I preface this post with an admittance of ignorance--even when I try to write things about the past, or my family, or any number of things, I realize that my ability to do so honestly and accurately is continually and inevitably obstructed by memory. Like anyone, I remember things as I would like to and have no idea what the truth really is at any given time. So. Even though I found this thing I wrote and am sharing it with the Internet here, it's clearly not my place to definitively claim anything more than a subjective understanding of events outside of myself, especially since half the time I don't even understand what the things I make mean.
Sorry for the convoluted explanatory apology above. Here is a stanza of something I wrote, and maybe something I will continue to work on and revise if I feel so compelled.
Inky trees hunch above me,
cowering from the wind
of a ruthless Chicago winter.
The sky is impossibly blue and thin
and as cold as cracked skin.
Everyone is gone,
and I berate myself
for wondering if my dead
great-uncles will receive special stead
in Heaven for dying so young
under their only country’s saint--
Death doesn’t work that way,
I don’t think.
You word-paint the old Southside Chicago cemetery with a keen eye and ear for the surroundings. I cherish this work of yours. The little uncles were so obscured from those of us who came later I've wondered at times if they found any joy in their short months here. I think they must. Their mother,your great grandmother, was so sweet. Not only to her oldest grandson but to everyone I remember. She would have smothered them with her affection. As she did me. As for death, I don't know how it works. We haven't gotten acquainted yet. I can wait.
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