Spring 2002
ELAINE NEIL ORR
Joel
And then again with all of this and all of that
With all of this nausea and all of that wild exhaustion, wild
Like birds sunk in spilled oil on the oiled banks of beaches,
With all of that downness and dark drowning, still and all, I am happy
Sometimes, happier than I have ever been in my life, happy like I have already died.
I'm so relieved. Because living is the hard part and letting go once you've done it
Is light gulls above ocean, is flying out over the outer banks with land still in sight.
For how one night I am with my son at the Durham Bulls ball park and in mid summer so
The evening is long as a week-end and here we are walking with the hawkers and sellers of pizza
On the broad walk that frames the park and we are not speaking only walking slowly and up
Above us the whole evening sky is in its tanzanite blue and wind swathes us with tenderness
And I have no other place to be in my mind because with this illness I have no other place to be
In my mind, except here with my son in this evening in mid summer with the sky open above us
Like a jeweled and open book and I think to myself with the consciousness of those who have
Seen God, or so it seems to me: this is the breath of my being, this is the joy I was born for.