The Asylum Poems came into being in 2007 while I was taking care of my mother, who was battling Alzheimer’s Disease. The cycle of twenty short poems comprises the whole of Volume 15 of Songs and Letters, a much larger work begun in 2005 and completed in 2009. The poems were written early in the morning at my mother’s house, in a small bedroom facing the overgrown backyard. Fir trees, rhododendrons, wild blackberries, ivy, mushrooms, spiders, squirrels, all of them often dripping wet and blessed by Oregon’s gray fall skies — it’s no wonder that now I find, upon a fresh perusal, that these poems begin with rain and end with a miracle.
Rain at the Asylum
It’s raining at the asylum,
and the spiders have come down
from their webs — all but this one,
which dreams of one last meal,
or prefers to drown alone.
October 20, 2007
Peace at the Asylum
An army of penance-minded soldiers
bearing clean white sponges arrived in the night
to collect rain from the street — I heard them
tapping on their little metal pans, their feet
aligned with joyous wringing, bringing
peace, sweet peace, to the asylum.
October 21, 2007
Letter from the Asylum
Every day, I imagine something different
painted on these walls — a two-way mirror
that lets you in, but never lets me out.
I imagine your surprise, and relish
our wayward conversation —
but you would have been wise to run.
Today we’ll write a letter home,
explain it all in silent prose
as vivid as a child’s daydream.
Should you care, I’ll show you
where to sign your name —
not at the bottom, but in your brain.
Foolish as it seems, our loved ones
will pretend to understand —
and for that, we will always pity them.
October 23, 2007
View from the Asylum
In a ragged, leafy space between rhododendrons
where the ivy was chopped down, in a place not unlike
a room, gently lit by autumn sun, random-sown,
my very own pure white mushrooms, their faces wise
and undisturbed, strength derived from a single
common root, like every unsaid word here at the asylum.
October 23, 2007
Cold at the Asylum
Poor little bird, you bear
a great responsibility,
bringing winter
on your
back.
October 26, 2007
Dream at the Asylum
Have you ever wondered how, no matter where you are, your dreams are able to find you? They’re not always in your head. Dreams can enter through bolted doors. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve heard them roaming the corridor. They cling to a person’s clothes, like dust, or fingerprints, or mold. Many are shared, like germs passed from host to host — even this one, which finds me holding up my poor dead father, who has returned, and is too weak to stand. Sit down, my friend. Sit down. Tell me, why have you come back again?
October 30, 2007
Sleep at the Asylum
Sleep is the ocean, and the ocean is full of sharks. The sharks open their mouths and swallow the ocean. But the ocean wants to be swallowed. It wants to be known to the sharks in this way. It wants to be remembered by them. Sleep is the ocean, and when they open your door, the ocean empties out onto the plain and laps up against the other doors with the great thudding of sharks, the bumping of their heads against tarnished steel, and the sound is loud and long and dearly familiar, like Fate pounding her drum.
November 2, 2007
Remembered at the Asylum
The birthday of a friend
who died
fog at the cemetery
the same place
on a summer day
a narrow road
that led away
never to return
November 4, 2007
Bells at the Asylum
I don’t know which church it is
but there’s a field
in between
and in the field a man
without a name,
looking this way.
November 4, 2007
Mirror at the Asylum
If you look long enough
you can see yourself in any object,
any face, looking back,
amazed.
And before you turn around,
you can see yourself
walking away.
But you tell no one,
because the distance
is too great.
November 5, 2007
Supper at the Asylum
This room is like a great cathedral
when the people have gone
and the tired priest
takes off his robe
and eats alone
haunted by symbols.
November 7, 2007
Bath at the Asylum
The metal handles squeak
like those on our old tub at home.
The smell of rust: one for hot, one for cold.
My mother’s random cigarettes,
ashtray on the window sill.
I never saw her smoke,
now I never will.
November 7, 2007
Train at the Asylum
Yes, your secret is safe with me.
Mine? Carry them away. Set them free.
They’ve long outgrown my need.
November 9, 2007
River at the Asylum
I watch my boots beside the chair
beside the chair my boots watch me
we wear our mud so patiently
waiting for the river to subside.
Through the night no lantern light
no voices reach the shore.
When morning comes the river runs
and hope flows out the door.
November 10, 2007
Visitor at the Asylum
There’s a visitor who never comes
to whom I speak with great conviction
and whose sane answers I hear
long after he is gone.
I’m waiting for him now.
November 12, 2007
Distance at the Asylum
Never have ten paces
carried me this far
each step a door
closed behind my back
November 12, 2007
Bread at the Asylum
Miller, I beg of you,
grind me too.
November 13, 2007
Ghost at the Asylum
There it is again. The hand on my shoulder.
I used to turn around. Now I know better.
Never have I seen such pain in a face.
Or been so helpless to erase its misery.
As if I were to blame. Well. Maybe I am.
But what of him? Can’t he learn to share this room?
November 15, 2007
Gone from the Asylum
Light. Something has driven it away.
Incandescence in its place.
It’s not the same, believe me.
It’s like a memory without eyes.
An empty space through which you fall,
Cursed by what the sane pretend.
What happens when you land?
The buzz of a million useless questions.
And you’ve heard them all.
November 16, 2007
Miracle at the Asylum
This morning I discovered flowers
growing under my bed.
I’ve been on my knees
in a meadow ever since.
November 18, 2007
Categories: Essays and Collections, Songs and Letters
Tags: Alzheimer’s Disease, Dreams, Glen, Memory, Miracles, My Father, My Mother, Poems, Rain, Sleep, The Asylum Poems
