I anticipated rearview mirrors in yesterday's Wendy Everard prompt - to write a poem of forgiveness. I was channeling the UGH of leaving my mom and dad in their home on Amalfi Drive, in another transition that they are capable to maintaining a life in their home. It's not easy. Of course the help Cynde secured for yesterday morning never showed, which seems like a pattern in this particular person's life. I ended up staying longer, and left before another potential home assistant was interviewed by my mom and sister.
All the mucky muck world of teaching and scholarship and service and doing professor life is irrelevant when you know the parents who raised you need an extra hand, too. Anyway, I knew I'd have to depart so took a gander on poetically captured what I imagined my drive would be like.
Vergebung Vagabond
There won’t be a hug, Crandall,
just a right foot on the accelerator
and an Ibram X. Kendi’s cadence
reading Chain of Ideas from
car speakers.
An internal dialogue will begin, too,
I suppose.
You’ll imagine an Alvin Ailey performance
across highway roads as you drive,
recalling his chapter on Colorism
in How to Be an Antiracist,
which caused an email
where you shared
you’re writing needs
to be performed
as a dance.
Only 276 miles to go,
the panting wing-dog
shedding hairs & creating
Rorschach noseprints
on clean windows…
the great reckoning
of guilt
that comes
with departures
journeys
movement
age.
You’ll watch your eyes
for several hours
in the rearview mirror
telling you the same ol’ stories
but always from varied
angles(angels).
A victory over sin & death,
is always a good time
for serenity prayers…
at least the wisdom to know
the difference.
