April 22, 2009: Alone, Jack Gilbert
Alone
Jack Gilbert
I never thought Michiko would come back
after she died. But if she did, I knew
it would be as a lady in a long white dress.
It is strange that she has returned
as somebody’s dalmatian. I meet
the man walking her on a leash
almost every week. He says good morning
and I stoop down to calm her. He said
once that she was never like that with
other people. Sometimes she is tethered
on the lawn when I go by. If nobody
is around, I sit on the grass. When she
finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap
and we watch each other’s eyes as I whisper
in her soft ears. She cares nothing about
the mystery. She likes it best when
I touch her head and tell her small
things about my days and our friends.
That makes her happy the way it always did.
[The Dance Most of All, Jack Gilbert’s latest — and probably last — book came out earlier this month. Like all his writing, it’s spare and intense, thick with memory.]
A year ago today: From Blossoms, Li-Young Lee
Two years ago: For Grace, After A Party, Frank O’Hara
Three years ago: Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
Four years ago: A Brief for the Defense, Jack Gilbert
