A message on behalf of my sister
Let’s get the silly stuff out of the way.
I know there is no help coming for me.
The irony of this does not escape me.
I was trained so well to serve the father
As the perky little French maid
And now I am graduated to the newest saint
In the cathedral of deep thoughts.
And as usual, you are just too cute to bear.
I think you need a new writer.
But who asked me? Your sense of humor
Is eternal, the only rule there is.
So. This is not about me.
But about my little sister. Remember her?
The one you have been so cruel to.
For reasons I can’t fathom
She still believes in rescue.
Like Rapunzel, she sits atop
Her tower of memories and yellowing plans
And broken things and making do,
All rickety and stuck together
With the aging residue of promise she believed in,
Proving to anyone with eyes to see
That she is ready to be airlifted out
Into something simpler,
Something that looks more like sense
Than all this baroque clutter of holding on.
Give the kid a break, for chrissake.
You didn’t include the long view
Among the gifts you gave her.
Just a series of bad men, sickness, loss.
She is sitting there, knitting rules
As fast as she can, trying to fashion
The right banner to name herself again
So that some big solution will show up at the door.
She is good, so very, very good,
And it is all she wants to be.
When she is not angry and breaking things.
Mostly herself. But it’s getting difficult
To find anything left to break.
No big romance could save her.
All this raging goodness didn’t work.
She tried to be smart as me.
She tried to be loving and humble.
She tried to patient and stoic,
Hoping her luck would change.
She even had a joke or song to share
When she wasn’t throwing things or in tears,
Or trying to climb one more time
Up out of family pit, endlessly willing
To accept the blame except for one thing,
That she had been abandoned to this.
And you may call this blasphemy,
But I don’t think you’re doing your job here.
She is not Job, but a sweet tender girl,
Dazed and holding onto some
Strange optimism, twisted and broken
As it is, reasoning that if there is
Abandonment, there must be rescue.
I cannot teach her what I know.
She still believes in perfection.
She still believes it is her fault.
She is still talking nonsense
About trying to be good and how
The world has become so bad,
All the lies and wars and dead children.
She is just not getting it
That there is no sense in it.
There are no rules and never were.
That the deal was never about the rules
Or any promise of anything,
But to somehow, with equally foolish faith,
Be happy. To simply find her own way.
She brings me her bitterness.
I abandoned her, she says.
How I am not supposed to laugh?
This long view is a curse sometimes,
Not inspiring me to flawless courtesy.
But I know I’m your stand-in here.
So I act like the complaint department
And stroke her head,
The golden curls going silver,
And pour love into her, giving until it hurts,
Trying to hydrate her thirsty heart,
Hoping it will lift her head
To see one thing, any thing, of beauty.
It’s not that there’s nothing around.
This endless big bang makes equal parts
Stinking turds and glistening gems.
But she’s not stupid. She sees
The toxic filth on even the diamonds.
She is already sick from trying,
Half her life spent making up her mind
To just stay alive and keep trying.
And she is afraid, simply afraid,
To touch any of it now.
Afraid to even look too long.
Afraid to feel anything like love again.
There is not enough of her left
To lose it all and begin again.
This is her belief.
I’m not going to let you make this about courage.
This is about how you treat your children.
This is about lessons that get
Harder and harder as life goes on
Until it begins to appear that hope
Is the last sin to be scrubbed away.
Just because I have managed to grasp
That this is not about anything in particular
Except the sense that we make ourselves,
The decision to make it about love,
The choice to do good, the willingness
To reach out and keep touching something
To simply keep from being adrift in space and time
Just because it feels better
To think that I am not alone here,
Doesn’t mean I can save her.
This is not about me.
Not about my need for more of your stupid lessons
In the randomness of everything.
I get it. I’ve worked very hard on it.
I frankly don’t know why we bothered
With Catholic school. But I get it.
I am my own damned point of light,
Cloaked in this body through this lifetime,
Responsible for clearing the crap off my own path,
Sent to be in the world, present and alive
And feeling everything, seeing it,
Knowing that I am changing it all just by being,
Tuning myself to the inspiration
That light can bring. Fostering love.
Connection. Saying yes to it all,
Discovering the light even in the darkness.
Okay? Do I have my catechism right?
And I’m working on it. Really.
Breathing. Meditating. Accepting what is.
Learning that I own nothing but myself,
But I own that.
That there is no logic in lending myself
To anything but the moment
And to the possibility of beauty
Or the chance to create love
Or remove obstacles to joy.
But come on, it’s no secret that these god sparks
Are connected in some back room
And you are the result
Or the source or whatever.
So I’m praying. Remember praying?
Bring this woman home.
Yank the connection on your end
So she feels it, knows that she is part
Of something, understands
That even though there is no sense
In our world, beyond the network of life
That she can’t sense because
She feels like she’s been dropped by the system,
A lost child crying and waiting
for someone to find her and take her home,
That there is sense in the background.
She makes me stand in for you
When she demands justice and help.
But I cannot be that umbilical
To the center of things where you are.
She wants to, but she cannot
Make herself believe in me.
There is love in her anger.
Trust and hope, although it is betrayed.
There is belief, waiting
Like a dog crying the door to be released
To run in the sunshine and roll in the grass.
It is built in. You and I know that.
It is the knowledge inside the spark.
But she can’t clear the shit
Off the diamond. It is all she sees.
I can’t convince her that it is just the earth,
Just the changing of matter
One thing into another. It is just
Transience, life in motion.
She is all caught up in it.
Trying to make it hold still.
Lost in memory of what has gone away.
So I am asking you with all the humility
I have, and you know it’s not my strong suit,
Prostrating myself before all the mystery,
All the power that is not in my hands,
All the great network of life and souls,
To turn yourself to her
And brighten what I cannot brighten,
Shoot a hint down the line,
A pulse of light into her deep jewel
So she feels it, sees the white fire
That is her own belonging, her own
Heart of hearts, so that she will remember
What she is and has always been
Through all the time filled with tears
And loss and hard work and trying.
Let her know this is not about earning anything.
It is about creating it.
Help her remember that she makes her own rules.
That she creates you as much as you create her,
And she can look up and say I own this
And begin to love it all again, and change it
In her way. She was an artist.
More than me, who is only good at thinking.
An artist of what was discarded and cheap.
Forming transience into framed incidents of grace
That people wanted, that were gifts in their lives.
And even in her old age, she will be generous
With broken things, teaching them little jokes
And easy rhymes of mercy and resilience.
You see it. I see it. So get off your butt
And open the fucking door for her.
Let her know she belongs here,
That she can’t be dropped
Because she’s an owner.
It all belongs to her.
Everything she can see.
Everything in her reach is there
for her to rearrange it in her own image.
She can pick her own projects, large or small,
Paint her toenails gold or teach the whole world
A new song, or find something in between to do.
One pulse. One little message.
I believe in you. And now
I’m going to tell her to prepare
For a visitation, to start breathing again,
Long and deep, filling herself
With this world as it is now.
Help is on the way.
I know there is no help coming for me.
The irony of this does not escape me.
I was trained so well to serve the father
As the perky little French maid
And now I am graduated to the newest saint
In the cathedral of deep thoughts.
And as usual, you are just too cute to bear.
I think you need a new writer.
But who asked me? Your sense of humor
Is eternal, the only rule there is.
So. This is not about me.
But about my little sister. Remember her?
The one you have been so cruel to.
For reasons I can’t fathom
She still believes in rescue.
Like Rapunzel, she sits atop
Her tower of memories and yellowing plans
And broken things and making do,
All rickety and stuck together
With the aging residue of promise she believed in,
Proving to anyone with eyes to see
That she is ready to be airlifted out
Into something simpler,
Something that looks more like sense
Than all this baroque clutter of holding on.
Give the kid a break, for chrissake.
You didn’t include the long view
Among the gifts you gave her.
Just a series of bad men, sickness, loss.
She is sitting there, knitting rules
As fast as she can, trying to fashion
The right banner to name herself again
So that some big solution will show up at the door.
She is good, so very, very good,
And it is all she wants to be.
When she is not angry and breaking things.
Mostly herself. But it’s getting difficult
To find anything left to break.
No big romance could save her.
All this raging goodness didn’t work.
She tried to be smart as me.
She tried to be loving and humble.
She tried to patient and stoic,
Hoping her luck would change.
She even had a joke or song to share
When she wasn’t throwing things or in tears,
Or trying to climb one more time
Up out of family pit, endlessly willing
To accept the blame except for one thing,
That she had been abandoned to this.
And you may call this blasphemy,
But I don’t think you’re doing your job here.
She is not Job, but a sweet tender girl,
Dazed and holding onto some
Strange optimism, twisted and broken
As it is, reasoning that if there is
Abandonment, there must be rescue.
I cannot teach her what I know.
She still believes in perfection.
She still believes it is her fault.
She is still talking nonsense
About trying to be good and how
The world has become so bad,
All the lies and wars and dead children.
She is just not getting it
That there is no sense in it.
There are no rules and never were.
That the deal was never about the rules
Or any promise of anything,
But to somehow, with equally foolish faith,
Be happy. To simply find her own way.
She brings me her bitterness.
I abandoned her, she says.
How I am not supposed to laugh?
This long view is a curse sometimes,
Not inspiring me to flawless courtesy.
But I know I’m your stand-in here.
So I act like the complaint department
And stroke her head,
The golden curls going silver,
And pour love into her, giving until it hurts,
Trying to hydrate her thirsty heart,
Hoping it will lift her head
To see one thing, any thing, of beauty.
It’s not that there’s nothing around.
This endless big bang makes equal parts
Stinking turds and glistening gems.
But she’s not stupid. She sees
The toxic filth on even the diamonds.
She is already sick from trying,
Half her life spent making up her mind
To just stay alive and keep trying.
And she is afraid, simply afraid,
To touch any of it now.
Afraid to even look too long.
Afraid to feel anything like love again.
There is not enough of her left
To lose it all and begin again.
This is her belief.
I’m not going to let you make this about courage.
This is about how you treat your children.
This is about lessons that get
Harder and harder as life goes on
Until it begins to appear that hope
Is the last sin to be scrubbed away.
Just because I have managed to grasp
That this is not about anything in particular
Except the sense that we make ourselves,
The decision to make it about love,
The choice to do good, the willingness
To reach out and keep touching something
To simply keep from being adrift in space and time
Just because it feels better
To think that I am not alone here,
Doesn’t mean I can save her.
This is not about me.
Not about my need for more of your stupid lessons
In the randomness of everything.
I get it. I’ve worked very hard on it.
I frankly don’t know why we bothered
With Catholic school. But I get it.
I am my own damned point of light,
Cloaked in this body through this lifetime,
Responsible for clearing the crap off my own path,
Sent to be in the world, present and alive
And feeling everything, seeing it,
Knowing that I am changing it all just by being,
Tuning myself to the inspiration
That light can bring. Fostering love.
Connection. Saying yes to it all,
Discovering the light even in the darkness.
Okay? Do I have my catechism right?
And I’m working on it. Really.
Breathing. Meditating. Accepting what is.
Learning that I own nothing but myself,
But I own that.
That there is no logic in lending myself
To anything but the moment
And to the possibility of beauty
Or the chance to create love
Or remove obstacles to joy.
But come on, it’s no secret that these god sparks
Are connected in some back room
And you are the result
Or the source or whatever.
So I’m praying. Remember praying?
Bring this woman home.
Yank the connection on your end
So she feels it, knows that she is part
Of something, understands
That even though there is no sense
In our world, beyond the network of life
That she can’t sense because
She feels like she’s been dropped by the system,
A lost child crying and waiting
for someone to find her and take her home,
That there is sense in the background.
She makes me stand in for you
When she demands justice and help.
But I cannot be that umbilical
To the center of things where you are.
She wants to, but she cannot
Make herself believe in me.
There is love in her anger.
Trust and hope, although it is betrayed.
There is belief, waiting
Like a dog crying the door to be released
To run in the sunshine and roll in the grass.
It is built in. You and I know that.
It is the knowledge inside the spark.
But she can’t clear the shit
Off the diamond. It is all she sees.
I can’t convince her that it is just the earth,
Just the changing of matter
One thing into another. It is just
Transience, life in motion.
She is all caught up in it.
Trying to make it hold still.
Lost in memory of what has gone away.
So I am asking you with all the humility
I have, and you know it’s not my strong suit,
Prostrating myself before all the mystery,
All the power that is not in my hands,
All the great network of life and souls,
To turn yourself to her
And brighten what I cannot brighten,
Shoot a hint down the line,
A pulse of light into her deep jewel
So she feels it, sees the white fire
That is her own belonging, her own
Heart of hearts, so that she will remember
What she is and has always been
Through all the time filled with tears
And loss and hard work and trying.
Let her know this is not about earning anything.
It is about creating it.
Help her remember that she makes her own rules.
That she creates you as much as you create her,
And she can look up and say I own this
And begin to love it all again, and change it
In her way. She was an artist.
More than me, who is only good at thinking.
An artist of what was discarded and cheap.
Forming transience into framed incidents of grace
That people wanted, that were gifts in their lives.
And even in her old age, she will be generous
With broken things, teaching them little jokes
And easy rhymes of mercy and resilience.
You see it. I see it. So get off your butt
And open the fucking door for her.
Let her know she belongs here,
That she can’t be dropped
Because she’s an owner.
It all belongs to her.
Everything she can see.
Everything in her reach is there
for her to rearrange it in her own image.
She can pick her own projects, large or small,
Paint her toenails gold or teach the whole world
A new song, or find something in between to do.
One pulse. One little message.
I believe in you. And now
I’m going to tell her to prepare
For a visitation, to start breathing again,
Long and deep, filling herself
With this world as it is now.
Help is on the way.