How Should I”
for Molly October 25 2000
How should I practice now upon my guitar without you beneath How should I remember to no longer mind the placement of the foot? How should I preserve the wood of this instrument from these tears?
Bach or Barrios or Aguado picked painfully from my student fingers Would always rouse you from your canine dream and from the furthest room To come lie beneath my audience in your last days.
How should I hear this music now with my ears only?
How should I watch the little ones play in starlit winter Without recalling your muscle and might and joy Bounding leaping rejoicing and begging in your golden glory For a snoutful of snow to be answered with a gruff snort of delight?
How should I taste summer wine Without you seated majestic wise at perfect peace At my side noting all in their good order Fragrant chopped grass squirrels birds as GodÆs breath rippled through your coat Or standing quiet in your approaching dignity in the Great Lake channel water lapping at your legs While the younger ones blissful in their unknowing newness yipped and chased and swam and barked?
How should I sleep in fitful guilt of being Without your calm nose on my chest to reassure Should it be cold? It seems warm- which way should it be? The boy always knew everythingÆs expert Together us three stepfather dog and boy in gilded time Sofa hearthfire football game You get the butt end I get the head end was the ritual. And now at journeyÆs end
How should I bear the wound That what once was real dies into words pale remembrance. But you were loved as such you gave A full measure granted and received For that we should give thanks I suppose. But one day you tired As so perhaps master and mistress worn and separated And you took your leave And found your peace we trust and we grant.
Dare we begrudge the MasterÆs command: Behold you shall love but only for a time. and love shall be taken from you in all its forms It is the way of things And there is no patience for disputations of separators Who declaim This is human. This is animal. This is earth.
Love is love but
How now should I laugh?
Terrence
| Molly |
| 25, Oct 2000 |
| Terrence |