Water Underground
I usually have a starkly unsentimental view of death. But the passing of Shannon has made me sadder than any death in recent memory. I only saw her once, in Vancouver, when she had me literally banging on the balcony railing from the shock of her words. I remember thinking how much Laura would have loved her. We talk a lot about women in poetry here in the Bay, and Shannon was one of those poets that was, and could still be, an inspiration to women poets, and all poets, out here. I wanted to learn more from her.
They say that to be a good poet, you have to be good at living. I think Shannon must have been good at that. We should all be so brave.
We visit gravestones, but we're also inclined to build memorials where a person actually died: shrines on the highway, incense and offerings of cakes and Hennessy in the supermarket parking lot near my house. I think this is proper. Cemetaries are so legal, so sanctioned, too tidy and fair. We belong to the Earth, we die everywhere on it, we spread our sparks before they spread our ashes. I know the last of Shannon passed away in a hospital bed, but I'd like to believe that, if there is such thing as a spirit, it is a liquid, and it is not above us but underneath us. With some, we inhale the helium of the soul mixed with the air we breathe; I'd like to think that, in lieu of a shrine in some dark cave, Shannon's spirit passes in the water underground, running in rivers only wells can reach, from coast to coast, kissing stones, molecules traveling the currents of freshwater upon which the continent floats, subterranean as dreams, so that we, thirsty and osmotic for brilliance such as hers, can put our ears to the Earth and listen like tree roots for her voice.
They say that to be a good poet, you have to be good at living. I think Shannon must have been good at that. We should all be so brave.
We visit gravestones, but we're also inclined to build memorials where a person actually died: shrines on the highway, incense and offerings of cakes and Hennessy in the supermarket parking lot near my house. I think this is proper. Cemetaries are so legal, so sanctioned, too tidy and fair. We belong to the Earth, we die everywhere on it, we spread our sparks before they spread our ashes. I know the last of Shannon passed away in a hospital bed, but I'd like to believe that, if there is such thing as a spirit, it is a liquid, and it is not above us but underneath us. With some, we inhale the helium of the soul mixed with the air we breathe; I'd like to think that, in lieu of a shrine in some dark cave, Shannon's spirit passes in the water underground, running in rivers only wells can reach, from coast to coast, kissing stones, molecules traveling the currents of freshwater upon which the continent floats, subterranean as dreams, so that we, thirsty and osmotic for brilliance such as hers, can put our ears to the Earth and listen like tree roots for her voice.