Aftermath by Katherine Flannery Dering
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For My Sister, at Nick’s Departure
The cedar tree trembles; the sky darkens. The bird feeder is empty, and the yard, barren. A north wind elbows through bare oaks and hickories, pushing the limbs this way and that. The trees groan in protest. My heart trembles; my spirit darkens. I am empty and cannot find quiet. I am shivering; the wind saws through me. How do I give comfort if I’m chopped to pieces? My poor, sweet boy, my sister mutters, shredded tissues balled in her hand. She’s an Inuit carving, smooth and compact, her back a soft curve. |
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Simplon Pass
First published in River River, Issue Four / Fall 2016 —for my brother We are the only ones who ever lived who rode in the backward facing seat in the way-back of our gold, behemoth, 1957 Plymouth station wagon under millions—a universe—of twinkling stars. Alps behind us, Bologna and Rome ahead, the road in its sixth or seventh hour of sickening switch-backs, and we’re singing, “For you and I have a guardian angel,” and I’m crying softly. There’s a breeze. Dad’s cigarette smoke snakes its way back into the car. Sharp. The three other kids are quiet, perhaps sleeping. Who else could ever know what these children know? Even then you and I sensed this could happen only once. Our lives would now have a before and after. …Imitating Bing Crosby’s croon, “little one, why do you tarry?” And now our parents are gone, hopefully to a place among those stars, floating through the light as it streams through the universe. You may see them through your telescope from your high hill above the long leaf pines. …Racing up hundreds of steps in Rome and Pisa, what was our hurry? Did we really eat our first lasagna at a travelers’ rest perched on an Alpine mountainside? Sweat through a papal audience in a Rococo palace, and shiver by bones in the catacombs? Perfume and must. We were always looking for meteorites amidst mica-flecked rock. Well, the stars are still there. Slow down, little brother. Feet up, window open. Let’s enjoy the descent. |
Eternity
First published in Shot in the Head, A Sister’s Memoir, a Brother’s Struggle from Bridgeross Communications / March 2014 My cat Brownie was fifteen when her tortoise-shell coat lost its lovely sheen. I think about her on this cold winter’s day, as I consider our human cross-over rituals: the denial, the painful procedures, the no-win decisions. Brownie lay for days, stretched out by the wood stove, gasping for breath, sides heaving. But she purred in my lap as we drove to the vet’s where soothing voices, gentle strokes, and a tiny prick eased her off to her journey through the Milky Way. We humans lose grandparents, then parents, peers and loved ones, and still, like snakes, we shed our skins each spring and slither off to a sunny rock to bake. We’re astonished when sharp talons come from nowhere and just like that, we’re off to meet eternity. |
