Above Ground

by Clint Smith

Two people in New Orleans fall in love under an oak tree whose branches bend like sorrow.

There is a funeral procession in the morning and a wedding in the afternoon. 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.

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.

aphorisms

But there is no solace in rearranging language to make a different word tell the same lie. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe does not bend in a direction that comforts us. Sometimes it bends in ways we don’t expect and there are people who fall off in the process.

We are not all left standing after the war has ended. Some of us have become ghosts by the time the dust has settled.

you come from children who shared their bread when they didn’t have to. You come from the parachute that didn’t open then did.

at first I was just going to nod my head to Songs in the Key of Life but who are we not to take full advantage of this small moment of funky glory so I wrap my right foot behind my left and spin my body like David Ruffin taught

Ode to the Electric Baby Swing

You came so broken and in so many different pieces, which left me worried because I wasn’t looking for a project. I need to focus on my career, you know?

Love the dry humor

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,

You, little one, are not attached to my body, you are neither a limb nor a slice of skin, but you are part of me in ways I am still discovering, and when you are hurt, I feel your distress spread through every cell in me. I experience your wounds as if they were my own.

Your life is only possible because of his ability to have walked through this country on fire without turning into ash.

I wonder if his rage is the ammunition trying to make a weapon of my voice.

metonym

realpolitik.

We gave you your name in a language we don’t understand because gravity is still there even when we cannot see it in our hands.

before the cameras came inside and showed the failure of an indifferent nation, there were families inside though there were some who failed to call them families. There were children inside though there were some who gave them a more callous name. There were people inside though there were some who only saw shadows.

That we can call for freedom and sing sweet jubilee all in the same breath.

Legacy Your maternal great-grandmother’s voice was the shade under an oak tree and her laugh was the branch that stretched down to let you climb it. Your paternal great-grandfather was a fist full of embers that never burned the ones he loved.

And maybe George laughed so hard his belly hurt, and maybe she told the joke again because she loved how her father’s laugh sounded like a carnival full of your favorite games.

I think about how difficult it is for any of us to admit that we’re not who we used to be.

It’s so hard to disappear without anyone noticing.

i mean where was god when this city was suffocated by inertia’s heavy hand

I’ve seen people in my family become consumed by things they didn’t know could kill them.

I remain astonished by how cicadas live for seventeen years underground and then die within weeks of coming up to meet the world.

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

I once heard that when an oak tree is cut down sparrows whose nest sat in its branches will find another tree and another nest and will convince themselves the eggs inside it are their own.

You can still mourn the damage done by a storm even if you stood on the shore and saw it coming.

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.

Last night, another boy who could have once been me or who might one day be my son was killed by police but this time no cameras showed up.

I am trying to inhale all the smoke from this burning world while asking you to hold your breath.

the gun heard thoughts and prayers the gun heard second amendment the gun heard lone wolf the gun texted its friend again the gun waited for a message the message never came

It’s strange how I cannot remember your voice, but if I heard it, I would immediately know it was you.