Sitting (in Catherine’s chair)

Loneliness is not even something I could have
conceived of, not so many years ago, I seriously thought
I was done with all that, but
I sit
in Catherine’s chair
and gaze across the landscape
at the bed we bought
with the money the lawyer from Nashville sent
and realize with sudden clarity that I sleep in
the same position I found her in on that
dark day that
brought the loneliness crashing in again
from all corners of the room,
crushing the little spirit I have left inside.

Sitting
in Catherine’s chair, I can
see Gail’s tanka that I hung on the wall
just a week or two before she died. On every wall,
a painting by Catherine’s dad.
Hand me down art and hand me down words,
hand me down chairs and hand me down sons,
hand me down cats,  they left it all behind and
left me here
sitting.

Sitting and
grieving lost friends that time has accumulated,
one more out the blue and
into the black in the time it took
to write this poem and all I can think about is
lost time and how I read his last poem and
just clicked ‘like’, like that means something and while
sitting here listening to Stravener and Young and Dylan
helps to bring Scott into focus, I can’t escape the feeling that
I’m sitting and
grieving me.

Sitting and
wondering about why Hunter
pulled the trigger, amazed by the number of
people I know who touched his world, who have
touched mine as I have touched the hearts
of many, but in the quiet of the
evening, the heat of the late August day fading away,
it remains the last great secret and yes,
you are all real and
in my head and I wouldn’t have it any
other way and this is such an awesome power and
responsibility, because you know
whose chair I am sitting in.

I grow so tired of eulogies, but no one can seem to stop
the dying, it is the last great secret Chris, but here is the thing:
there should be a law against
sitting and
fading away.
The whispers become obscene shouts after three am and
endurance requires a method of
stifling the screams, give me the blood of life
flowing again and a loud guitar, glass of wine,
endless words that hold worlds within their meaning and
perhaps I can survive, hold them all within,
live all the life that remains,
give all I have within to those that
remain trapped here in bone and flesh.
All I have to do, is simply be,
me.

Sitting in Catherine’s chair, I know the real promise
to Gail is the nurture of what she left me,
that awesome hand me down son and the elfin
daughter we created, the visible ripples of the
life we lived, the love we loved.
I hereby promise to
rage,
rage,
rage,
against the dying
of the light
until my day
turns into night.



MJ Carson
8-28-2011