Chasms

Last month as I rode in the shuttle on my way to the airport, I glanced out my window and saw what I can only describe as a chasm in the clouds.  Just as the road began to curve away from the sky chasm, I snapped the photo below. Then at the airport, I wrote the first draft of a poem.  

Some background:

When I was an adolescent, I used to walk around the house holding a big square mirror in front of me, mirror side up.  Frameless, this mirror was the perfect tool for me to practice walking on the ceiling. When I looked down into the mirror, I saw ceiling as my floor, so as I moved around the house, I needed to avoid stepping on lights that were now growing out of the white painted drywall beneath me. I also had to step over high thresholds in order to go through doorways, and I enjoyed noting how low the windows hung. 

So, with lots of upside down walking under my belt, it wasn't a big stretch for me to fantasize about walking on clouds and falling through the chasms between them.  I invite you to turn your view upside down and explore chasms with me now.

Chasms

in earth

and sky.

between people, too,

              though the cold, human chasms

              aren’t quite as obvious…

or maybe they are.

if i miss-stepped

while walking

upside down

on puffy white

trails and shores,

would I fall

through the chasm

between clouds

into sky,

forever and ever?

there really is no such thing

as a bottomless pit

of dirt or depression

   but I am told

   that the sky, stretching

   into outer space

      and beyond

         might just be

bottomless,

     edgeless,

         endless

             wonder

i can’t remember

ever really knowing

no end -

              roads,

                           lazy afternoons,

toddlerhood

and

              time spent with you

                           all end, especially when

i’m not ready.

infinity, eternity...

surely they’re more

or maybe less

than just

continuous repeats

of what we know now,

not planets and suns and daily life

stretching out over and over

in ceaseless choruses

of human imagination.

i would call that hell.

this chasmic exploration

is quite an

undoing -

there’s nothing

to hold onto,

the parachute fails,

and

     i

       fall

            into

                azure

                     abyss

it’s quite peaceful here.  really.

Carol Barrow

January, 2016

Till the Moon and Stars are Gone

Michael and I are going through everything in the house, one closet or drawer at a time.  We are throwing away and donating.  It is amazing how much lighter things can be.

Right now I am sorting through a box that we found in the closet we visited yesterday.  I am having too much fun.  This is how I am (you may be this way, too):  I love being a little pack-ratty, because at some point, I will visit a box or a file or a coat pocket, and I will find FUN!

For instance, I just found a biography of ME written by my daughter when she was fourteen.  She wrote it for school.  It is bound in a stiff paper binder, and the front looks like this (but without the messy cross-outs I added for privacy's sake):

I have had so much fun reading this!  Noticing the spin from a fourteen-year-old's perspective.  So beautiful.

When Jamie mentioned her own birth, she didn't say a thing about how gorgeous she was, and she didn't mention the daffodils that were showing themselves in the park as we drove home from the hospital.  But she included a poem that I wrote for her shortly after her birth:

Jamie

You wake each day as

the sunshine rises,

Smiling to greet the dawn.

You laugh and sing with 

the birds outside,

Till the moon and stars are gone.

And I know each time

I look at you,

I see all that is and was

and will be.

The oceans and mountains,

the young and old,

are all within your eyes.

And this is what she wrote about me at the end of the biography:

The virtues she wants her children to have are kindness, self-esteem, and respect for others. 

She doesn't know what the future brings, but has high hopes.

Twenty-three years since this bio was written (wowzers!) and now I can take a look at a big piece of the future that young mother, Carol, was facing.  If time travel were an option, I would go back and tell her that her future will be interesting and challenging and rich and wonderful.  I would let her know that her children will truly grow to be kind, with sufficient self-esteem that continues to grow and, they have sincere respect for others. And all that is and was and will be - the oceans and mountains, the young and old - will always shine within her beautiful daughter's eyes.