Monday Morning Musings:
“For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you. Remember?”
Before the before,
or perhaps, after the after
of each birth, of each death
we are not,
and then we are
the dust of centuries,
circling round
what we know,
and what we’ve forgotten
of love and time and belonging
to stars and earth and sea—
remember this, I say to myself,
I say to you, remember when?
And we laugh, remembering
what it was like
to be with people,
to sit outside on a summer night–
the things we thought we’d always have,
forgetting time circles
back to the before and the after
she died and he died–
mothers and fathers and children–
and who is to say the momma duck
does not love her offspring as much as we,
or what they remember of before
they swam in a river.
Crow voices his concerns, proclaims and prompts
us to action that we ignore,
like the goose looking for the tastiest grass,
we go about our lives, walking past
the river, watching reflections,
reflecting on a world upside down,
tide and time-rippled,
sparkling, then clouded over
like an aged brain

Tree reflection on Delaware River
filled with hidden recesses
and paths that lead to unexpected spaces—
the road not taken
to the wolf in the woods, to sleeping beauty,
to a forgotten love
before the before–
or, perhaps, after the after,
when the sun does not rise again,
imploding instead, and we are atoms,
dust returning light to the stars, remembering.

Portrait in Blue Goose on the Delaware River at Red Bank Battlefield, July 2020 ©️Merril D. Smith
We actually went out to a winery last week–Vino and Vibes at William Heritage Winery. With cases in the U.S. going up (though not so much in New Jersey), we may not do it again, but it the tables were well spread out—much more than six feet apart. Everyone wore masks when they were not at their own reserved tables, so it seemed as safe as anything is these days. My siblings and I are in the process of clearing out the storage unit where all of my mom’s stuff went after she died. Everything has been complicated by the Covid 19 situation and the need to keep socially/physically distant.
Merril’s Movie Club: We watched a new Australian horror movie, Relic, which I thought was very scary—perhaps because it deals with dementia, which is terrifying to me anyway. We also watched the French movie, The Midwife, which is about family and relationships and has wonderful performances by Catherine Frot, as the midwife, Catherine Deneuve as a woman from her past, and Olivier Gourmet, as a gardening, truck driver neighbor. I liked both movies more than my husband did. We’re also about two thirds done with the third and final season of the German show, Dark (on Netflix). We are totally lost and confused, but loving it anyway.
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