Elegy

 

August 20, 2023

Sitting in my studio with the fan blasting at my head. Returned through eight hours from my natal north, only one piss stop the whole way. I handled the long drive much better than I intended to. Glory upon the mountains, constant poking of the radio to find a new station, most of them, in West Virginia southward, all about Jesus. 

Saturday I went to Twinsburg to Crown Hill to visit mother and her parents, spread out far from each other in that vast space. Kim, the office girl, drew a map for me and tried to sell me a burial plot. I told her I thought the family had an extra one somewhere, and she observed with real horror that if we didn’t use it, it will remain vacant for all eternity. The geese nibble the grass above your head, and the sky arches clear above. There would be worse places. Standing at mother’s grave did what it does to me each time: sends me into a passion, an ecstasy of grief practically unknown to the rest of my life. I was glad no one was within shouting distance. I wept for what I see as the unfairness of her life. Perhaps, God willing, she saw it otherwise. I wept for the paths I have taken, which I think she might not have recognized, or approved. Though each step seemed straight ahead, somehow I wandered into the wilderness nevertheless. There is no getting out now, no turning around; there is only trying to find some way deeper in, someplace to stand at last and say “here.” Drove to the other entrances of Maytree, walked to Alder Pond, which I had almost to myself, with a cool glacial breeze blowing over it, as there must have been at the very beginning. 

The reunion itself was the most fun, I think, of any of them. Sad, too. C estimates that 90 of the people we started school with are dead, 25 of them since the last reunion. K rolled her wheelchair up and said, “This debt relief Biden wants, I don’t agree with it. I paid my student debts. It isn’t right.” MD walked up and said, “Hi. I’m MD. I was in a terrible accident and lost half my brain. The doctors said I would never speak again.” I commended her on her speech and how good she looked (she really did look terrific), but realized none of that was getting through. She went on to the next person and repeated her little speech. W grabbed me by the shoulder and said “Can we talk? Can I buy you a drink?” He bought me another club soda and then revealed that he’d been troubled since the last reunion by something he said to me, worried that it might have hurt my feelings. I did remember it, but I assured him it was nothing. He checked in every few moments for the rest of the night, and took my number so he could call the next time he comes to Asheville. Everybody comes to Asheville, apparently. I was something of the beau of the ball, remembered as being unusually accomplished. A few even quoted my books at me. That is the best thing ever. Our name tags had our senior pictures on them, which may have been a mistake. For most of us (not me, actually) that was the moment of our greatest beauty. And there we were above the gleaming photos, relics of ourselves, bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. I was secretly in love with you, and you, and you. . .  and now we’re all come to the same foul rag and bone shop. Not, not foul, sweet and sad and elegiac. A sip of sherry by the gold window at sunset. Should I have gone from one to the other and said, “But I remember when you were beautiful” ? The banquet chicken was the worst I’ve ever had.