21 Years

April 3, 1993

21 Years

“Love is the emblem of eternity, it confounds all notions of time,

effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end.”

--Germaine De Stael.

Just another Thursday morning,

waking up achey & stiff

with a pad of steel wool

in my dry mouth, my mind

still stuck partially in hypnogogic 

review, fast-forward/backward dream slides--

my mother in the kitchen, dead

over 40 years now, but there baking bread,

as the house hummed with family;

five grandchildren,

three daughters,

three strapping son-in-laws

puttering around, fixing things--

broken chairs, swollen doors, burned out

light switches, because they knew this

was all stuff I was incapable of doing,

having the mechanical aptitude of a fruit fly.

My grandfather arm wrestling

with my stepfather out on the tile-covered

table in the corner of our large deck,

both dead, both grunting as their

massive biceps knotted, & their dislike

for each other furrowed itself

into their sweaty foreheads--

two dead dogs,

three dead cats,

all there lying about

enjoying the company

& the day;

replaced by the tick of time

from the clock near my head,

accompanied by the empty basement symphony,

the oil furnace whoosh,

the big freezer wheeze,

the industrial sump-pump gurgle,

the utility sink drip,

the damn dog barking next door,

& the strident pleading 

of our Keezie Kat outside,

reminding me that it was time to feed him--

usually my sweet wife fed him, 

for she still had a job, had a routine,

but this morning she was on Spring Break,

& besides she was in Maryland

with our oldest daughter, hugging

two grandsons.

I called her cell phone as soon

as I could get my tongue to work,

& we had a mad singing duet/duel:

Happy Anniversary,

Happy Anniversary,

Happy 21st Anniversary to you!!!

Later I was on Facebook,

on her page, & I read the tender declaration,

praising her old husband for loving her enough

to send her clear across the country to be with

the furthest extremities of our clan.

Oh sure, I thought,

I’m a real prince;

just staying at home

writing more poetry,

reading the new script

of the play I will be in soon,

cat-sitting, feeling footloose,

buying a new set of radials

for my SUV as an anniversary gift;

and after polishing off another Jimmy Dean

breakfast bowl for one, I clicked open

my digital album & reviewed

some of our other anniversary memories,

the week on the big island of Hawaii,

the few days at the Oregon shores,

the freezing room at that strange B&B

near Mt. Rainier, smiling

at the memory of all the God-awful meals

we had in crappy restaurants while 

heralding our special day, all the lumpy

beds we slept in at hotels & motels,

all those road trips, plane flights, & adventures

we embarked on in the name of our nuptials,

now representing more than two decades

of mostly harmonious matrimony;

marveling at how well 

I was dealing with my solitude,

not really alone,

never alone again,

for her spirit, her essence

surrounded me, & even the old tomcat

seemed to know that 

she would be winging home

soon. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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