- summer Nicklasson, 11/2015
What is to become of the ordinary?
The conversation we had at dinner,
the cloud that looked like a woman praying,
the squeals of laughter as you tried to hide my grocery cart.
You will do great things.
You may fly to the moon. You may write a beautiful song.
You may make the best spaghetti sauce.
You may love your family with all that you are.
Or you may stare at the night sky, in fascination,
in being the audience that creates all performance.
You may take the beautiful song and bring it into your body
and the notes and your heart will become one
and you'll know
that true greatness is in the space where time does not exist.
****
Now, In the mornings I find you, I bury my face
into the nook between shoulder and neck.
You smell like childhood. Your body is warm.
In these moments the pain of the world is forgotten
and I'm lost in soft skin and soul love.
Never forget this.
When we age, we let go.
Adoring eyes will look elsewhere.
Tell me what is extraordinary about working, parenting, preparing food, connecting with nature?
It's not so rhetorical.
One day you will know the answer like you know how to breathe.
Real life is not a facebook post.
***
My song is not my own. It is composed of a billion interactions.
It is made of grit and sorrow and pain and love.
I breathe in the same air as those around me.
Everyone is humming a tune.
And one day,
this tune,
this life,
this love,
this that I call my own but is really nothing of the sort,
will ring into the ether
like the last, long cello note
deep, resonating
so beautiful you could cry
fading away
to the place all notes gather,
readying themselves to create again.
