Book: Horoscopes for the Dead
Quotes of Book: Horoscopes for the Dead
Thank-You Notes
Under the vigilant eye of my mother
I had to demonstrate my best penmanship
By thanking Uncle Gerry for the toy soldiers–
Little red members of the Coldstream Guards–
And thanking Aunt Helen for the pistol and holster,
But now I am writing other notes Alone at a small cherry desk
with a breeze coming in an open window,
thanking everyone I happen to see
on my long walk to the post office today
and anyone who ever gave me directions
or placed a hand on my shoulder,
or cut my hair or fixed my car.
And while I am at it,
thanks to everyone who happened to die
on the same day that I was born.
Thank you for stepping aside to make room for me,
for giving up you seat,
getting out of the way, to be blunt.
I waited until midnight
on that day in March before I appeared,
all slimy and squinting, in order to leave time
for enough of the living to drive off a bridge or collapse in a hallway
so that I could enter without causing a stir.
So I am writing now to thank everyone
who drifted off that day
like smoke from a row of blown-out candles–
for giving up your only flame.
One day, I will follow your example
and step politely out of the path
of an oncoming infant, but not right now
with the subtropical sun warming this page
and the wind stirring the fronds of the palmettos,
and me about to begin another note
on my very best stationary
to the ones who are making room today
for the daily host of babies,
descending like bees with their wings and stingers,
ready to get busy with all their earthly joys and tasks. book-quotepoetryGraveWhat do you think of my new glassesI asked as I stood under a shade treebefore the joined grave of my parents,and what followed was a long silencethat descended on the rows of the dead and on the fields and the woods beyond, one of the one hundred kinds of silenceaccording to the Chinese belief,each one distinct from the others,but the differences being so faintthat only a few special monks were able to tell them apart.They make you look very scholarly,I heard my mother sayonce I lay down on the groundand pressed an ear into the soft grass.Then I rolled over and pressed my other ear to the ground,the ear my father likes to speak into,but he would say nothing,and I could not find a silenceamong the 100 Chinese silencesthat would fit the one that he createdeven though I was the onewho had just made up the businessof the 100 Chinese silences - the Silence of the Night Boatand the Silence of the Lotus,cousin to the Silence of the Temple Bellonly deeper and softer, like petals, at its farthest edges. book-quote
