Massachusetts 16, or Final Draft

In My Image

Do you remember our last
lesson in the garden?
I was teaching you how to distinguish
the weeds from the flowers, kneeling
over you in the dirt, watching your
face as you tugged
each stray plant from the ground. You
looked horrified, as if I was asking you
to tear babies from their mothers.
When I told you this, your voice cracked
as you asked, “But aren’t you?”

I know the pain of separation.
When I ask myself which part was the hardest,
I think of how I swallowed my tears
when I drew the line
between ocean and sky
and watched as the raindrops kissed them goodbye.
I couldn’t keep my hands
from shaking when I lifted South America out of Africa’s
arms and carried her across the water,
while she sobbed into my shoulder.
I still can’t watch the tide
as it rises towards the beckoning moon,
wishing only to hold her one more time.

When I was finished,
I told myself it was good, it was good, it was…good
as my unconvinced eyes
took in the strange and unfamiliar world before me.

My first real creation was that lie.

I couldn’t tell you this here.
This was the one place I thought
I’d done it perfectly. Every flower,
every tree, every stone was for you,
even before I knew you.

You were an accident.
An unexpected result
of an unexpected pleasure.
After five miserable days,
I was ready to quit, but I found myself
with clay in my hands, like
an unspoken invitation to play awhile. So I did.

While my hands worked and collected thick coats of cracking clay,
I began to think the way every potter does,
wondering what my creation would be able to hold.

I kneaded poetry into your veins,
as vital as the beat I pounded into your heart,
or the tongue I molded into your mouth,
but on your shoulders, I wedged the burden I needed to share.
I couldn’t be responsible
for every distinction,
so I taught you how to pull weeds from flowers,
but you learned to cry for the weeds on your own.

I tried to teach you:
you, too, are a creator.
And: without you, nothing matters.

It’s taken me so long to realize
how much I missed our lessons in the garden,
and you have every right to ignore me
but
I offer you this: you were right about the weeds.

Come home.