For Rui Boy

Fifteen years have passed. Where do things stand now?

Everyone knows we have mental pictures that fade rapidly while others do not. An afternoon vividly stays and seems to have motion – like the way old film flickers in and out of shadow, angle shifted in rhythm each time light brightens back up. A smile curls into a hint of a laugh. A bit more tooth appears; she raises her eyes then lowers them. The weight of her head rocks a bit. Her fingers pinch some cotton, pull it longer to warm a bit of wrist or leg. Her lips part, then close – a little redder or wetter. Warm air escapes as she exhales. Cafe sounds, a spoon rings on a cup. And then… this gaze.

Never think that love & affection, and disappointment & disillusion have to be always apart from one another. It’s the sensation of recalling one’s absence that invites the other back or intensifies it. Whatever you thought it was or wanted it to be, motion returns to the picture. You may have put something away to allow a burn to grow hotter. You may have thought that’s what was needed. What we remember is what we perceived. We think we know what really happened, because we close our eyes and see it.

It doesn’t seem to be what people expect, but I’ve certainly preserved some beauty in amber. And in the magical part of a night or afternoon, it breathes and sighs again, and fills out with feeling as authentic as any.

For me there has always been a dream that the gazes I remember might still exist somewhere. Was it really necessary that it be loudly disavowed or explicitly clarified that this was a residual reality? There’s no worthwhile argument that all that is past is archaic and dead. Experience lives on in us and meanings survive.

There is a rumor now. More than that. There may be a cancer in the world so palpable and aggressive, so mean-spirited and destructive that it wants to stamp the heel of its boot onto every bit of tenderness, and justify it all with a blind kick and a scornful cynical laugh at what is loved, or held softly, or needs to be cradled.

Let them try.
Did we not all stake a bit of territory for hope when we gave life to a child? Did we not raise our hands and carefully extend the strength of our arms to hold him up? We passed him across the table to rest on the opposite bench. The coffee cups stayed as they were. The glass doors got a little darker toward evening. We sat him in our laps. Was that not payment enough for our errors and foibles, and our imperfection?

Why then, now this? Things happening now are beyond my expectation, and I’m certain they were beyond yours until now. I don’t know how to endure them either; just to extend my arm, place my hand under his weight, pull him to me, and hold on so he doesn’t fall.
Doesn’t it seem like a good time for swimming?

ever since the day we met
i loved you and i don’t regret
the way we’d pass the time
drinking coffee, drinking wine
oh my heart has holes in it
and there you were exposing it
how i would lose my mind
to get lost only to find

this whole world is dying
don’t it seem like a good time for swimming
before all the water disappears

you came in like some good things do
out of nowhere dream come true
and showed me things i never knew
what it means to walk that line
like a moth into the sun
i flew in front of everyone
and burned up in the flame
now it’s pouring acid rain and

this whole world is dying
don’t it seem like a good time for swimming
before all the water disappears
now our love is dying
don’t it seem like a good time for kissing
one more kiss
one more kiss to last the years
– Adrianne Lenker

Thank you for remembering us and reaching out a hand.
I hope it comes now, just in time.