my mother told me i'm on my third life

i guess that there was that, what nowadays passes for the usual process. the rush to the hospital, the various attentions, the happy discharge. the loving ones who wait outside to see you and exclaim how wonderful you are alive.

for my third life i was born on the 7th of july. my mom wasn't there, i met her later. but there was the same wonder - about what life must have in store for this person. and i was born with four other people:

my cousin who will teach english,
my cousin who will be a doctor,
my cousin who will maybe make things that fly,
my uncle who will build beautiful houses with a lot of light.

this time around in a kind of full circle i was born in the town of my shadow forbears. the ones you never met but insist themselves in some imprint, maybe in the downturn of your eyes or the set of your shoulders - the ones you kin by recognition because you watch for reflections. i was born in an accident similar to how my grandfather died. which is what set this thread adrift. which drift i wanted to catch in returning to his hometown, to walk his streets, to see his sights, to feel his people.

i like to think he was there for this birth, easing our way, the five of us. softening the upending splintering of the car as it rolled after being hit. easing us from the wreck. i believe he was there in the watchful eyes of my uncle who averted the worst from happening, in my cousin's presence of mind, in the love and concern of my cousins. his people, my people.

there is this thread, (how similarly we are enamored of the moon, magicked by the ambling coded morse of fireflies), that i found, that will weave into the warp and weft of this life.

five of us after dinner

you said it would be a beautiful night to go blueberry picking and see fireflies. i'd never even thought to put the three together, night, and berry picking, and fireflies. yes, why not. and out the front door, the short way to the car was the remarkable moon. a full moon. you said it would be a lovely night for stars.

five of us after dinner, that inertia of dododosomething that is made for the nightswish of a car. who'd think to tour a city in the dark? but the moon is full and there is a tower overlooking the city on the hill where the poets sat. of course through a forested road up a hill. climb that black scaffolding of steps and gaze through the arched windows at the resting of each flight. finally the sky, the deep sky of a city in a bowl of mountains. in the dark you said, what was fantastic is during the fall, the foliage. pinched your thumb and forefinger into an inch of circle saying i could never count the number of colors i could see through this in the fall.

and a ghost story of a railway accident under the bridge near the children crossing sign. all those children who died in the crash are trying to push your car to safety from the tracks. if you put your gears to neutral you'll feel them pushing you away. true enough, the car rolled uphill.

at the community college there was a sign that read labyrinth. you'd been looking for it four years and almost believed the sign was a practical joke. well we found it at last after wandering to the edge of the field, skirting the perimeter and looking for likely gaps in the trees. it was etched in the grass unobtrusive and resplendent.

after that we walked to the pond where the frogs were playing the monday night symphony glorious and noisy. and the ducks were swimming. five of us after dinner.

dear lord
please bless the strong

keep them slightly askew and unpredictable
make them irrational and unaccepting
hold them to excellence

make them beloved
of those with laughing hearts

walk with them
talk with them
never leave them

keep them strong

amen.