Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, had a hammer named Mjölnir. Mjölnir was considered a fierce weapon that could level mountains and summon lightning with every blow. In this poetry blog, every Thursday, (Thor’s Day), Mjölnir will forge only song - sing of the mysteries and beauties of the world.

Thursday, May 30, 2019

SCREWS

I sat in a room in the Neptune Society
with the door closed, waiting.
I waited among the myriad brochures
about death and dying, and among the prints
of classical paintings of peaches and cherubs.
I sat in that room at a baroque table
among empty ornamental chairs 
for fifteen minutes. I wondered 
what was taking so long.
Where had the attendant disappeared to?
What dark passageways did she have to traverse
to find my father?

Since I had time on my hands I imagined
the final scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark,
and that vast warehouse where 
the Ark of the Covenant was secretly stowed away, 
hidden from posterity in a crate
among so many other nondescript crates.

I imagined my father’s ashes in such a place.
I imagined he was lost, like the Ark was,
but in a drawer somewhere and fastened to a page 
of a massive book that housed the remains 
of so many of the recently departed.

When the attendant returned with the urn, she said:
Sorry that took so long.
We had trouble with the screws.
They were longer than usual.
It took two of us to turn them.

Somehow, given who my father was,
long screws and all the turning it took
to put him in his final resting place
inside the urn, made perfect sense.

Thursday, May 23, 2019

, NOW?

When my father returned home 
from the hospital and into hospice

his last words to me were:
Where’s my watch?

Strangely, he had time
on his mind.

Questions deepen when
we add now to the end of them.

They deepen and call forth
the present moment.

Today my father was cremated.
His body and his being 

are no longer
of this earth.

I wonder: Who am I 
without him, now?

Thursday, May 16, 2019

THE MATTRESS

I was on the ground, on my knees,
deflating an earth-toned rubber mattress.
It was left behind when hospice came 
to collect their bed and after 
the Neptune Society had come to collect my father.
It was a cushion meant to keep him comfortable
and bed sores at bay as the end drew near.

As I kneaded the mattress with my knees, the air
escaped in deep exhalations, like the ones 
my father had made the night before
as my mother and I sat with him
in his last hours.

I had never been so close
to the act of breathing
to breath itself,
to the thin, fragile line
between breathing and not.
Never had I watched a breath
come and go so intently as I did
as I sat at my father’s side.

A shriveled shell that once buoyed a life,
provided creature comfort,
was all that remained
when the breathing finally stopped.
And with it also went, thankfully, 
my father's suffering.

Grief, I imagine, will fold over us,
my mother and I, in the coming days,
as we learn to breath in a world that no longer
includes my father and his breath.

Thursday, May 9, 2019

CABIN PRESSURE

There is a world of oxygen

all around,

all the time.
That never changes.
But our breathing does.
We can reach for the mask first
and live in a state of emergency,
feeling pressured by the idea

of a cabin, or we can breathe
our own deep breath

on our own accord.
We can actually sit back and relax,

and enjoy the ride,
knowing, though, there will be 

turbulence, as well as
pretzels and nuts—

compliments of our friendly
flight attendant called Life.








Thursday, May 2, 2019

THE SANDMAN

Dreaming
Is the destination.
The place where
Imagination and wonder
Take flight.

The sleeper
Makes possible
This passage.
Without him there is
No portal.
No wings.

Set the stage for him.
Make the bed
He will lie in.
Fluff his pillow.
Tuck him in.

Be the sandman.