On What Might Be

Adam Rogers Gillette --
 born May 22, 1984
died August 22, 2000 --
ever loved and missed.

I might be working on the menu,
calling him to ask what his request was
for a birthday feast, his 35th, a special celebration,
and all day I'd think of how it was
that afternoon I fell in love, the comments
I remember made by friends and family
who joined us for the moment
he would make his entrance.
"If the baby's just another girl," his brother
said, "I'll give her to the neighbor."
Their sisters played outside and
I could hear them through the open window
in our bedroom as the pains got harder,
faster, little time to rest between them, but I tried.
Thirty-five years later I'd be making sure
his brother wasn't working or that his sister out
in Texas could call on Face Time at a certain time to
join the "Happy Birthday" singing with the rest of us.
His other sister, I might ask to make the cake,
or help me get the house as sparkling clean as
you'd expect when welcoming someone you love.
At 35, perhaps he'd have a wife and children,
little freckled versions of that handsome face
and auburn hair. Perhaps he'd bring a story of his day
at work, or something new on the horizon, but
the conversation wouldn't really matter as we basked
together in the glow of laughter, of shared memories,
and knowing nothing of the heartache that we have instead.
This birthday and the eighteen other ones we've spent
without him have in common so much joy
there are no words to accurately describe it,
and as well, the sense of such deep loss that if it
was a painting, it would be in shades of grey and black
and if it was a poem, it might be something just like this.

travel

across the ocean
universal
time zones
the abyss

and this

is me missing you
missing me
missing us

until you come back
alas, alack

a thousand miles
until a thousand smiles

itineraries

do not need them
do not heed them

travel
unravels

come back soon
and safe

come back


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2019

Greek to Me

If she'd been Greek she would have understood his love

smacked more of philo or agape than the eros she imagined.

Over time, the pragma that took over was a welcome change,

a love of comfort and convenience, each one well aware of what

the other wanted, needed, fleeting expectations making way for 

solid knowledge of what would and would not happen.

By then, of course, she'd figured out that "love" can mean a dozen

different things depending on whose lips have formed the words, 

and she adapted. She adapted well, in fact, until she met someone 

whose love for her encompassed all the facets of the word 

in any language, any dialect, the words far less important

than expression, definitions lost in an embrace that didn't

ever seem to end, despite the hours or distance. And she still enjoyed
the word, of course, the whisper of commitment and of hope,
but which love did he mean? It never dawned on her to ask,
as if the morning wondered if the sun, today, would rise.

(c) 2019 Ellen Gillette

Maybe you know couples like that, as I do, who get used to something less than what they hoped for, and then get blown away by something new. It happens.

The New Year Approaches

As the year draws to a close, an accident.
The champagne spilled, her laptop compromised.
How many moments just like these, she thinks,
have been encountered in a lifetime? Momentary
things gone wrong, and yet, assurance that not
everything is lost. The memories of all that really
matters is intact. The people who still care, although
the names may change from year to year, are there.
No data missing, no relationships that mattered
in the last twelve months will matter less, perhaps
a few, of late, have faded but that wasn't anything
that she would or could have changed. The champagne
sopped up with a towel, she is hopeful that the year
ahead will bring some changes for the better. Still
she weeps for what she's lost, for difficulties she'd have
rather helped her loved ones to avoid but they would
not. She hears the sound of fireworks in the distance
and she prays that next year will be better, that a year
from now, she'll toast the turning of the calendar with
company,'
and hope,
and love.




(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018

Ghosts of Thanksgiving

They represent, collectively, 800 turkeys carved or more,

Norman Rockwell's famous
"Freedom from Want" painting

2000 pies, a treasure trove of casseroles, a semi load of

sweet ice tea, hot rolls with butter by the barrel. 

Sixty years, around, of holidays made special 

for their families and friends. Or not. Some have the look 

of scoundrels still. Old age does not erase past hurts,

but listening to now cracked and feeble voices try to

stay on key for Silent Night, I hope that there are people

who will visit those who gave them many memories 

in younger years, who set a table with the candles 

and good china, worked for hours on a meal because that's 

what you do. Or what you did once long ago.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018

On the Eve of Mama's Birthday

I thought it was another of the multitude of things:
the particles of drama, quarks of quirks that make this
place a challenge I can tolerate with promised grace
but without much left over by the end of day. As tempting
as it is to smooth the wrinkles of my words and make it sound
as if my present state of mind is overblown, I am
too honest, I'm afraid. And yet tonight I realize
that nothing of the normal nastiness may be to blame
at all. Perhaps it is, instead, the fact that in the morning,
I will wake up to the first of Mama's birthdays in my life
that will not have her voice, her breath, her joy.

I hadn't really planned on that.

The rest is ordinary stress I recognize as Life, at least
for now. Although I often do not know my place or what
my role should be at any given minute, I adjust
(and fairly quickly, since I get such frequent practice).

But how do I adjust to nothing

when the something, when the someone,

was so dear?


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018

Bridge

Like a bridge that's built to give a little

under stress, allow for weather and for weight,

I wonder how much more this little heart

can take today. The heaviness. Concerns,

catastrophes that build, one sitting nicely on

the one below. You know at some point it

will topple over, you just hope you're not

there underneath the load, that something,

someone will have grabbed your hand and

pulled (at least) a moment sooner, and offered

you a hug, a touch, a glass of wine, some oxygen,

a pillow to prop up your head, a foot rub,

pleasant music, candles maybe, something

nice to eat, a smile, a poem, warm cloth

to wash the dirt away, a bandage for that scrape,

the promise that there's someone on the earth

that cares and understands that little heart

with so much love to give it hurts.

(c) Ellen Gillette 2018