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thebirdandhersong · 2 years

Text

orange peel promise

In between gut-wrenching deep breaths

and the sweat forming between my forehead

and the wooden pew, there was some sort of prayer

birthed: just like there was a prayer knitting itself

together when my friend hooked her arm around mine

and made her shoulder a resting place

for my bowed head. She just let me cry

into her sleeve in that empty, echoing church,

and her sturdy hand (steady with the repeated

knowledge of baking and painting and unnoticed serving)

held me close. There was a prayer there in the silence

of companionship, just as there was prayer

in the song rising around me in the service, though

I had no strength to rise from my knees then.

The pew in front of me: my favourite hiding place.

I wanted to hide from the truth--I wanted the sadness

to end--I wanted to stay silent.

They were praising God with joyful voices all around me.

I will praise my God, I thought, as my handkerchief

turned cold and heavy in my hand. I will. Even now.

Especially now. And so I got up, and the prayer

that was the dull beating of my tired heart

turned to shaking song.

There was prayer, too, when I split the sealed

envelope and unfolded the first and last letter.

And there was consolation in knowing that my God

was holding the what-ifs that had made an uneasy home

in my heart. What about the oranges I never peeled for you?

I had been thinking days ago. You don't know how

much I wanted to sit with you at the kitchen table

and watch the sun set on a quiet summer evening.

Here is how it goes: we say nothing, but the words

that sit there in the silence with us are simple:

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Here is how it goes:

I peel oranges first with the curve of my nail

digging into the middle, and I turn it into

a little clumsy blossom, a sea star with uneven arms.

I am good at peeling oranges.

I would have been good at peeling oranges for you.

And what about the letters I wanted to write?

What about the meals I'll never make?

What about all the little things I wanted to give to you,

the happy secrets I thought we'd share,

your absentminded hand trailing over your

guitar strings like fingers trailing in a lazy stream,

the family dinners and the walks by the sea?

But I stopped myself, and was content for a while

knowing that my God held all those little hungry

thoughts, too. And so the prayer that came when

the darkness descended over me again was this:

Lord, be near to me. Lord, please be near to me.

And there was consolation in knowing that He was,

even as you walked through the door that heavy

summer day, for our friend's wedding.

In between fervent applause and joyful song,

there was another prayer rising to my lips:

God, help me. What about the oranges? (Why oranges?)

What about the first time I ran to the basement door

and leaned my head against the cold metal frame

and listened, heart humming, for your voice?

What about the first time you held the door

and the first time you looked at me and smiled

as if your heart-gladness was as deep as mine?

Of course, it is easier to say "forget" than to not remember.

You were there. I was glad and relieved and hurting,

because you were there.

Here is how it went: I saw you on the stage and I forgot

to not think to myself: I love you, I love you, I love you.

Naturally, I was ashamed. Naturally, I was not surprised.

There was prayer before I opened your letter,

though I did not voice it, though it had no words

to give it shape. But I am sure there was. There was

no longer silence then: the generosity of the balmy air

was filled with outside voices, while in the office

the girl in the purple dress a size too big for her

cried into the palm of her hand so that no one would hear.

Before the letter, we walked towards the emptied altar

(where our friends had just exchanged vows) as

almost-strangers. After you gave it to me, we walked

down the quiet aisle side by side, almost-friends.

I read it and there was that prayer again, but this time,

it was one of simple joy. Joy that at last I understood.

Perhaps part of the problem was that I wanted--

expected--oranges, too, when what you were trying to give

was the quiet of companionship. Perhaps the problem

was that the thing we'd been trying to say

(I love you, I love you, I love you) was lost in translation

again and again.

The prayer when I walked back home today after church

was this: Thank you, thank you, thank you. In the

birdhouse of my imagination, in the fragile glass cabinet

hidden in my soul there was simply heart-gladness

that I knew you, that I loved you, that I was loved by you.

You know, the birds sing on in cheerful oblivion,

whether you're laughing or crying. Perhaps they know

that love never truly ends--it only changes shape.

Perhaps they know that song is really a form of prayer,

and all desperate prayer can be turned into gut-wrenching

praise. For our newly wedded friends, it began

at a kitchen table and ended (or began again) at

the altar. For the two of us, it began at a kitchen table

and ended (or began again) at the altar, when the decorations

were gone, when the people had migrated in great birdlike

flocks to the shade of the trees.

And so here is how it went: I met you (a blessing),

I loved you (a blessing), I was loved by you (a blessing).

And it was like looking at the world through stained glass.

And it was like dancing under the first shower of snow.

And it was like watching a garden grow,

like watching cherry blossom petals fall in April,

like the wild impulse to kiss the young sprout of a tree

in front of our church just because it was a young sprout

of a tree, just because it was spring.

And it was a good thing. It was a blessing.

You said so yourself. Naturally, I believed you.

And when I touched your cheek and you cried, I was

not surprised. And when I held you too long for

the last time, you were not surprised, either.

Some people wish on eyelashes, some on clovers,

some on shooting stars, some on pennies in a fountain.

Wishes for what? Probably not for the chance to peel

oranges for someone. One last thing, dear.

I only have one thing left to say today: I wish (no,

I pray) that you will be happy. That you will know

that God is near. That the spring comes again and again

for you, just for you. That someday, someone will peel

orange after orange for you, and that you will sit with her

and smile that rising-sun smile you saved for me,

and both of you will understand that it all means the same

thing, really: the oranges, and the silence, and the song,

and the spring, and the wildness of joy, and the

stillness of peace: that it means this: that it means yes:

that it means the heaviest and lightest promise of all:

that it means, truly, with all heart and soul:

I love you. I love you. I love you.

#and that is Closure!#alas the first time i post any poetry it is the long and rambly kind. at any rate it is what it is #i am only very young and have much to learn and see! and who knows if i really understand what true heartbreak is #but i do know that it was and is love and i am glad for it #mr knight :) God bless him #he is still one of the warmest kindest sweetest most joyful most steadfast people i know #i have had crushes in the past but! i think mr knight was my real first love #and i hope that God gives him much joy in his lifetime #slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in year 21 #aaaaaand now i'm back to doing homework :D troilus and cressida is not an easy play to write on but. a paper must be produced #and sleep must be had at SOME point. so an early good night dear friends #it has been an Experience these past few weeks and i've learned plenty about my own failings and shortcomings #thank God for His grace through it all. and thank God for ALL!!!

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