—They held your hands.

—One on each side, yes.

—I imagine both of them remained till the end.

—Left and right of me, yes.

—They knew you when.

— Yes they did. And they knew me well.

—Let me finish. They knew you when their brains were raw, when new roads were still  spongy black asphalt drying in the sun. The constant rumble of concrete mixers made their little feet tremble.

—And the vibrations shook their tiny hearts in the heat.

—Shaking baking baby hearts.

—Yes.

— After their mother died you sang to them a silly song about dropping the moon on your foot.

— More groundwork. Yes. Another simple foundation built to last.

— They thought you were amazing.

—One night with no moon we collected fireflies in a jar and I set the jar on a fence post, then we walked thirty-paces holding hands with our backs turned before I spun them around and told them look, see, this is what memories look like.

—Think they’ll recall that night when they’re older?

—No doubt they’ll remember it forever.

—Babies.

—Yes. Yes they were.


 *

(For Little Miss Monka & Mister Big)

Universal Wrongness

 
After the loss of a child, the overwhelming sense of universal wrongness is so acute that you do not even have to look up to know that the moon and stars have fallen out of the sky.

Rooms

(in memory of Sarah Kate 1980-2010)

We bought this house

brand new, never lived in,

when she was one.

We were a family of three then

though her mother and I had yet to marry.

Her brother, my son, arrived

when she was seven. They

shared a room for a while.

Even after, he liked to

fall asleep beside her.

They traded rooms for a time.

Then switched back

and forth and back

and so on.

She grew too fast.

Children always do.

The rooms remember her.

(Originally written Sunday, April 3, 2011)

Daily Writing Exercise

As usual, he wasn’t paying attention, merely tapping the keys, simply following one thought with another, one word with another, when the ongoing complaint that was so very much not his life ended up on the page. It was neither an obvious condemnation nor an apology for his grief, but an understated, artfully subtle, declaration of immense sorrow buried within a stack of words, as deadly as ground glass in a sugar bowl. And with his name as the author, what else was he to do. He was not a sorrowful man. He had no choice but to dig in, sort through the words, rework the sentences, assess every phrase, weigh every implication, and hope to revise himself to meet the new standard. This had been done before, he knew, by other entities definitely not him, persons who -- in the service of literature -- had commandeered his name, assumed his day to day activities, slept and dreamed on his behalf, taken responsibility for his nightmares, and then gone on to become somebody else, someone far better. Now it was his turn to be constrained, his job to trace their path, stomp in their footsteps, and blur their collective impression until he made it appear as though some new creature -- not him, not them, but something far superior -- had marked a fresh trail.

The Search Party

The author with his granddaughter.

(For Sarah 1980-2010)

Just beyond where the paved road ends, in a rut of dead black mud, we find her shoe, the other glass slipper, the one she didn’t lose on her hasty exit from the ball. A few paces further, partially hidden in high grass, we discover her gown, or rather the heap of soot stained rags her gown had been fashioned from. No sign of the Fairy Godmother, that delusional old hag, who vowed to assist Cinderella every step of the way but never once promised the child that anything good would become of the adventure.

Also missing is the pumpkin that had been transformed into a coach, and the mice that served as a team of galloping horses. Beneath the rags is the lifeless body of the brown rat that had acted as coachman. His head is at an awkward angle, obviously broken, and his unmoving eye shines beneath the buttery sun.

One of us picks the thing up by its long tail. The carcass is stiff as stone. After a few sweeping arm swings the rat is catapulting toward the trees that mark the southern border of these hallowed woods where none of us is brave enough to venture. Not for the measly wages the king is paying us. Not for the prince’s puppy-love infatuation for a simple country wench. No. The investigation ends here. Now.

Even the king himself, who has fought a thousand battles and won a dozen wars, dares not enter these woods where witches live and monsters roam, where night wind moves through the branches like the voices of children whispering in frosty undertones, lost children telling secrets so bitterly cold any man’s heart would freeze and shatter in an instant.


(Originally posted at ELpress's blog The Outlet )

–Bob Thurber is the author of Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel (Casperian Books, 2011) and the recipient of numerous literary awards, including The Barry Hannah Fiction Prize. He lives in Massachusetts. Visit his website at www.BobThurber.net

A Hundred Thousand Flowers

For Sydnee aka Monka


The bird, what was left of it, looked like it might have been a blue jay or possible a baby crow. The carcass was swarming with flies. Part of its breast had been eaten away, by a feral cat I suspected. Feathers were everywhere, and the wound in the bird’s chest was crawling with maggots. I scooped my granddaughter up. “Look at all the pretty flowers,” I said, moving us toward a patch of weeds.

She was four going on five. She held my neck, looking backward.

“Did you see the bird, Bubba?”

She called me Bubba instead of grandpa. She had always called me Bubba.

“Yes,” I said. “I saw it.” I hefted her higher, until her head was above my own. She extended her arms like wings. Her chest bumped against my ear as we walked.

“Are you going to die, Bubba?”

“Yes,” I said, “Yes, I am. But not today I do not think.”

I wanted to make her fly, like I used to, by holding her horizontally, straight out; but she weighed too much now, and at fifty-six I no longer had the strength in my back or my arms.

“Though hopefully not for a very long time,” I said, swinging her outward and down.

“When,” she said, as her feet touched the ground.

“Look at those,” I said, pointing to a patch of flowering mustard weeds. “We should pick some of those.”

“When,” she said.

“Right now,” I said. “We should pick a hundred of them.” I gripped my knees and leaned, pulling breath. “No,” I said. “A hundred thousand. We can bring ‘em back to the house.”

“Bubba,” she said. “When will you die?”

I pinched the base of a stem and plucked a bunch. “I don’t know,” I said. “You never know when something like that might happen. I’m going to eat these,” I said, pretending to gobble.

“No!” she shrieked. “You’ll get sick.”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

“You can’t eat flowers, Bubba.”

I made a sad face, a heavy pout that was deliriously happy.

“But it’s okay to smell them,” she said, leaning forward.

I straightened up and stood beside her. There were bumble bees bouncing among the orchids, and ticks to guard against, and the family of feral cats to watch out for. The sun was behind us and our shadows were long. Hers was about the size of a full grown woman, and mine… well, mine went on forever.

* * *
(Originally posted at ELpress's blog The Outlet )

–Bob Thurber is the author of Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel (Casperian Books, 2011) and the recipient of numerous literary awards, including The Barry Hannah Fiction Prize. He lives in Massachusetts. Visit his website at www.BobThurber.net