Not named

 

Not named

I am young and the

Breeze sighs through the trees like a 

Longing I’ve not named

— olivia gwyn

Listening to the Carpenters “Sing”

 

Listening to the Carpenters “Sing”

I don’t remember you— thick framed glasses, laugh lines and hands that never saw wrinkles.

I don’t remember you when I smell the red pillow you made full of pine that we bring out in December, year after absent year. I don’t remember you when I see my dad’s eyes get blurry, his sister across the room at Christmas.

I don’t remember you when my dad pauses to wipe his eyes reading a poem on Mother’s Day or the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I don’t remember you when I walk by It’s a Small World in Magic Kingdom or pass a breast cancer treatment center.

I don’t remember you when I’m listening to The Carpenters “Sing” and get sad. I don’t remember you when I close my eyes and try.

I don’t remember you when I think of your mother’s hands, hands that I knew, that knew me better and longer than yours ever did. Your hands that could have held me, held me enough times that we lost count.

I don’t remember you, but I imagine that you were safe and good and you delighted. That you took joy by the face and kissed it there on the lips in front of the kitchen window. 

I still don’t remember you on Easter, the day you left, even when I smell the daffodils and hear the birds and see how the death is turned to life again.

Still, I remember you when I think of Jesus, holding you— “Talitha cumi”— with human, broken hands.

— olivia gwyn

I thought I had to beg

I thought I had to beg

When I was a child I used to

worry about the technicalities of it all–

wondering if I'd get left behind or forgotten

More so, that I'd be tossed aside

unwanted and unknown like 

I'd always feared, that's why

When I got any chance

I tried painfully to be good

the fear lodged in my chest

But now I see the clouds break

and I get a little thrill, remembering

what I actually wanted as a child

I dreamed of being able to fly,

of galloping bare back across an open field

the wind making weird shapes of my shirt

I dreamed of pretty gowns

and jumping in the ocean

and a body that never got tired

I dreamed of being friends with the deer

finding the end of the rainbow, sleeping on clouds

and someone laughing at my jokes

But now I see how wrong I was about you

how you tell me it's not my fault

how you gave me these dreams to hold

And in time I remember you like a father 

watching his only daughter ride laughing 

into the wind on the horse you bought her

You smile because you know 

what it's like to be denied, 

forgotten, crushed underfoot

And you delight in dreams come true 

and the pounding of a heart beating for joy

remembering how to be alive for the thrill of it

I believe in you like I believed in the 

cotton candy clouds and the gentleness

of the spring shower, the barrenness of

The desert under a glorious sunrise

you will not rest until you 

have made everything new

I see how you have made me tender

handing me my dreams, even better than I remembered,

when all along I thought I had to beg

                            – olivia gwyn