Last night, my brother’s heart stopped beating. My brother will be dead for the rest of my life. He will be dead forever. I shuffle up the drive, stop and kick the camellias that litter the road. I kneel to pick up the blossoms that stick to the asphalt and throw them toward the stream. I have trouble getting back to my feet, and when I do, I hesitate before reaching down for one more wilted bloom.
~
Each morning, woodpeckers wake me just before dawn with a harsh, scolding staccato, but today, their calls are gentle chirps, more like crickets than birds, and even though I’d been dreaming about my mother when they woke me, the sound was so soothing I didn’t think twice about falling back asleep.
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My mother practiced suicide and got better with each attempt. When she succeeded, it must have been a relief. My father was appalled by the thought of death and didn’t believe that he would ever die, but he did. I was sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean, when a man stepped behind me and let out a shriek—part scream, part howl—then stumbled away shouting, you don’t know! You don’t know! You haven’t died the way I have.
~
Gary Young’s most recent books are American Analects and Taken to Heart: 70 Poems from the Chinese. His many honors include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the Shelley Memorial Award, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. He teaches creative writing and directs the Cowell Press at UC Santa Cruz.