Cry of the Stars

He just hasn’t made my bed yet,
she used to say, when the ground grew too hard
and she’d sit on a pillow to weed the garden,
when her skin had been folding up for years
and her world had long been slipping toward silence.
It wasn’t that she wanted to leave us,
but I think she was tired.
Did she picture sheets made of stars, smooth
and tucked in like clouds, maybe
smelling like spring blossoms, or like old pine?
Did she dream of quilts crafted by
his careful hand, filled to the binding
with a century’s worth of stories—did she want to see
his gentle smile as he drew the covers to her chin,
did she imagine clean summer wind
as she slipped away to rest at last?
She left so much behind, even my house bends
to gather the pieces. My mother tends
bereaved orchids at the window and keeps
one of her blankets on the living room couch, which
I’ve been hiding under and wondering
if we got it backwards all along: could it be
we were the ones who made the bed, smoothing
sheets and trembling at the emptiness beneath,
the best our human hands could do—
we braced ourselves for night, and
maybe we were wrong,
maybe he burst into the room and threw back the curtains,
maybe he pulled her up as sunlight streamed in
and he sang in his joy, I couldn’t wait
to wake you, there is so much for us to do today,
so many birds and trees and flowers to see,
mountains to scale with your new strong knees and
rivers to splash with your new young feet,
a whole city to show you and all your friends
looking for you, my darling,
my little girl, get up!

The time has come, I am sure,
to let the ropes fall from my chest,
for my heart will soon
be too big to keep in any body.
It may fit in this empty, hundred-walled
house, gorging itself full
on the drippings of honeyed light
pouring from these windows,
sleeping on these warm, bare
oaken floorboards.
I woke up here with you
in a thunderstorm, while outside
young ivy, cold and pale, clung to the wet,
white walls, and great feathery
clouds roared with laughter in the sky.
The lightning splashed on your hair
and cut me open from neck to navel
with the precision of a surgeon,
a scalpel wielded to release
my soul, to let me breathe
again, at last.
I might have wept, but only
because I was happy.
And so this elephant heart of mine
keeps growing, and it laughs, too,
promising to fill these rooms
with flowers and grand-children
and dreams that look us
in the face and smile.
The time has come
to let the ropes fall from my chest.

I've got seeds in my pocket,
a tape measure in my hands,
and plans rolled up tight on tracing paper
in my backpack—all these for when
I end up where I'm headed, and it comes
the time to build.

In the land that will be mine,
I'll first find where the little creek flows, and
plant the maple with the crooked branch
that leans over the water, for fishing.
Then, the old oak with its plastic red swing
and the big mango tree, for climbing,
and tall hemlocks next to wide-limbed spruces,
for the children to hide beneath and play.

I'm bringing my sister's quiet street
to settle around the house, a long loop
wide enough for four to walk side-by-side,
barefoot on faded asphalt still leaking
the sun's warmth in late afternoon.
I'll make a garden, too, filled up with
vegetables and flowers alike, and
bordered by my mother's old butterfly bushes.
She and I will sit out there in summer,
reading the books she never
found the time to read, and with new eyes
she'll laugh at fine print with me.

Inside the house there will be a special closet,
for memories that only need remembering
once in a while.
My father's father will keep
his wheelchair in this closet, while he plays
Chinese shuttlecock out in the courtyard,
and my friends will leave
their hospital gowns—faded, worn,
smelling faintly of death—
folded neatly on the shadowed shelves.

To be a tree
planted once,
not thrice, not rooted
unsteady across
two oceans;
to be a dandelion
unscattered,
a trail of crumbs
leading only one way?

To learn that
a house is home and
believe it,
or else

You're a stranger, but I think
I've carried your crystal air
deep in my bones for
a long while.

I've glimpsed you
in childhood dreams and books
that never spoke of you
by name, but caught
the colors of your sky
and snagged a bit of
your life's vibrance.

Something in me knows that
my feet are made to learn
your wide roads,
my hands to build your cities,
my frame to fit
in the crooked branches
of your strong trees.

Wait for me, wait for me,
beloved stranger land.
There's a ship in your harbor
with my name on the bow,

and when I arrive
under the bright cloak
of a near-setting sun,
any unfamiliarity will bend
from forbidding to beautiful
to this deep sense of
belonging: I was born
for you.

There's a war-torn husk
you've left behind, that bears your
eyes, your hands, your feet -

but faithful soldier
finally free, you're taken
home at last. At last.