DAGNE FORREST

Everything that falls upon the eye is apparition*

My grandmother had three quiet daughters,
such wild and orphan things.
One arranged to go to China.
One liked to eat supper in the dark.
One set up housekeeping 
until she sailed off the edge.
These things were known.

It must have been my mother’s plan
to rupture the dear ordinary. 
Every day she prepared to leave,
tended us with gentle indifference
until she sailed off the edge, 
into that unknown life of perished things.

That summer the lilacs rattled
the fir trees would shrug,
the chink and chafe of insects
drifted up our eaves.
I could conjure her face
until time began to blur the memory.

It was by grace of this dark
she returned,
a presence in a dream.
She stood still as an effigy,
faceless in front of me,
clouds soaked up light like a stain.
This time slowed, dilated,
here was the mystery again.

I was struck by her calm,
the square shoulders,
never looking toward me, yet
somehow she pulled toward
the membranes that separate dreams
and the world, stood looking,
and would only come closer
when I turned away again.

I did not dare to turn my head,
pretended not to know I was alone.


*Title and text fragments taken from “Housekeeping” by Marilynne Robinson.