We stand arm in arm as she tries to share the history of a room, repository of objects; symbols of lives. A tiny oil lamp which sat aside her grandmother’s bed. A kneading bowl nearly worn through from hands turning bread. Hand painted dishes, a mantle clock that sat upon a cabinet in a house upon a hill where an old man waited watching from his window for grand and great grandchildren rocking back and forth, back and forth.. The mind tries to turn back time as if it were a great, groaning wheel. The see-saw of his rocker becomes deafening. I can hardly hear, I don’t want to hear, this litany of longing, time compressed, resurrection of days, memories drifting down like snowflakes in the sun, melting as soon as I take hold. I don’t want to feel the bodies piled like mounds of meat in empty towers. Her voice is a waterfall scouring my heart, echoing in the emptiness, becoming indistinct, draining me away towards a known sea.
I think that kneading bowl is sycamore. A tree whose bone-white fingers year after year point toward the winter sky. I know how every story ends, we know, you know.