©Janet Grace Riehl

The wind comes up and blows the house down,
blows the house down, blows the house down.
But, when I look around, I cannot see the house.
I cannot see the timbers that supported the house.
I cannot see the joists that bound the timbers.
I can only see the doors.

The doors open onto the space where the house was.
I open the front door, heavy with carving of curled vines.
I open and walk through that door.
The wind blows through with me,
dusting away my footprints so tidily, like a French maid.
I walk to the library door and open its light maple panels.
Stride to the place where the shelves were and take out a phantom book to read.
It’s title imprinted in disappearing ink.

The winding air moves through the house to the stairway up to my old room.
I open its white door with black enamel handle
and sit down in a wispy rocker of breeze.
Waiting.

August 16, 2005

Julia's one year anniversary.

You've been in the world of my ancestors for a year now.

Six years older, you always went before me.

Then, last year, you passed through.

I can't say “passed on.”

No. You'll never pass on.

You're too fierce and present for that.

You passed over the waters in the famous boat.

Probably rowed it yourself.

Come on, confess. Didn't you?

Said to the helmsman.

“Sit down, take a rest.

Let me take over for a little while.

You look like you haven't slept in a million years.”

Then, docked, stepped out on that far shore.

Claimed it as your own.

A year. How can that be?

I woke up a year ago:

Not knowing

my life was about to be changed forever.

Not knowing

this date would be carved in flesh and blood.

How innocent I was that morning.

That morning when I woke up,

not knowing.

My brother called.

I heard it in his voice.

Death. Or, at least something terribly off.

Only, I thought it was Mom or Dad.

My dear, sainted, brother.

To have to make that call.

A call no one should ever have to make.

Julia, you would have spit it all out on the spot.

But, Gary, he just didn't want to tell me.

“There's some good news and some bad news.”

“Well, let's hear the bad news first.”

But, he couldn't.

They'd been to the state fair in Springfield.

The hog judging contest.

Seen two college friends, now farmers.

Boys I'd dated—he'd arranged it, of course.

Anything for his little sister.

“Please, Gary, I can hear it in your voice.

Please. I'm dying here.”

And, so, finally, Julia-like, he spit it out.

“There was a car accident. Julia was killed.”

A silence between us, beyond stunned.

Ten second of dead air time.

She, who was bottled vitality.

No. No. I'm sorry. Just flat-out, No.

And so our year as a newly-configured family began.

She who loved puzzles, created one.

A family made with a shape cut out.

A family solving a puzzle with a puzzle-piece missing.

A family formed by a void around a dominant figure.

You can't fill the hole.

Even graves don't do that.

And, you cannot airbrush the ghost out of the family picture.

A year of markers:

Her memorial.

Thanksgiving and Christmas.

New Years.

Valentine's Day.

March 13th, Julia' birthday.

The court case, finally appearing and closed.

(The law can be so whimsical.)

Someplace in there, the estate finally settled.

Then, there are the markers of the heart.

From the No! and curses

to tenderness and tears.

The Bay of Rage and Vally of Fears.

Endless terrains to transverse.

Four-year-old Maggie led the way.

"Sometimes, I can feel Grammy Julia's heart in my heart." 

Grammy Julia is dead, she knows that.

But Grammy Julia still loves her.

She knows that, too.

Here at Clear Lake, I commemorated Julia's anniversary.

They do that in Ghana.

They do that in Japan.

They do that in Tibet.

We did that here, this year.

A week of remembrance.

A week of acquired sisterhood.

Remembering to remember to remember.

Re-membering when the member is severered.

Remembering the water of life.

Four mothers and two sisters

lost among us this past twelve-month.

We honored them in ceremony at the sulfur caves.

The eagle of the North keeping the vision.

The mouse of the South

scurrying close to the ground, carrying the the details.

Beginnings in the East.

Endings and apparent endings in the West.

Washing our hands from the calabash.

Watering Meg's shrine among the oak roots.

The moss springing instantly from brown to green.

Annelle fixed my cobra squirt gun

(years of Mommy-training, she said)

so that plastic striped snake could wash away our

words spoken that became venom.

We doused for water with my clay rods.

They never fail when used beside a body of water.

The Water of Life is all around us and inside us, after all.

My clay sceptor passed from hand to hand as the talking stick.

Stories spoken around the Water Banner

we swayed with in the stream.

Then, food, pictures, and poems on the lawn.

Gifts from the gift blanket.

Good-bye for now.

Today, supporting from her home,

Lucy lights candles and incense

when she cleans her Japanese family altar, the Butsudan,

a ritual she chooses to do today

"to acknowledge and honor that there truly is no pain,

nor absence of pain;

that all is life and it continues and transforms."

Let's hear it for the Heart Sutra!

Last year and this, my electronic Glimpse of the Day tells me:

"Bereavement can force you to look at your life directly,

compelling you to find a purpose in it

where there may not have been one before.

When suddenly you find yourself alone

after the death of someone you love,

it can feel as if you are being given a new life

and are being asked:

“What will you do with this life?

And why do you wish to continue living?”

Pray for help and strength and grace.

Pray that you will survive and discover

the richest possible meaning

to the new life you now find yourself in.

Be vulnerable and receptive.

Be courageous and patient.

Above all, look into your life

to find ways of sharing your love

more deeply with others now.”

There are many layers of grief,

and each of us grieves in our own way.

Bereft--shorn, torn open, last year.

Three gigantic earth-moving machines

on the property next door.

They growled and grumbled all day long

as they dug further and further into the side of the hill,

leaving a mountain of earth in their wake.

I felt they were digging a gigantic grave for Julia.

But no grave could ever hold her.

And, now, this year?

The house is for sale.

The joke?

It's butt ugly.

So, be careful of the house you build.

Julia's life was one of care and fierce devotion

with justice at its center.

Or, as Dave, her husband, said,

“Hers was a gallant, hopeful, helpful, effective life.

The ripples from it reach astonishing numbers of people.

It seems reasonable to hope that the ripples

will continue onward through generations and circumstances

at which we can only guess.

But surely some of that is visible among you now.”

I still find myself alone

after the death of someone I love,

I still feel as if I have been given a new life

and am being asked:

“What will I do with this life?

And why do I wish to continue living?”

What of the house that I will build,

now that the earth has been moved?

My journey and my family's journey

of bereavement continues

as the moon waxes towards fullness.

Thank heavens the stars are up there in the sky,

“all secret and wise twinkling down,”

as Melissa says,

as we, breathing,

look up at the moon.

HEART STRINGS

©Daniel Holland

1.

When I couldn’t read or talk anymore,
I had to rely on my heart for answers
to survive this age of reading and talking.
I had nothing left, but to open my heart.

I only know three words. “I love you.”
Can I get by with these three words?

2.

I put my heart on a string and feel
my heart go up and down, like a yo-yo.
As the yo-yo goes down, I feel the stretching of the string.
As the yo-yo goes up, I feel the string recoil.

What happens to my string when the yo-yo gets stuck and spins?
How long will the string last?
Will you help my yo-yo ride smoothly on the string?

3.

Locked in a dark room with coats hanging above me.
Crunched up in the corner to avoid stepping on the shoes.

Coats and shoes know life outside the closet.
But, now I am inside, like a baby in a womb.

Please unlock the door and let me be born into the light.
Let me be free. Let the coats and the shoes be in the closet.

4.

Do people put webs around their lives?
I don’t want to do that. I can’t do that.
I do it, if you do it.

Why be a spider, when you can be a bird?

JUST A HEARTBEAT AWAY
by Erwin A. Thompson

We take life so for granted,
   The good things that we have today;
But life and fortunes change,  it's all --
   Just a heartbeat away.

Conveniences and pleasures
   Are all at our command,
The statement that "We are the best!"
   Is heard on every hand.

Fifty channels on the "dish,"
   Sounds like a lot of fun;
What good are fifty channels
   When your earthly race is run?

A loved one, taken unaware --
   It happens every day.
No warning; no lingering farewells--
   Just a heartbeat away.

You love her as you did when you were young,
   The words are really not that hard to say --
Tomorrow it may be too late --
   Tell her so today!

The little things you do today --
   Whether they bring joy or sorrow,
Everything you do or say --
   Will be the memories of tomorrow.