Words Coming to the Surface

*Excerpts taken from my journal, Oahu 2007-2008

The waves tumble onto shore faster and more violently than they did this time last year.  Everything looks like it has no control against this wind.  The wind pushes the water, pushes the birds…the tree branches, the clouds, my hair—even my water bottle quivers beside me.  Coral is shoved onto shore and then is yanked back into the water by grabbing waves.  The tide is coming in, and when it leaves again, the shore will be sprinkled with tiny, broken shells.  

It has been exactly one year since I was sitting against this tree, watching the waves come in.  I have been moved by the winds also, unable to object, but just tumbling in and over myself.  When one is pushed like this, change is inevitable.  Last year, I wrote a letter to Ibey and Dad-dad.  This year, the letter still sits in my journal unmoved—and Ibey is gone.  My letter cannot be postmarked and delivered to her.  Sometimes I think I can feel her in the wind and in the rain.  It’s almost as if my thoughts no longer have to be stamped and postmarked to be delivered to her.  It’s like she knows as soon as I think them, but the tears still fall, and the rain still comes.  The ocean looks darker than it should.

*          *          *          *          *

I got to come home for Christmas break, but the night before I was supposed to fly back to Oahu, Ibey was taken to the hospital.  I slept in a cot beside her bed.  I heard the beeping and vaguely remember nurses rushing in to tend to her.  Instead of waking up, I wanted to stay in my dream world.  I was scared…and now I feel so guilty for being unconscious for even one minute of her final hours here.  The doctors had talked to us about hospice care—they said she had a few months left.  I didn’t know yet, but they were wrong.  

    

I’m glad I got to hold her hand.  I rubbed her fingers and then squeezed her palms.  I was so scared.  I didn’t know what I was supposed to do for her.  I thought about everything I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t know how to bring it up.  I was told not to let on about how bad the tear in her artery was.  I rehearsed what I would say, but she was gone before the words were ready. 
   
    

When morning came, I watched snow fall outside her hospital window, like white cotton balls waltzing with Tennessee wind.  More family arrived and shared stories around her hospital bed.  She was alive with laughter, and we all huddled in to feel that warmth that radiated from the fire of her soul.  We were all children again…scared and sad, happy and confused.  

I planned to go home and shower, and return the following day.  I kissed her on the forehead and said, “I love you.”  As I walked out the door, I turned around to see her smiling face.  “I’ll be back in the morning,” I called and disappeared around the corner.  I had no idea that this would be the last time I would see her alive. 

*          *          *          *          *

I cried and wailed, letting out sounds that I didn’t even know I was capable of making.  My body shook and heaved as all of the love she had planted in my heart burst forth into unformed words because I didn’t know how to say, “Goodbye, Thank you, and I love you” to someone who I’d never see again.  I still trembled at the thought of her leaving.    I wanted to show her that I had learned the lessons she had taught me.  

Valentines' Night

A needle pulling out the sweet, eerie sound of a bass, baritone voice.
A record revolving.
Deep tones...singing of an anchor...deep tones.
Bass-Baritone.

It’s Valentines’ Night— an anniversary,
The night he met his wife, sixty-four years ago.
But he’s not dancing with the woman in the red shoes, falling in love.
He’s got his arms stretched out toward heaven,
Adjusting a part in an imaginary car.
He’s my anchor sinking…or rising up—I can’t tell.

“I wanna go home,” he says. “Why won’t anyone take me home?”
Nephews, grandsons, daughters, and granddaughters have pleaded with him,
“You ARE home. You built this house.”

He asks me to drive this bus, which is his recliner.
I pull the ottoman to his feet and sit with my back toward him, like he’s a passenger.
“Where do you want to go?” I ask.
“I wanna go home.”
Looking at the walls of this room and up at the ceiling in such wonder,
He points to the beautiful chapel in the pasture. He is pleased with the scenery.
“We’re on our way,” I tell him, “but let’s just enjoy where we are.”
And I turn toward the road that is not there, while tears streak down my cheeks.

I’ve grown up hearing the story of love at first sight—the seeing, the meeting, and the dancing.
On every Valentines’ night that I’ve spent with him since she passed away,
He’s looked at his watch…looked at his watch…looked at his watch—
Until the hands hover above the numbers, 7 and 1–
“This is it,” he’d say. “This is the moment when I met your grandmother. Right now. This is it….
And 6 months, 9 days, and 16 hours later, I married her.”
But tonight, the hands move, and the seconds pass—unnoticed.





Erin Elizabeth Cloar . February 19, 2012

All Hallows Eve

Let's set a date to pause our lives,
And travel to a moment of time when we were all together,
Laughing with ale in our glasses and mischief on our lips,
Dancing in cobweb stockings and petticoat miniskirts,
Whispering spells of love or lust as we moved our hips
And swayed to the enchanting music of All Hallows Eve.

Dark. Strobe lights--Flash. Dance, sweat, laugh.
Talk, joke, float on to the deck where autumn blows her chilly breath
And rattles dead and dying leaves--a sweet reminder or our mortality
That sparkes a conversation among us, the few left standing,
Sharing thoughts as deep as the roots of these trees that surround us,
But as light as the clouds that pass over the face of the moon.
Huddled together, we stir each other's embers, keeping the fire alive until dawn.
.
.
Erin Elizabeth Cloar . October 2010

Napping in My Recliner

You are here with me.
We are smiling,
Looking into each other’s eyes.
We say nothing.
Just stare and smile,
Laughing now and then.
I feel warm, happy.
You are young, like the day we were married.
Am I old? I don’t know.
The only reflection I can find is the one in your eyes.
Love is staring back at me, and I don’t want to look away.

But something startles me, and your image fades.
I look around at my surroundings…
A lighted Christmas tree with your flashing red bells
In a dim room that is very familiar.
Everything is still except those flashing lights
And the swinging of the pendulum on the clock.
I look to my left, but your chair is empty.
I feel the weight of my age bearing down on me again,
But it doesn’t compare to the ache I feel in my heart,
Knowing that another Christmas approaches,
And you are just a dream.

My soul searches for you but only finds you in dreams.
And I will live for dreams until we are together again.

Erin Elizabeth Cloar December 18, 2009

Writing With a Full Time Job

Monday 4 a.m.
I am nocturnal
Coffee brews, and midnight is long gone.
The birds serenade me with a joyful song to greet the morning.
Dark crescent moons fall beneath my eyes.
One question often arises just before the sun,
"Is it better to sleep for an hour

Or not at all?"

.

Erin Elizabeth Cloar March 27, 2006

Ivory Oceans

I understand.
Opening up to me
Is like opening the door
To a secret room.
.
Anything could be hiding.
Something might be lurking
Somewhere in the shadows,
Anxiously waiting to devour anything good,
And you’ll do.
.
I have never been to the home where you grew up.
I have to imagine the staircase

And you as a child,
Thrown down like a rag doll.

.

Are you still stuck drinking water from a murky creek
While your mamma suckles boxed wine like a Capri-sun?

How can I wrap my mind around you

and grab you out of that moment when you were so thirsty?
.
History is an okay teacher,

But pain is a better one.

Your eyes match mine.

They are hazel

And change according to what you wear.

.
We lie beneath faded stars,
And discuss the distance between life and death.

Your breath feels warm against the skin on my neck,

But your hands are frozen.

They cling to a glacier just below your surface,

While ivory oceans confess your innocence.

Written by Erin Elizabeth Cloar July 2006

Earthquake on O'ahu

I keep flipping

The light switch on--off

As I enter or exit a room.

I haven’t had electricity for 6 hours,

But I can see just fine.

I do not hear television noise.

I'm listening to the roar of rain

And watching the drops fall into puddles.

It’s like the earth cleared her throat to speak,

And those vibrations halted our lives on this island.

The whole world paused and gave attention.

She said, “Loose the chords bound round your wrists,

Whether your captor be a computer,

A vacuum, or some other machine.

You can enjoy this world without electricity.

Come bathe in my sweet shower to be reborn.

Be still and listen to the sound that silence makes when she has an audience.”

Branches in trees swayed and rattled their leaves

To applaud the majesty of their mother.

.

.

Erin Elizabeth Cloar October 15, 2006