Liminal, adj. : occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.
These poems explore what is grey, what exists between, the liminal spaces of life and how we can honor and hold close those spaces. The first poem looks over the edge of an addict’s overdose and the life and memorial that remains on the other side. The second poem attempts to open wide our understanding of choice and sacrifice and to challenge our instinct to dismiss the presence of love. The third sits within the moments between life and death, asking of us what it is to remain. As a whole, the series is an exercise in opening eyes to that which lives beyond what makes sense.
i. the holy
you shared your death, what was the silky, grey inside,
the part of our deepest, raw being, of
Jake that is living and passing on,
so hard rendered clear,
to verbalize, (for it is the grey,
the part of Jake that tried letting go but never ceasing
to get everyone in amazement,
to share so deeply edges of the ground we walk,
and be kind to the haziness,
so vulnerable, to teach us of souls)
without painting portraits of
him to be that which is
god-like. when sacred and afraid,
Jake was using more than we could ever witness:
it took away serenity,
a bit of his true personality, but never lost, for
I still knew his soul was wise from suffering
and understood it. and the earth still allows us to love it
I’m glad Jake despite how we hurt,
touched you. carving trees into boxes to hold what is dead
I really am what exists between, the holy
*The words on the left are from a letter written to me by the sister of Jake Meyer, after she read a piece I wrote on the first anniversary of his death from a heroin overdose.
**This is a dialogue poem, to be read across the page as one poem, then down the left and right columns as their own poems.
—
ii. rope
there are four:
the bounding boy, a body guard to his sisters at a mere three foot height
the teenager, clasped hands, unable to articulate a sentence, her eyes focused to another world
the baby, nicknamed toto until his health proves lasting enough to attach a real name
and the girl, eyes glazed in drugged resignation, scars nestled in a ring of rope that ties her to the table
before, Julia wasn’t made to remain in the damp and crumbling kitchen,
was free to wander more than the grooves of the wooden furniture leg binding her movements
but once, her mother went to market, hoping to find a lonely man
or two, enough to buy an ear of maize to split five ways for dinner
and Julia, she ran so far, so fast, by the time her brother’s childhood limbs could find her,
she was deep in the neighbor’s maize, pulling blood down her face with her fingernails
now she is tied.
we say neglect, we say abuse,
we say torture, we say cruelty,
we say, we say, we say
but what do we say of compassion?
what do we say of life?
and if you were the rope maker, would you sell the mother a strand?
—
iii. death rattle
The Lord is A death rattle, While you,
my shepherd known clinically as in the hospital bed where
I shall not want. terminal secretions, is a life, exits as
He maketh me sound often produced by memory, rising its tide
to lie down in green pastures he someone who is near death. remains,
leadeth me beside the still waters. He Those who are dying leave, as we,
restoreth my soul:he may lose their ability to curl close,
leadeth me in the swallow. It is your breathing
paths of righteousness sometimes misinterpreted as waning to an end.
for his name’s sake. the sound of the person We never left
Yea, though I walk through the valley choking to death, your hands empty
of the shadow of death, or alternatively, that telling you
I will fear no evil: that they are gargling. our love.
for thou art with me; Toward the end, When your feet turned cool,
thy rod and they staff they comfort me. dying it seemed a dishonor to be
Thou prepares a table before people unaccepting of grey;
me in will to live, why can’t,
the presence of mine often breathe only when confronted,
enemies: Periodically, with an intake of breath we die?
thou Followed by no breath Alive in that moment
anointest for several seconds when you exhaled
my head and then we hoped
with oil; a further intake. for the breath
my cup runneth over. There to rest peacefully.
Surely goodness may also be Living
and mercy shall follow me a rattling noise edges
all the days at the back of what is
of my life: and the here
I throat. This is and
will dwell only not.
in the house of the lungs
the Lord expelling air.
forever.
*Psalm 23, my grandfather’s favorite verse, is written down the left column. The middle column contains excerpts from internet descriptions of the ‘death rattle’. My words are in the right column.
**This is a dialogue poem, to be read across the page as one poem, then down the left, middle, and right columns as their own poems.
callie daniels-howell 