Above Ground

by Clint Smith

The river that gives us water to drink is the same one that might wash us away.

little one you are my daily reminder that you do not go to a garden to watch the flowers grow you go to give thanks for what has already bloomed.

and what a joy it is to be somewhere that is not with you but still with you

But some days, I worry that we are welcoming you into the flames of a world that is burning. Some days, I am afraid that I am more kindling than water.

Please, dear reader, do not say that I am hopeless. I believe there is a better future to fight for, I simply accept the possibility that I may not live to see it. I have grown weary of telling myself lies that I might one day begin to believe. We are not all left standing after the war has ended. Some of us have become ghosts by the time the dust has settled.

What is the difference between science and a miracle other than discovering new language for something we don’t understand?

and my wife thinks I love you more than I love her and I’m not saying she’s right but I’m not saying she’s wrong, but I am saying you give me something she doesn’t, and don’t get me wrong I love the mother of my son it’s just that you make me feel young again.

I do not misunderstand the cruelty of war but I regret the way we talk about its casualties, how their lives become tacit admonitions, how the tyranny of a border made out of thin air means bombs are only dropped on one side of it.

But I too have felt empathy corrode inside my most cavernous parts, have taken the quarters from my pocket and used them to cover my collusion. Who among us has not used spare change to cover our contrition? Or laid a wreath of sympathy atop bodies with names we do not know?

I’m not sure what it means for us, not to be the one to fire the bullet but to behave as if the bullet always belonge...

I think about how difficult it is for any of us to admit that we’re not who we used to be. That something in us has been lost over time and will probably never come back. It’s so hard to disappear without anyone noticing. It’s so hard to be honest about the changing contours of your past with- out the sky murmuring under its breath.

All these years later, I still can’t tell the difference between a memory and grief’s imagination.

Removing a single brick can cause the entire house to crumble. A small amount of gasoline floating atop an ocean can still start a fire.

I fear everything I cannot control and know that I control nothing. I am standing in a thunderstorm attempting to shield you from every jagged slice of yellow sky. I am trying to inhale all the smoke from this burning world while asking you to hold your breath.

I tried to imagine the phrases only you would say, but could only hear them falling from someone else’s lips. I tried to imagine the stories you would tell me, but your laugh collapsed under the weight of this grief. I remember the words you uttered, but I don’t remember the voice that said them. I remember you would call me sugar, but I can’t remember exactly how the r melted when it met the air. I remember how you’d tell me be careful, but I am forgetting how your accent cocooned the warning around my ears. It’s strange how I cannot remember your voice, but if I heard it, I would immediately know it was you.

It’s not that I don’t want people to tell me I’m doing a good job it’s just I am praised for the sorts of things no one ever thanks my wife for. I am adorned in a garland of gold stars for simply being in this body.

And I look at my son, and think of all the things I might try to give him that he will one day have no need for. The things that serve no function, other than being ornaments of a time that came before. The things that continue to make us who we are long after they have served their purpose.

You lift your pajama shirt to examine what lies beneath it, fingers combing for evidence of the language I told you was there. Searching for something to tell you that you are what you have always been to me.

Maybe treasure is anything that reminds you what a miracle it is to be alive.

How long did he let the silence between us sit when I’d done something that broke his trust? What was the shape of his eyes when he told me he’d never be disappointed if I tried my best? I don’t always remember what he said, but I remember how it felt to have him there, to have his body brushing against mine

feel my heart tremble with all the answers I do not have. Part of me wants to say something about heaven and angels and forever. Part of me wants to say something about how life one day ending makes the whole thing so worth living. I realize how unprepared I am to talk to you about how this will all end for us, and how precarious and uncertain our time on this fragile planet is. I tell you that the hope is for all of us to live for a very long time, which is why you need to eat your carrots.

My life is made possible by trillions of tiny mysteries. I exist because of so many things I’ll never see.