In two weeks’ time, I will depart,

and you will see me fading out the doorway,

disappearing from your time and space.

 

Nothing, no one ever leaves completely,

and so you will not see or hear but sense

the presence, the silence, the smile/frown

 

that curves space with the gravity of being.

I, too, will know that your faces, your places,

remain in me, shadowed, substanceless,

 

but nonetheless present in their absence—

we are always aware, always present to

each moment, each time, each space

 

that we have transited, daily or nightly,

stars disappeared in the light of day,

bodies evaporated into shadowed night.

 

Two weeks, enough time, for a love

to blossom or a war to start, for history

we have yet to make together or apart.

All a matter of perception—simplicity

or complexity as you wish—I was too young

to read between lines or hear hidden echoes,

and then memory also channels perspective

to clarify, to certify, perhaps to falsify.

 

We had only one heavy Bakelite telephone,

sitting on an old dining room cabinet,

and only one bathroom as well—that phone

was on a party line, and the bathroom as well,

in a sense—both required queueing up.

 

We used tooth powder from a small can,

and you poured a bit in your palm, wet the brush,

and gave a good scrubbing because scrubbing

was always good, so we thought, afterwards

we cupped our hands for the water to rinse.

 

The living room held a black-and-white TV

in a huge cabinet, and we watched faithfully,

offerings from Desilu and Disney, while news

was Walter Cronkite or Huntley and Brinkley—

men in grey-somber suits and simple ties.

 

The basement held my grandfather’s workshop,

behind the many lines for hanging wash,

and the washer was the old wringer type,

with rollers that squeezed the water out—

my grandmother warned us not to touch.

 

In one far corner stood the worktable

where my brother and I made models,

mostly airplanes, many of wood and paper,

some of plastic, most simple icons,

while a few could actually take to the air.

 

Simplicity began to erode that weekend

when I spent three full days watching

because the president had been shot and killed—

Sunday, awaiting dinner from my grandmother,

I saw Oswald shot as well, live on NBC.

 

On most Sundays, after morning Mass,

I heard the sirens wail to test the warning,

because men in Moscow and Beijing,

and in Washington as well, kept planning

to annihilate each other and us all.

 

Some things, the worst perhaps, remain—

back then we practiced monthly at school

ducking under desks just in case it dropped,

when we thought death came falling from the sky,

and now we practice sheltering in place,

as death comes from just next door, not from above.

Late night walks growing longer,

I stroll through different streets,

straying from the familiar, farther

from the same circle that ends

in at the front door and one-step porch.

 

If late enough, the traffic subsides,

so that any probing pickup or car

makes its individual sound, its call

as if the homing sound of an animal,

gentle whirr of tires, throb of engine.

 

Far enough, I pass the Presbyterian church,

a modernist A-frame construction, lighted

in front through a large triangle of stained glass—

the cross, a dark center that radiates yellow

then red into vibrant blue, promising revelation.

 

Turning that corner, I start up the gentle slope,

the side street of quiet houses, parked cars,

and I note the slope of the drive to the backlot

behind the church, empty now and open

to observe and interpret as I pause.

 

Lit by two bright lamps atop a 40-foot poll,

the lot stretches across the hill’s curves,

bordered by grey-silver chicken-wire fences

with trees beyond and a scattering

of orange traffic cones off in one far corner.

 

Bright night light is harsh to the eye

but revealing, calling attention to the absence,

it paints a sheen on the asphalt paving,

new-coated to make it smoother, darker still,

while I stand and scan the silent open space.

 

I can still see the explosion of stained light

from the front as it aches for transcendence,

but my gaze is drawn back to the empty space,

the possibilities held silently, unexpressed,

the lonely sheen of harsh light on dark pavement.