All Saints Sunday (Poem by Oliver Smith)

Oliver Smith

Poem: All Saints Sunday

< James Oliver Smith, Jr < Writing < Poetry : Poem

All Saints Sunday
For Michael Branscom, who died on 11/6/1999 and all who suffer from and die from complications associated with the HIV virus.

It was All Saints Sunday.

Don was leading the children's time,
displaying pictures of those recent dead
from within the congregation:
Fern, Dan, Joanne,

then he mentioned Michael's partner,
who died five years before.

After church, Roseann and I went up to the front
of the sanctuary to look at the images

and Roseann pointed out Michael's partner,
whom I had never seen before,
so young,
now beyond our arms,

but not beyond the grasp of our existence
as we move
within each other,

spirits finding their own trails
to the silence and calm of knowing
community.

I wove into my soul the face and joy of
the Michael I have come to know
with the color and face of Michael,
his beloved,
whom I have felt in stories of our recent past,
unleashed as time unveils us.

It was with these pictures
that Roseann and I left church
en route to a surprise for
me.

She wouldn't say where we would go,
but the sun was strong,
the wind composed,
gentle as autumn draped its golden fleece on
boughs of oaks and elms alike,
freeways folding back,
curiosity
constructing questions
as I wondered
where the day would go,
open to the songs
that would commence to hold me
as I drifted with the currents of Michael and
the chorus he has left within our hearts.

It was Michael's day.
The brilliance of the sky said as much
as Roseann pulled up to the cliffs
overlooking St Paul,
where the Indian Burial Mounds sustained their ancient rituals,
six rounded peaks of spirit in soft repose,
living jewels
lifted by the arms of glacial praise,
defiant to the glass and steel and rumble of a train
describing ways
unclear
to souls reaching for the blue voice
of a clear sky.

(this is when Michael died)

For seventeen years I have driven by these sacred grounds
but I had never walked around these deep
collections
of a past we have worked so hard to disintegrate
into the dust
they say we will all become,

only a brief note,
like Carver's Cave,
now gone,
once at the foot of these same mounds,
another song whose
gentle threads have pulled back into the earth
Roseann and I then stood upon,

tall grass on green
millennia,
heralding our thoughts as we walked by,

the Mississippi down below,
slowly
draining off concerns
we came to shed.

Roseann would come here in the past,
with her own reflections,
now she and I,
together,
approached these same swollen seeds
of sewn respect.

I reached through the wrought iron fence
of the mound most prominent before me
and pulled a handful of prairie grass,
placing it in my pocket,
feeling the vein of life
as roots drew deep into the mounds,
to the bed rock cliffs below,
to the mottled face of the Mississippi
as it danced with tongues of sunshine,
to our left as it made it's way to the gulf
and life
beyond,

and to our right
as it flows from the womb of mother earth.

We sat down on a bench,
holding each other,
stems from grass I picked
begging us
to be aware of his presence.

From a distance I heard the screech of a hawk,
then another
as the scene of our present and far past focused
upon thoughts of Michael
as he prepared to take his own steps to these mounds.

The hawk within my ears
became a figure in my eyes
as it drifted
directly in front of us,
holding the sky and earth together,
calling us,
calling Michael and his beloved,
calling the community we all shared
to the mounds of birth,
to the mounds of life,
to the mounds of spirits,

then I knew why I pulled that grass from the ancients,
it was for Michael,
and for all who knew him,
and for all who will never be the same
because of him,

for the hawk just said
it is NOT to dust we go,
but through its wings
to the breath of god
it navigates
between the light and clay
that gave us birth,

to the sacred dance of sun and wind on the Mississippi,
beneath the mounds of those
who overlook
the paths
we all have tread. (1999)

Note:
Cathie Crooks called that night, after Roseann and I visited the burial mounds in St Paul (10/31/99), saying that Michael wanted me to write a poem. I talked to Michael on Wednesday (11/3/99) and he said that he would like to talk to me later in the week. He called me Friday evening around 6:00PM (11/5/99). He said he was "back on track" and I asked him if he wanted to hear the poem I was planning on writing down on Saturday (11/6/99), he said "yes", so we made an appointment for me to visit and read this poem for him at 12:30PM Sunday (11/7/99). Michael died at 1:30 on Saturday (11/6/99).

As it turned out, I was having difficulty writing this poem while sitting in Ginkgo's Coffee Shop in St Paul, waiting for Roseann to get out of class. I have marked the point in the poem where I was at when he died. Cathi Churchill called at 5:00PM on Saturday (11/6/99), while Roseann and I were in Orr Books, to tell me that Michael had died.

(c) Oliver Smith
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< James Oliver Smith, Jr < Writing < Poetry