Too Soon

image borrowed from oaklandcemetery.com

Too Soon

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”--Mitch Albom.

There is just a flat stone, 

     flush with the grass, where her

              urn is buried.                                Betty Lee Buttkus 

                                                                        (1927-1966)

                       

                       dead at thirty-nine, a mother 

                       no more, devoured by uterine 

                cancer before she could 

                experience middle age.

                       My drunken stepfather put her

                       close to him, in a cemetery very

                 near the airport, where 

                 she could spend

                                  eternity

                                  listening to the roar

                                                          of

                                                          jets, and the

                                                                         heavy

                                                                         thud of traffic.

There were no trees 

near, so the birdsongs she

adored were denied her.                              I remember spending my 22nd

                                                                     birthday in boot camp, & how 

                                                             much I hated mail call because 

                                                    there were never any letters for

                                           me from Mom; the cord was cut,

                                   the maternal voice ever mute,

                          and the cheer leader left town.

                                   I would stand leaning against

                                            the wall, with my clenched

                                                      fists in my pockets, staring out

                                                                the second story window at

                                                                         long lines of Navy barracks.

A year after her transition

on my first real liberty, I stopped

by in uniform--blue-black woolen 

jumper, & those Buster Brown 13

button pants with no pockets, close-

                                                         
                                                          cropped hair hidden beneath a white

                                                          canvas hat; eyes that were prepared

                                                          for duty in Viet Nam, softened for a

                                                          moment as I played back her 39 years,

    
 and for that brief interval, the boy

     who had been twisted into a man                            untwisted,

            and her little Butch sat there on his knees

                     and wept for two solid hours.

                                                          A hand reached out & touched the stone;

                                                          a finger caressed the cold copper name,

                                                          all the delicious curves of it.

                                        Were they mine?

I do recall the profound silence, while it seemed as if there was nothing 
moving on the earth, whereby the vast distance between heartbeats
elongated to the width of a solar system--& the high-pitched
screaming of jet engines, the sibilant scree from sea gulls overhead,
the raucous pounding & thudding & horn-honking from
nearby traffic--even the vigorous rushing of blood through veins--ALL
were stilled;

                                  While I witnessed soft flesh

                                  rub against rigid rock, with-

                                  out making any noise.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub MTB