For Casey
Little boy buddy,
Lover of bugs and all things brown –
Pine bark and deer turds, dead leaves and thick mud
Cracking in the summer’s wet heat.
You’d lie on your shadow-speckled blanket
Burbling and squealing with delight
as the hummingbird,
Drawn by the red of your diaper-plump pants,
Buzzed your head.
Chances are you won’t remember me much;
Won’t remember the words of Oliver, Berry, Keats
I read like blessings over your sleep
Hoping to infuse your dreams
with images of Earth.
Chances are you’ll grow up steeped
in family versions of my life -
my strange, inexplicable need
to be myself.
But the truth (the dirt poor truth) of this singular life
Is that my days were infused with wonder
And an abiding grace born of belonging
born of knowing
I was right with the world.
If I could, I’d leave you bread crumbs
Tidbits of my life
To ease your way and make the world’s disdain
Less opaque.
If you remember anything,
remember sipping sweet black tea on the porch at dusk;
the sounds of the crickets waking to work;
the jasmine-scented breath of waves
lapping at the rocks. - Jenaia Morane (for The Uncle D Story Quest)
Remember that I loved you
And that your arrival made it easier
for me to go.
Sleeping with an Avatar
Sooner or later
the Light bleeds through
pixels porous and permeable
as newborn cells
humming with passion
dividing with purpose
with every keyboard stroke
into rendered truth.
In IMs and emails,
text chats and blog posts
we ponder the inexplicable
dissect the inescapable
and conclude the unavoidable:
we exist beyond our blood and bones
breathe more than air into our lungs
require more than proteins, fats and carbs
to sustain our souls. ~ Jenaia Morane