6 but abt cas
things i said under the stars and in the grass
i. “What do you think moms are like?” None of us really romanticized what maternal love felt like. As a group, we were too collectively damaged. Colin’s mom had hurt him, Ash’s mom had spent the food money on makeup and drugs. Our moms didn’t want us in the first place. It was generally accepted that parents weren’t all they were cracked up to be, but in this memory I’m seven and we’re in the yard, contemplating alternate lives. I stared at the stars and pictured that my mother’s eyes were darker still than my own, and that the twinkles I saw were reflections on her irises. Or perhaps the moon was an adornment in her hair, or on her headscarf. She was as far away from me as the grass from the sky anyway, so it was an apt metaphor. You said that they, like all women, are beautiful but generally bad news. I smiled. The moon became your mother’s white face, and the breeze was her laugh. I felt a shiver, it was cold. That, I imagine, was also an appropriate metaphor for your mother too. I frowned at the moon, cursing her for being so far away. All the same, you continued in words I’d never forget, I hope a mom comes and finds us. I hope she’s nice. Mine found me, and she is. Sorry you never got to your’s.
ii. “Eyes dark as the sky, hair soft as the grass, laugh warm as the summer sun.” I’ll forgive myself for the slip up because I never ceased to be tired when we’d go for late-night walks. This is more than I’d ever said about your mother to you, and you sigh like it hurt you. I tear my gaze from the heavens to where you’re lying, taking up half the space I am for want of height. You look over and say something wordlessly that the dark muffles, but I see the crease in your brow well enough to know that I had to continue. I had to say something to make it better. Suddenly, my linguistic skills fail me and we float in silence. I sink a little more every moment that passes, and soon I worry that if I open my mouth, I’ll drown. Can’t be so nice if she left us, you save me in my silence and I pull you over in a hug. Are you my little lifejacket, or am I the anchor that weighs you? Deliberately, to give the sky new meaning in something I hope you’ll remember, I say that the stars are the specks of glitter you were still finding in your hair a week after the incident at school. It’s old chalk on blackboard, it’s a tatty black pillowcase, it’s your favourite pair of socks. It’s ever-changing, always different. The stars aren’t your mother, they’re brilliant fireballs a million lightyears away. You’re the sunny spell in the middle of winter, you’re the breath of fresh air as spring rolls in. You’re rose petals in the wind and sometimes fingernails down that chalkboard. You giggle, but I know you haven’t forgotten what I said about Adri. For your own sake, don’t think of her.
iii.I don’t say anything as I listen to you talk. Stargazing always meant something poetic to me, I avoided learning about constellations or planets, or which were satellites and which were shooting stars. I liked the mystery. But you speak of planetary exploration and your dream to sit on the moon quite unaware to how blasphemous it sounds to me. The stars have always been something quite untouchable, they’ve always been a watching guardian to support but not to aid. My daughter never took much interest in above besides astrology, and that I scorned. So through the length of my years, I’ve entertained the picture that the moon was my brother’s mother, that the stars which once resembled my mother, then resembled the equally abandoning mother of my daughter. The dazzling planets turned into freckles on your skin. How could you take the muse of so many of my silly poems and turn them into facts and numbers and science? I blame your father, but I habitually avoid speaking ill of the dead. You don’t notice me frowning, perhaps I do this a lot and you’ve learnt to accept that old men frown. Old dogs don’t learn new tricks, and it doesn’t matter that I’m not yet seventy, but one ages as one becomes a grandparent. Mike never warned me about the ancient feeling; that I would become a dusty grandfather clock sitting in the hall, hands motionless below the holographic clock face hovering in-front of the wall. You, little grandson, talk of learning where I waxed poetic stubborn ignorance. I say nothing here, but I’ll look through your old telescope and nod when you ask if you used a word correctly, or I’ll mutter a suggestion for a better term. I’m good for that much. Grandpa Thesaurus Rex. You don’t seem to mind. We get along well.
