Tell Me About Your Suffering

I participated in a Buddhist exercise at the end of last year. In the exercise I sat across from a woman I didn't know, both of us wearing name tags. I said to her, Tell me about your suffering. And I listened without saying a single thing until she stopped speaking. And then I repeated the statement. Tell me about your suffering. More speaking, trailing off, eventually, into quiet. Repeat. It was a long time until she was done. We reversed roles, and it was a long time until I was done, even though if you'd asked me if I had much suffering to discuss, I would have said, and in many ways still think, Hell no.

Today I was with a patient who is 94 and declining and very depressed and who has been waiting to die since her husband died 28 years ago. She sat there in front of her lunch tray, untouched, head down, eyes down, hands in her lap, abandoned by her adult children, who said their goodbyes a year ago and will come no more. I call them after I visit her and they speak to me; they do not mind hearing about her, or how she is. But she is gone to them. They cannot wait anymore for her to die, so she is somehow dead to them already. She has a colostomy, she is in pain, she refuses pain medication, she wants to be dead, and cannot get it accomplished.

I am here to be present with her suffering. To see it fully. To somehow hear all of it, until there is no more to say, even if she does not speak. I sit next to her and talk to her a little bit. She likes strawberry ice cream. Does she want some now? I can get some for you. No response. She used to love the beach: I tell her about the record-breaking heat yesterday, and everyone so unseasoned and pale in their bathing suits trying to swim in the 45 degree Atlantic yesterday. Summer and not summer. No response. How can I get there? How can I get to where she is, to be present with her, to be witness and in that way share her experience? How can I know her suffering? That is the only real comfort I can offer.

I stop talking and sit and its a very long time. I stop trying to think of things which is not easy for me: I'm always thinking of a lot of things, and hatching plans. For whatever reason, I am compelled to lean towards her. I do. Then I feel like leaning a little further, and I do. Eventually, in this manner, my forehead is touching her forehead, and we both have our eyes closed. Very light. I say her name out loud, just once. We keep touching foreheads. We sit like that for a long time. I have moments where I feel weird about it. Mostly it feels right. I am not totally sure what I'm doing.

She breaks contact and I look up and she is looking at me. I look back and I feel like I can see an enormous amount in her eyes, and expression. I think I can see some of what her suffering is. Her own suffering. She says, thank you. I smile, I put my hand on her hand, I don't say anything. She closes her eyes and says, I want to go to bed. I get the aide, and he puts her to bed.

I get up and go to write my note. I have a moment on my way to the nurses' station where I cannot fathom how I got to this moment. Its just me. Internally I think I'm more or less the same person I've been since I was 16. Its just me in here. I'm not walking around thinking I'm a healer or having a calling or earning a halo or being better than you and you and you or doing God's work or being of service or anything. I'm just trying to essentially to be honest and keep it a little real, and somehow adapting that to whatever the situation presents. I'm just trying to be myself. My best self. This was the situation: is this how you be honest, is this how you keep it real, keep it straight and true?

I do not know.

Untitled

You leave and
drive down a gravel road that is
dusty and well-tended this year not
rutted like last year and it curves a little this
way and that just back from the
dunes and up against the great
salt marsh and it is a
scorcher today it is a
record-breaker for April so hot and so
like something from another land a different part of
the world this anomaly of hot and the mostly
still-bare trees and the brownish
marsh still in spring ferment still in
the beginning of things it looks
like Kenya or the outback or a surprisingly
dry part of Colorado and the dust comes up
in plumes around you and what is it you feel what is
it this unease maybe
heartbreak maybe pain maybe
nothing maybe just the
mistaken notion from the
funny visuals telling your
brain that you are
far from home
maybe only the
oddity of the day and when you come
around the corner
and are faced with
this undulating bright green grassy hill
why is it you suddenly
feel like crying
you just wish there was some way to
more than look
you want to run a pair of giant hands over and
feel the feel of those swells and contours
not a plain round hill but a little
arrangement of hills so green and soft and the
grass just long enough now to
wave a little in the breeze and it shines in the
sun and you don't want to look at it or
run through it or
lie in it you
want to be it
want to get from
here
to there
and then you are past it but
thinking of it and feeling
all day
for the rest of the day
the choke of the crying you
didn't do and the wanting
to just be
those pretty green grass hills.

The Plane Trees

You run into her at
Saint Guilhem-le-Desert
you are happy
picking flowers
with a picnic of cheeses, and bread, and sweet grapes
having spent the morning
watching lovers kissing

come with me
you invite her
remembering intellectual matching
uncannyness
perfect companionship

she only stares. Her dress is dirty
and unspecial
her hair is long and dark and
tangled and wild
and she is not watching
the lovers kissing

but this isn't the story
about the time she was broken
and victim
and you led her gently by the hand
out into the warm sun
and washed her in the clear stream
to be dried by soft breezes
until she stopped staring
and her hair was pretty and clean again
and she ate some of your grapes
and cheeses
and watched the lovers kissing

that is a goddamn
boring story

instead
you will push her by the shoulders
at Saint Guilhem-le-Desert
to the massive plane tree
with its sloughing peeling skin
shedding impurities
unattractive burr balls
wind-pollinated
and drought tolerant
adapted to urban living
but also ancient
2000 years old at Buyukdere
at least

and you will stand behind her
and focus her stupid stricken stare
with your hands
holding her head from behind
directing

look

this is what
Menelaus planted
for Helen
before leaving for the Trojan Wars
and this is what
Xerxes dallied beneath
and took his pleasure in
so long that he
lost his war
but he wore a golden necklace
with its image
for all it cost him
but he wore that necklace anyway

it was worth it

look

this is an enormous thing
with height and girth and wide-spreading branches
unapproachable
and yet half the world
calls it the
adorable
buttonwood
this is a solid thing
immoveable and unfriendly
but also a player
in whimsy
in the Fairie Queene

her cheeks are hot and dusty
in your hands
and she squirms
struggles
like a four-year-old brat
you hold tight
you hold your ground
this is tough love
honey

look

until sometime
now and years from now
she stills
you are relieved
you don't enjoy this
you aren't a babysitter
you aren't her keeper
or savior
she annoys you
she doesn't get it that
you're on vacation

you let go
you leave her
in the shade and presence of
the plane trees

it was enough
you do not need to
share your picnic
and flowers
she will forage and find her
own food
her own pastimes

and watch the lovers kissing
if she wants to.

Apocalypse

You begin again
every still morning
the moment you open your eyes
and light goes through them
and the moment you
inhale. That is the
only same thing
about any of these days

all the rest
is the seesaw between
weary
and
hope

these days that are the
link-looped chain of
after
are a series of travels
of you walking
all by yourself
across a country
with no one in it

just you
on this day
walking 21 miles
sleeping on the ground
under falling stars
in a red-hilled desert
and waking in stillness
to light
through your eyes
and dew
and the last bright planets
and sand under your elbow
and palms

and this day
walking 36 miles
sleeping on the ground
and waking in stillness
to light
through your eyes
in a dry and scrubby place
by a cold and fast
and opaque river
milk and jade
and the smell of woodsmoke
and the sound of deep water
and canyon

and this day
walking 8 miles
sleeping on the ground
and waking in stillness
to light
through your eyes
in the woods
on a hillside
with the sweet smell of hay
and juniper
and a ravine below
and a trickling creek
and a rattlesnake

you open your eyes
you inhale
you begin again.

Wednesday

There is a bone
deep in your chest
that doesn't attach to
any other bone. All the orthopedists
know its there but
are sworn and oathed
to never speak of it
it is their unicorn.

Here is what it looks like
oval but squared
at the corners
and a concave hollow
in the middle
like a candy dish
modern
you would find at Crate and Barrel. It has
a finish like
unfinished porcelain
the glaze left off
to give it a porosity
to both absorb and sweat
to let it breathe.

This is the bone you
feel your heartbreaks out of
you think its your heart that hurts
but everyone knows
bone pain beats muscle pain
hands down
the body had to find a something
worthy of heartache
to receive and hold it
and to transmit it
this is what it made.

Sometimes you will
curl up in that hollow there
and feel all the beauty
feel so much joy
and how you love everyone
and how they're stitched to you
with clear fishing line
long loops of it
shining and flashing in the sun
this is a good bone and
I am so happy here

but then it will come
in one way or another
a smudgy envelope come a long way
to your little keyed metal box
a red star on the envelope icon
your phone saying
the message is here for you now
you aren't waiting anymore
go on
open it
the words will vary
but you'll rearrange the letters to spell
what they say

I don't want you anymore

Do you see what I mean? This is why you
needed to know
about that magical creature
living in your chest
go sit on the table
covered in paper
in your orthopedist's office
and wait
in he comes
hands distracted
with chart and pen
he's made a promise
but watch for it
in his eyes
when he asks
what brings you here today
he has to glance at you
and you'll see it in the moment your eyes meet
you will
know he knows
and maybe that will comfort you

you had to know
the truth about
what exactly
hurts so much
you are not wanted anymore
but at least now
its not fictitious
its not
denied
its not your
dirty secret.

Hosting

I.

I'm up before you
of course
and pleased with the summer morning
sunny and breezy
that will welcome you
when you wake
and then you do
and I am
striving for lightness
and seating everyone around the table
though I can see now
its really wedged here
and too tight
in this corner
and suddenly its thundering
and then raining
and its dripping on you
and everyone
and I am rolling closed windows
bumping heads
and invading space
awkwardly
seeing to your comfort
but making a mess
and having to talk too much
and move too much
and explain too much
I don't know how it got from my intent
to be quiet
and graceful
inviting your space
to join the presence of my space
relaxed
and roomy
to this

II.

But of course there is the rest of the room
all beyond us
and I think
with great relief
here is the thing I forgot
here is where its easy now
just spread out
and I invite you all
to do it
you here
to this yellow chair
and you here
to the corner of the soft blue couch
nestle in
and you
over here
to the old rocker
it suits you
all of us
can expand into it
further in
and leave the storm
to nag the windows
and table
we can leave it to its own
cold and dripping
self

III.

But of course
since this is the way things go
there will be a nearly invisibly
but clearly saturated
spot on the rug
something offal
and foul
and soaking
so far beyond what you can do
with your dishrag to help
and that rocker
will keep loosing a stay
and catching on the wall
there isn't really room for a rocker
in here
and the couch is
too old and dusty for you
its soft depths
and fabric
a bane for your back
and nose
and I have to think
who would choose to populate
a room in this way

IV.

And of course
that's the point
no one
populated it
it just
came to be this way
over a long time
it just happened this way
that's all
and some of you
are going to get up
and help
and move the table out
away from the windows
and dry it
and pull the rocker in
and I will tend to the horrible spot
and smell on the rug
though I think it is
your dog that did it
and some of you
will be irritable
and know
your good time
is ruined
and I leave you
to yourselves

this is still
my good space
and I am home here
and I still
invite you
to join my space
in whatever way you want
have your own
good time
or pack up
and go home
I'll still love you
and send you postcards

V.

about when the rain stopped
and we went and picked blackberries
washed clean
for the oatmeal
and caught worms
for fishing
and got the picture
of us all on the dock
with a double rainbow

and the yellow hydroplane
flying through it.

Untitled

Later in the day its
so pleasant to stand
on the grass that I've just mowed
and take in the afternoon
the far low mountains
the sweet smell of ruined vegetation
commingled so nicely
with the warm and humid and fertile scent
of the lake
we are at our full heights
pleasing ourselves by looking far out
across the water
I see what you don't
two heads in the water
now one
I don't stop to think if I am right
or certain
ring the bell
I yell to you
running the length of the dock
in three strides
ring it!
and I am taking off and throwing off
everything except my
black underwear and bra
and I would dive were it not
so shallow
so a hand down
and a hop in
and three more strides
before a dolphin dive beginning
my sloppy crawl
would the boat have been faster?
you raise your arm
and begin to ring
the silver schoolhouse bell
I showed it to you yesterday
on the mantle
and you knew where to find it
you did not
stop to ask
and you don't
ask now
and somehow this
may save us
I cannot explain
or look back
to see how you are doing
I have to do this
and hope the neighbors dotting the shore
remember this old code
in this remote place
one to bring the boat
one to bring the warm blankets
one to swim out
and help me
you're a part of it
or just roped in
either way
this is
sometimes
what happens

I go on
hoping
neither above or below
finding the air
only by feel
no time to waste
and the sound of you
ringing
and ringing
and ringing
in my ears.

Untitled

We both walk out the
back door with a screen door
bang
first you
then me
you out here
to chop the wood
and me to do
I don't know what.

You begin
with earnest intention
and I wander
on the grass
looking at the first of
the yellow needles
brought down from the pines
by last night's storm.

This massive old pile will
take you all day to split
and you will only see
that one thing
to do with it. I consider
educating you
and don't
you will
or won't
come to it
in your own time

punky soft wood
good for breaking gently
in your hands
to make homes for
ants and salamanders
and the like

hard dry wood
for lighting
and setting on fire
and for the act of burning
and for heat
and also warmth

green wood
good for nothing
except patience
to become something else
or just for whittling down
into nothing
a long examination
of its character
and properties

the heart of it
beyond the meat of it

our little project
will take us the day.

Advice

Animals know
when its time to die
they say
and if they can escape
their living rooms
nested blankets
favorite toys
and devoted people
crying over
and nursing them
and make it down the stairs
and out the door
they will
and curl up
under a bush
in the front yard
with traffic
going by
not come
if called
disobedient
in the end
bent on
the time it is
the thing they must do
obeying
their own nature
over your wants
and needs
and demands on them
for once

throw open the front door
and the back door
in January
don't complain
put coats on
and clear a path
put it aside
give a pat
say travel well
help them out
onto the hard ground
under the sparrow-shit covered
forsythia
just shut up
and get out of
the way
take your wailing
somewhere else

don't make it
harder
be of goddamn
actual help

this is not
your show
this is not
yours
nothing you ever did
entitles you now
in the end
its their end

like you said
so many times

leave it.

Its Still There

I was friends for awhile with a guy I knew from high school who happened to end up at the same graduate school program I was in. He was an odd guy in high school and he was an odd guy in graduate school too. A loner but not a burnout. The opposite of that. Intense and focused in a strange and quiet way. In high school he wanted to be a mortician and of course in high school that earned him a lot of shit and a lot of crap too.

We were in the same biostatistics class. Jeff was a medical student, and I was a candidate for a Master's in Public Health degree. It was a very hard class and he was better at it than me, and he was generous with helping me out with little side explanations. So I took to always sitting with him and we would get lattes at the cart before class and he and the help and the lattes made it not such a bad experience. It was a cavernous lecture hall with bad lighting and peeling little wooden paddle desks, the kind that flip and fold up and down, and it was sort of a cozy thing we had going.

What happened to the mortician thing, I asked him one morning, you know the med student thing seems to be quite the other way to go. He laughed and said, I still want to do that, that's still my thing. I'm just doing this first. And I said, really. And then his pager went off, and he gave me a longish look, that same quiet/strange thing I remembered about him from high school. And he asked, do you want to see what I mean? I thought oh, he's going to go show me his cadaver, and that's fine, I get it, and he's been nice to me and helpful and all so I'll go see it even though I've seen cadavers a bunch of times before. So I said, sure.

The lecture hall emptied into a corridor that if you followed it the whole way would take you through more than a mile of university buildings all the way to the University Hospital ER, I think it was maybe the longest corridor in the US or something at the time. And we walked it, not saying much, all the way to the ER. Jeff took me to a curtained area right in front of the nurses' station, which is where they put all the really dicey cases that need the most attention. And before I could say, aren't we going to your cadaver, he slipped a purple lanyard with a blank white plastic tag over my neck and took me by the hand and pulled me behind the curtain, just as about three or four doctors and nurses were walking out, and snapping off their gloves. They looked at him and briefly nodded; they did not even seem to register me. Game over. Dead guy. Dead bluish guy on a gurney, still hooked up to monitors, one monitor the classic flatline, and one monitor doing a little something still.

Sternal rub, Jeff said, from behind, softly into my ear, his breath like a real touch on my skin, and in my hair. What, I said, not processing efficiently at this point, and he said it again, in just the same lover-like way, Sternal rub. And he put his hand on my hand, and guided it onto the dead guy's chest, and curled his fingers around my hand to make a fist, and my heart was pounding and I to be honest felt a little undone by his touch and the situation in general and the not knowing what the hell was happening, or happening next. And with that he pushed down on my hand, hard, and rubbed my knuckles deep back and forth and back and forth on the guy's naked dead chest, right on his breastbone, my knuckles catching and then slipping over these little ridges and divots in the bone. And then there it was: the dead guy arched his back just a little, moved the tiniest fraction to the left, a little shift, but away from my hand, and his hand over my hand.

That's how you know it, Jeff said, and his eyes were no longer on me, but on the guy, who I could see now was dead, but not actually dead, just dead for most purposes. Jeff's eyes shone, and he looked pale, and alive, and electric. He shifted his eyes onto me, and then away, and I knew I wasn't there, that this was a love, an odd love, a love of a thing inbetween, and that you can't explain, and that costs you shit and crap in high school, and that you have to find your way to through conventional routes, like biostatistics, and schools, and programs, and conventional people, to get close to, sidle up close to, to see it, and touch it, and adore it, and feel it, and whisper in its ear, like a lover.

That's how you know its still there.

Locked Up

I'm not here. I am
over there
with the big guy
with the big smile
and the johnnie on
and his arms spread wide
walking to you
with no idea
that today is today
and that you are you
and I am me

I'm not here
watching you
walk into his
open arms
your smallish head
now comfortably
in his curled palm

I'm not here
looking back through
the windows
of double locked doors
having failed
or succeeded

I'm not here
but I am everywhere
ten minutes
ten years
the ten seconds it took
total
to touch you hello
and goodbye

I'm not here
or over there
I am waiting
for the elevator
to take me down
and away
and back
to you
and back
to him
and back
again
and back again.

Hiatus Over

All done.