And believed in meeting the world
With equanimity
But the poor bastard changed his mind
When Death swaddled up
His two-and-a-half-year-old daughter
I love him for calling on griefs
And laments from every quarter
O tears of Heraclitus O dirges of Simonides
To help him mourn the child
Whom Oblivion obliterated
With such uncanny force
We learned in school that funeral elegies
Laments and threnodies
Were reserved for big public occasions
And so the classical poets sang
Of heroes who fell valiantly in battle
Military leaders and philosopher-kings
But Kochanowski could not bear
To see his daughter’s flowered dress
Her smooth ribbons her gold-clasped belt
And so he called on Urszula
To come back and haunt him again
As a shadow a dream or a ghost
Wisdom for me was castles in the air
I’m hurled like all the others
From the topmost stair
Yamanoue worried that his son’s soul
Would not know the right road
To take in the underworld
And so he offered to pay the fee
Of the courier from the realms below
To carry Furuhi on his back
A father broods that his son
Is wandering on the wrong road
Lost in the otherworld without a coat
I beseech you with offerings
Be true and lead him
On the straight road to heaven
Izumi could not understand
How her daughter could be cremated
And then vanish into the empty sky
When even the snow
The fragile white snow
Falls downward into this world
During the memorial service
She was distressed by the temple bell
That kept ringing and ringing
Listen to the resonance
Listen to the sound of longing
The sound of loss
Why did he have to keep striking
That holy bell for Naishi
Each strike was a blow
The grieving poets are distracted
By so many thoughts
The wrong road the falling snow the bell
I wonder if the Pearl poet
Was grieving for his lost daughter
Or mourning on commission
For someone else’s gem
Whom he turned into a dream vision
Of spotless radiance
I understand the trope the fantasy
Of the erstwhile father the jeweler
Who is so caught
In the chill grip of grief
Over his poor imprisoned pearl
That he falls asleep at her grave
And discovers his precious
As a grown woman
Glittering on the other side
I’m a little rocky on the theology
But I like the idea that a pearl
Is also a two-year-old child
Who is also a royal young woman
Who is also the immortal soul
Who is also the heavenly city
Love could still hurt him
When he awoke in a green garden
Where she lay buried
I wish I could believe in the otherworld
I wish I could believe in a place
Of reunions outside of memory
The Pearl poet was baffled
By what he saw in a mound of earth
In the darkened dungeon of sorrow
I do not understand how she could write
Anything but elegies for the stillborn
And God-struck
Margaretha Susanna von Kuntsch
Lost eight sons and five daughters
I do not understand how she could stand
Anything Christian or otherwise
Desperation spoke to me in her voice
And I carried around her poem
Occasioned by the Death of My Fifth Born
Little Son the Little Chrysander or CK
On the 22nd of November 1686
Where she compares herself
To the warrior-king Agamemnon
Since all her hopes and joys
Had burned in the tomb
With her ninth child
Sacrificed to the knife of death
Who will give me the courage
Who will sharpen my crafty pen
When my blood is stirred
To try to describe my feelings in words
I who am merely a woman
My senses falter
My hand trembles
The pen refuses my service
The page is shaking
And cannot bear the words of grief
Let my silent suffering
Bear witness to my desolation
And then all at once
He was sitting across from us
In a booth by the window
In a crowded restaurant
On Route 9 I think
Maybe on Seventy-seventh and Broadway
It was natural to see him
Staring at the menu
And figuring out what to order
Oblivious to the jukebox
And the din around us
His native habitat
Excitement overwhelmed me
And I stared at him so intensely
I almost lit up his face
Don’t spook him Laurie said
He doesn’t know
What’s going to happen
We knew we had seen it all
But he was careless
And didn’t understand
You’re my only son
I ventured but I couldn’t tell
If he heard me over the music
It was so familiar to see him
Sitting across from me again
In the early morning light
It was as simple as daylight
Dawning between us
I could still speak to him
Grief broke down in phrases
And extrapolated lines
From me without myself
Tear-stained pillow of stone
I felt I was lying
Beside him in the coffin
Wormy mother
Who takes us into the ground
With her whenever and wherever
She wants the grass glistens
And grows over us in the heat
Of late summer in the country
It was hard to breathe
When dust choked the treetops
And clotted the roots
Stay calm the light wind blows
Through the branches at night
Peer up at the moon
Not knowing who I am
I was lying beside him
In the coffin I still couldn’t breathe
And so I woke up in the shadow
Of morning black light
And put on my mourning clothes
His mother also slipped into black
Treachery of the parents
Who outlive their son
It was too late to warn him
What had already happened
He was going ahead alone
I did not know the work of mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night
The mountaintop is not in sight
Because there is no mountaintop
Poor Sisyphus grief
I did not know I would struggle
Through a ragged underbrush
Without an upward path
Because there is no path
There is only a blunt rock
With a river to fall into
<
br /> And Time with its medieval chambers
Time with its jagged edges
And blunt instruments
I did not know the work of mourning
Is a labor in the dark
We carry inside ourselves
Though sometimes when I sleep
I am with him again
And then I wake
Poor Sisyphus grief
I am not ready for your heaviness
Cemented to my body
Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders
That’s why it takes courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day
Arriving for the funeral
Disoriented hysterical
It was too much to go through
My mother Gabriel’s biggest advocate
Argued that he was a born
Salesman and consumer like her
He had a bit of the con
So what that’s necessary in business
She thought I should stake him to a company
You’re too tough on him she said
Until she was around him for a few days
And then she thought I wasn’t tough enough
I discovered the secret of the bond
Between grandmother and grandson
A common enemy
My sister Nancy and her partner Chelo
His cousin David followed him around
They found him a sweet soul
My sister Lenie too a therapist
He liked to tease her about psychotherapy
Which was way overrated
Janet’s relatives my cousins and friends
My family wanted to bury him in Chicago
Where he could be near my dad
He wouldn’t be so lonesome
Because everyone treks out to visit
On Father’s Day and other holidays
But he was a true New Yorker
The city he loved and so we purchased
A plot in Mount Eden Cemetery
Who had always clanged
Like a bell in the darkness
Was now silenced
And I stood in the funeral home
Mute and disbelieving
To bury my son
With the other ritual mourners
My mother my ex-wife my two sisters
My lover in stunned grief
I climbed up a stepladder
To gaze down into his face
Which I touched with my hand
I leaned over and kissed him
On the forehead
It was chilly and hard
I kissed him on the lips
They were stone cold
It was like kissing a corpse
I started keening and wailing
A sob came out of my body
A sound I had never heard before
It was animalistic primal
The wailing the terrible keen
Kept bursting out of me
I wandered off to the side
My relatives cried back and forth
Between the coffin and the pew
Low muffled shrieks and sobs
All the women ringing
Beside themselves
I hope there is a God
Shahid said after his mother died
He owes me an apology
Melville does believe in God
Lawrence Thompson told his class
He thinks He’s a real son of a bitch
I solemnly swear before God
That a real Son of a Bitch
Who does not exist
Owes me an apology
Which I will not accept
Anyway I thought the Lord
Cannot help me now or ever
It’s a ceremony to say goodbye
The rabbi explained
I do not believe I think
I understand why the old Jews
Tear their clothes and cover the mirrors
Maybe it’s not the best time
To think about God’s absence
The insensibility of nature
Prayers can help you
Prayers cannot help you
Excessive mourning is forbidden
What else are there but rituals
To cover up the emptiness
O Disbelief
Lord Nothingness
When my son’s suffering ended
My own began
Why did the sun rise this morning
It’s not natural
I don’t want to see the light
It’s not time to close the casket
Or say Kaddish for my son
I’ve already buried two fathers
With a mother to come
Isn’t that enough Lord who wants us
To exalt and sanctify Him
I don’t want to wear the mourner’s ribbon
Or wake up crying every morning
For God knows how long
I don’t want to tuck my son into the ground
As if we were putting him to bed
For the last time
Close the prayer book I will not pretend
That God brings peace upon us
And upon all Israel
I don’t want to hear anyone
Scolding me from her wheelchair
Because I’m crying too hard
I’m not worried about a heart attack
Nothingness
You’ve already broken my heart
I will not forgive you
Sun of emptiness
Sky of blank clouds
I will not forgive you
Indifferent God
Until you give me back my son
I was shaking but I was also looking down
At myself from a great distance
Poor grief-stricken father
I pity you I thought
Your heart is lying there
Stretched out in a box
In a Jewish funeral home
And now you must say goodbye
Lamentations forever bereft
The limousines were already lined up
On West End Avenue
For the procession to the cemetery
He would have liked the black sedans
The friends and relatives gathering
Outside the parlor for the funeral
It was time to close the casket
The funeral director said cautiously
There was no more time blanked out
I had to stand on a stepladder
To reach him I couldn’t tear myself away
From leaning down and kissing him
On the eyes the forehead the cheeks
The lips colder than ice
The wretched sound
Started coming out of me again
He was there in the coffin
He was not there in the coffin
It was Gabriel it was not Gabriel
Wild spirit beloved son
Where have you fled
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My gratitude to Janet Landay, who lived with me through so much of what is recounted here, and has her own story to tell as Gabriel’s mother. We have different perspectives, as all parents do, but also a shared history, a united grief.
Thanks to Charles Baxter, Michael Collier, and Garrett Hongo, who have been such rock-solid friends in literature and life. I have great trust in my friend and editor, Deborah Garrison. And I am lucky in my two supportive sisters, Arlene and Nancy Hirsch.
Special thanks to Joseph Straw, whose adventures with Gabriel lift the spirit of this book. Two of the sections adapt his eloquent off-the-cuff eulogy.
Laurie Watel held me up when I needed it most, and inspired me back to life.
This is a father’s book, but it belongs to my son Gabriel, who animates it. Some debts are too deep for words.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Edward Hirsch has published eight books of poetry and five books of prose. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Gabriel Page 6