Where the Whiteness of River Rapids Is Just Beside the Road
I wish I could call you, because I need to
remember the name of that byway
that D used to love,
where you and I stood on the bank and sang
every word of Amazing Grace, and after
you took my hand to reassure
me that I had hit every note.
Where some stood and some sat under the
trees telling D-stories, and I walked
away, keeping my eyes on the
clusters of daisies, floating among the ashes,
until the land became impassable and
I had to stand on the edge of the
steep bank, watching ash and daisies vanish
around the bend.
Where on my way back to the clearing, I
encounter that one - and oh I wish I
could call you because
I can’t remember her name either, though
she came looking for me, and I
can see her -
short hair, sharp eyes, neat but sturdy clothes
and a touch of surprising gentleness
as she stops me to say
that I was D’s greatest unrealized wish.
And I leave her standing in the woods and
walk back to where we stood to
sing, and drop to sit on a spot
of soft grass at river’s edge and think of
all the plans D and I had made -
how I knew she understood
I was emerging in the only way I could
still sheltering all the places
that had not stopped
aching for him, loss a place I kept just
for me. And there I sat, pulling
blades of grass to fling on
rushing water, to follow ash and daisy,
thinking how someday,
when I could bear it,
over a hand of cards, I’d tell you of all
that she and I had planned -
and I would have
if you, too,
had not
floated
away.
Judith Mikesch-McKenzie is a writer, teacher, actor and producer. Two Mothers Speak and Somewhere Never Traveled are two of her novels. She produces and performs in showcase performances with the company The Actors’ Table of Eugene, which she founded in honor of her late sister. She has won or placed in two recent short-story contests. Her poetry has appeared in Halcyone Literary Review, Plainsongs Magazine, Meat for Tea Valley Review, Clackamas Literary Review, and over 40 others.
I wish I could call you, because I need to
remember the name of that byway
that D used to love,
where you and I stood on the bank and sang
every word of Amazing Grace, and after
you took my hand to reassure
me that I had hit every note.
Where some stood and some sat under the
trees telling D-stories, and I walked
away, keeping my eyes on the
clusters of daisies, floating among the ashes,
until the land became impassable and
I had to stand on the edge of the
steep bank, watching ash and daisies vanish
around the bend.
Where on my way back to the clearing, I
encounter that one - and oh I wish I
could call you because
I can’t remember her name either, though
she came looking for me, and I
can see her -
short hair, sharp eyes, neat but sturdy clothes
and a touch of surprising gentleness
as she stops me to say
that I was D’s greatest unrealized wish.
And I leave her standing in the woods and
walk back to where we stood to
sing, and drop to sit on a spot
of soft grass at river’s edge and think of
all the plans D and I had made -
how I knew she understood
I was emerging in the only way I could
still sheltering all the places
that had not stopped
aching for him, loss a place I kept just
for me. And there I sat, pulling
blades of grass to fling on
rushing water, to follow ash and daisy,
thinking how someday,
when I could bear it,
over a hand of cards, I’d tell you of all
that she and I had planned -
and I would have
if you, too,
had not
floated
away.
Judith Mikesch-McKenzie is a writer, teacher, actor and producer. Two Mothers Speak and Somewhere Never Traveled are two of her novels. She produces and performs in showcase performances with the company The Actors’ Table of Eugene, which she founded in honor of her late sister. She has won or placed in two recent short-story contests. Her poetry has appeared in Halcyone Literary Review, Plainsongs Magazine, Meat for Tea Valley Review, Clackamas Literary Review, and over 40 others.
