now that my son is gone i can cut back on a few things. no need
to keep all these lights on. i can turn the heat down, too, wrap
myself in blankets, i have extras from his bed. his comforter, i can
wrap myself in that. it smells of him, no need to launder it.
the television and the stereo, i can keep them turned off. no need
for music, that was all for him, anyway, for his education
and enlightenment. the television with its comedies and dramas,
that was just to help us take the pressure off.
no need for all of that. no need for eating out at restaurants,
for going to shows, or museums. no need for deep-fried chicken,
for fresh vegetables and fruits. i can eat canned goods now, cut
back that way, put on a sweater, turn out all these lights.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also.
Genesis 27:38
you stand in a river of time that moves so slowly you think it stands still.
i stand downstream, nearer to the falls,
where i cling to a framework built from dead branches snatched from the stream,
lashed together with scraps of plastic fished from currents—
i can’t stand without it.
you stand with no such crutch—tall and beautiful you stand,
and i damn you for it, staking my claim against your life
before it has carried you down this river, to this place where i drag my paralyzed feet
behind my twisted body, thrashing with palsied hand at robber-flies in this place
where, by the time you arrive, i will be gone and to nothingness damned.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“It behoveth thee not to grieve for that which must happen: for who can avert, by his wisdom, the decrees of fate? No one can leave the way marked out for him by Providence. Existence and non-existence, pleasure and pain all have Time for their root. Time createth all things and Time destroyeth all creatures. It is Time that burneth creatures and it is Time that extinguisheth the fire. All states, the good and the evil, in the three worlds, are caused by Time. Time cutteth short all things and createth them anew. Time alone is awake when all things are asleep: indeed, Time is incapable of being overcome. Time passeth over all things without being retarded. Knowing, as thou dost, that all things past and future and all that exist at the present moment, are the offspring of Time, it behoveth thee not to throw away thy reason.” – The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Vol. I, Adi Parva, trans. Pratap Chandra Roy