Monday Morning Musings:
“Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—”
“Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not consecutive, they are connected in a never-ending circle. Everything is connected.”— The Stranger, Dark (Netflix series)
I listen to the silent sounds,
a voice inside my head
remembered phrases—and the laugh—
forever gone
that echoes without reverberation
save within.
Yet without,
the birds call and sing the melodies
I cannot sing
with human voice, nor fly
to treetops, or into clouds.
Where do they go?
What do they think
of the shadow’s encroachment?
Is it an annoyance
to be interrupted
or more? Are we intruders remembered,
discussed? I watch the crows gather and caw,
“One for sorrow, two for mirth,”
they follow me, it seems
exhorting
with strident calls—
beware or remember?
What am I to do?
And so, I listen, watch, write
of yesterday—and tomorrow.
We walk through corridors,
where the past sits behind locked doors.
Clothing, furniture, paintings—so many paintings!
Scenes frozen in time
upon a canvas,
the artist looked, remembering,
translating memories into color and form
each brushstroke, a touch from the past,
the whole, a memorial
Work in Progress. An artist working on a mural. We got lost, and I took this photo through the windshield while my husband was trying to figure out where to go.
to what was—
this life now reduced to her things.
We travel over bridges, rising
over a river of ghosts
traveling–
Low tide, the Delaware River at Red Bank Battlefield, July 2020. ©️Merril D. Smith 2020
through time and tides,
we go about our lives,
carrying on our daily routines
cooking, cleaning, working, loving
when we can
we erase some backstories,
cherish others–
some will never be known.
Like birds, they’ve flown into the clouds,
drifted away, gone
never to be seen again,
but we may find a trace, a feather
Feather–could it be a turkey feather?
This turkey was walking back and forth around the front of this car–pecking at it.
of what was
like pentimento, the traces of a laugh
left in the paintings’ vivid hues.
One of my mom’s paintings, title and date unknown.
My siblings and I have been paying for a storage unit for my mom’s things. Because she died in April—of Covid 19-related complications during the worst of the pandemic in this area, we could not be with her or pack up her belongings. For some reason, movers were allowed in, and all of her things were packed up and put in the storage unit my sister rented. So, masked and keeping physical distance, we’ve emptied the storage space, an emotional experience. We have not yet held a real memorial for her.
Merril’s Movie Club: No movies this week. We finished Dark, a three-season German series on Netflix, which my husband and I both really liked, even though we were totally confused. If you keep with it, the very last episode does explain and tie things up. We started watching The Twelve, a new Belgian series on Netflix, which explores the backstories of the jurors and the people involved in a murder case—actually two different murder cases because a woman is accused of killing her best friend many years before and her child more recently. We’re about halfway through it, and we both like it, and it has a wondering who committed the crime(s).
Also, I read The Women of the Copper Country, a historical novel by Mary Doria Russell. Her books are all well-researched, but she is also an excellent writer with a great ear for dialog and character development. I’ve enjoyed all of her books. This one focused on the copper mines in upper Michigan and the strike in 1913, led largely by the women there. I knew nothing about these mines or the strike, and yet it also seems very relevant. I’m able to get books from the library now in a contactless system.
Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings 