Eastern Windows

It would be like home

but not like it was

nor will it ever be again

5:32am – a call from our mother - and I knew before I answered you were dead

When all the starlings fell from the sky at once

and the air vacated like

a plane broken in flight

The sudden vacuuming away of everything

that ever held meaning

Our own Dresden

Baby brother...

Bright son who gave chase

in the high grasses

with wooden swords and calls for supper

I his hero and his protector

even when so young

Promises to always fight for you

and they were promises

but now an expanse of country chasmed between us

and no birds or planes of magical speed to bridge us

You had all of everything that was beautiful and good

More even than me

More than anyone

more even than those who carried the magic

You were touched

by the special light

the one that cost you everything

Deceived and blinded by goodness so blazing

that you could not see darkness

even as it entwined about you

Mom found you hanging from the fragile shower curtain

An impossibility of gravity

A delicate silhouette in a pirate hoodie

You had the good taste to turn your face

from the bathroom door

knowing she would find you

that morning before dawn

Your last image of this world

was of calcified shower walls and dirty shampoo bottles

and did you speak the names of your children

you would leave behind

with the gentle slowing of your heart?

Jason – Chloe

Jason – Chloe

Jason

Chloe

Jason

Chloe

Jason…

I fly now over impossible country

To home…

The lights of unknown cities blurring below me

blind in their shimmering

and indifferent to agony

This journey home

one of countless flights

spread amongst decades

ones so saturated with longing

with anticipation and the holidays

celebrations and family

the whimsy and sparkle by the aroma of dinners

as winter gleams in the setting sun

Parents growing soft with age yet

I am home among the familiarity of couches

of cats and my father’s stories of war

But there will never be a trip home now

where my brother will not be there

Touch downs and car rides as

Pittsburgh rises to meet me

The familiar hills of this city

in their rich tangle of vines

coursing in rivulets of downpours

rushing hill down to the rivers of the Allegheny

to slough southwards to gaping oceans

which carry forth no memory of their origins

Home now but not home

No ruleset for this

All of us older now by years in the span of a day

as the radius of the world diminishes

to the size of loss

hearts huddled now about a table scattered

with the mundane objects of a day ago

yet now measured in the long counting of sorrow

of just twenty-four hours before

and now relics of normalcy

Coupons, the scissors with which they were clipped

and ads for flowers for Mother's Day

As outside, creation gallops faster

with the smiles of all people so apparently happy

rushing in their circuits

where no one has unceremoniously died

So we sit in the shatter

This ignominious homecoming

We hold hands, weep and look

to the eastern window shadowed by light

which holds no promise but shines

nevertheless

For that is what light does

Comfort and hope held bridled on the horizon waiting

for it is not yet the season for roses

But in these cycles, tolling out the years of splendor

these years of Christmases, tree houses and autumn fields

a family was planted in the rich soils of promise

A promise that yet remains

a love that seeks deeper waters because

all the pipes have burst

Home still home - family that endures

foundations laid with all the beautiful things

which now abide

will abide

for Eastern winds steal away

all ashes in time

I breathe out as the curtains stir

I am home