The Half Finished Heaven (Poetry)

Two truths approach each other. One comes from inside, the other from outside, And where they meet we have a chance to catch sight of ourselves.

Tomas Tranströmer was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature. Since then, I have spent over half a year on our library system’s waiting list for The Half-Finished Heaven, translated by Robert Bly. I am glad I waited. Tranströmer has a magical way of combining images and using metaphor. I read each poem at least twice, allowing it to slowly appear in my mind’s eye. Some were merely pleasant. Others wowed me. Most made me think.

Time Traveling

I finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger late last night. What a marvelous book. Some of the scenes from the book are still floating through my mind. I am beginning to read and write poetry again. In many ways the novel is a very long poem, scene by scene illustrating the metaphor of memory.

Lately, my life has resonated with the story of the Time Traveler’s Wife. My father died at 51, my mother at 84. I have been cleaning out their house. I look at old pictures, read old letters. Most of the people are gone. A few weeks ago, I was telling my last surviving aunt that it feels so odd to look at these pictures that were taken long before I was born. It feels odd to look in on their lives. I am the time traveler.

On June 5th 2009 I read the introduction to the Dore Lectures on Mental Science, which was written on June 5th 1909. I felt like Thomas Troward was sitting in the living room with me, speaking those words that he had written a century ago. How did he know that I would so desperately need those ideas? It was as though part of him had traveled to the future.

Life is much more asynchronous than we realize. The Time Traveler’s Wife does a beautiful job of helping us to think about that.

Mother's Day 2009

This blog is moving in a different direction than I had originally intended, but I will be open to change myself. This will be my Aunt Ellen's first Mother's Day since Gary passed away. Here is a poem I wrote for the 30 Day Poetry Challenge.

“Mother’s Day 2009”

Last year two.
This year one.
One phone call
One bouquet
One card
One “I love you”
Not two
Last year two
Two sons.

Oh, his back hurt in summer.
It had for years.
She should have never let him
Why hadn’t she stopped him?
Let him move her boxes
When she moved into assisted living.

In fall he had the surgery.
A mother always worries.
Rods, pins, braces
He looked so uncomfortable.

The beginning of winter
He said the word
The word that changed
Her worry to terror:
Cancer.

She prayed and prayed
Called everyone she knew
To pray.
They promised
To pray.

In late winter he went
Into the hospital
For the treatment that might
Change everything.
But not in the way
She had prayed for.

Now one.
Not two.
One bouquet