What I Know

Today I read poetry to my mother, who is now receiving hospice care.

I find her tucked up nicely in her bed. She sleeps much of the times these days.

I run both my hands down her shoulders and arms swaddled in light covers, saying softly, “Hi, Mom.”

Even if she no longer knows me in the way I know my children, on this linear plane of time and space, I like to believe that when she hears “Mom” in my voice, the word wends its way into a room of her soul where words like Mom and Dad, Daughter and Son live beyond Alzheimer’s in timeless storage.

This seemed to be true for my Dad at the end. “Hi, Dad,” I said once a couple of days before he died. “Hello, Daughter,” he said.

And it crushed me with the beautiful simplicity of it. It was the naming of this universal designation, beyond time and language, as though I’d always been would always be: Daughter.

Mom awakens, opening one eye. The other is matted closed, or perhaps the eyelid just doesn’t want to open any more. With her one blue eye she searches my face. I take down my mask so she can see me better, and perhaps remember me from so long ago.

She takes me in, in hawklike silence.

“I brought some poetry to read today, Mom. Is that okay?”

She nods, then closes her eyes, and I begin.

What Is There Beyond Knowing

by Mary Oliver

What is there beyond knowing that keeps calling to me? I can’t

turn in any direction

but it’s there. I don’t mean

the leaves’ grip and shine or even the thrush’s

silk song, but the far-off

fires, for example,

of the stars, heaven’s slowly turning

theater of light, or the wind

playful with its breath;

or time that’s always rushing forward,

or standing still

in the same — what shall I say —

moment.

What I know

I could put into a pack

as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it

on one shoulder,

important and honorable, but so small!

While everything else continues, unexplained

and unexplainable. How wonderful it is

to follow a thought quietly

to its logical end.

I have done this a few times.

but mostly I just stand in the dark field,

in the middle of the world, breathing

in and out. Life so far doesn’t have any other name

but breath and light, wind and rain.

If there’s a temple, I haven’t found it yet

I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass

and the weeds.

I close the book and look at my mother. Both of her eyes are open now, looking at me, searching me. She nods. I smooth her forehead with my hand and she nods again. I tell her I love her. She nods again.

I walk out into the hall, down the elevator and out into the world, breathing in and out.