Monday, February 4, 2008

Death Grip

That would be the Matron's hands on the steering wheel during yesterday's hour-long drive to her mother's house.

In the far back of the van, silence prevailed. Scarlett read. Stryker bounced and mouthed to his iPod.

Directly behind me, a thought popped into Merrick's head. And stayed there. Took on new dimensions even as the original retained staying power. Developed nuance and flair.

Merrick: "Mama? When I am going to die?"

Matron: "Not for a long, long time -- nearly 100 years probably so you don't have to worry about that right now."

Merrick: "Could we get hit by a truck and killed, right this minute?"

Matron (who takes hurtling down the freeway at 70 MPH inside a shaky ton of steel very seriously): "Theoretically. But that won't happened today, I promise." Grip, grip.

Merrick: "Daddy will die. Everyone in California will die. Texas, too. Thurston's dead. Grandma Mary will die. You could crash and we will die. Today if you crash."

Matron--who is very superstitious and here, disaster has been introduced into her aura to sit all heavy and dark-- has no response. Turns out there's no need for one.

Merrick: "My fwens will die. I think that truck might hit us. See that? We would so die. Mama? I am just going to sing the Dead Song."

Which he does--for the entire drive. This upbeat ballad weaves through history, geography and space to encompass pretty much every word he's heard and person he's met (or heard of, like all those people in California) in order to link all sentient creatures to their inevitable demise.

As the Matron guided the death-mobile down the treacherous freeway, she experienced virgin emotional territory: she could not wait to get to her mother's house.

Finally, we arrived.

Merrick: "We didn't die yet. Maybe tomorrow. Grandma Mary will die. I'm gonna tell her. Then I'm gonna die."

Matron: "Remember, you don't have to worry about dying for 90 years!"

Stryker, exiting the van: "Don't listen to her, Merrick. She fed me that story, too. The average life expectancy for a man is 77.6 years which means I'm nearly 15% finished."

The Matron officially lost any sense of encouragement and cheer.

In that spirit -- and in celebration of Stark Reality -- here is one of my favorite poems about death, once again brought to you by Joyce Sutphen.

Death Becomes Me

Death has been checking me out,
making himself at home in my body,
as if he needed to know his way
through the skin, faintly rippling
over the cheekbone to the hollow
beneath my eyes, loosening
the tightly wound ligaments
in the arm, the leg,
infirming the muscle
with his subtle caress,
traveling along the nerve,
leaping from one synapse
to the next, weaving his dark threads
into the chord that holds me tall.
Death is counting my hair,
figuring out the linear equation
of my veins and arteries,
the raised power
of a million capillaries,
acquainting himself with the
calculus of my heart,
accessing the archives
of memory, reading them
forward and backward,
finding his name everywhere.
Death comes to rest in my womb,
slaking away the rich velvet
of those walls, silently halting
the descending pearls,
as if he could burrow in
and make himself my mother,
as if he could bare my bones
and bring me to that other birth.

Straight Out of View
Holy Cow! Press, 2001

20 comments:

Suburban Correspondent said...

Thanks - that was a really cheery piece of poetry. Excuse me while I go shoot myself.

And how old is Merrick, anyway?

Yolanda said...

I appreciated your comment on my blog today and I tend to agree with you so much in that I feel that money is not such a priority for me either but rather the joy in the moment .I guess my choices now speak to that .

Minnesota Matron said...

Thanks, my dears! Merrick turns five this month and if Stryker decides to calculate how much life my baby has used up, I may ask him to keep that cheery bit of information to himself!

Anonymous said...

I shouldn't laugh, but really... I hope you will share some of the lyrics to the Dead Song.

Anonymous said...

Oh, too darn amusing for words :).
Stryker reall should bgine a novel, the world according to Stryker, top seller I'll bet ;)

Tootsie Farklepants said...

In your honor I'm cursing those tv commercials that promote using long distance driving as a time to talk.

slow panic said...

i love the death conversations with the kids. and the follow-up questions about the here after and such. always fun.

Mrs. G. said...

Please don't tell Stryker how old I am. I don't want to know how much time I have left. I'm in denial.

Liv said...

Wow. That kid is intense. Sounds like my D who is also 5. It is tiring.

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

Ah, the death obsession years; such fun!

skatey katie said...

sheesh i am reeling from that Arithmetical Percentages Manoeuvre.
that's even freakier than the Death Song X

Kelly said...

I am such a wuss when it comes to discussing the subject of our inevitable demise. One day at the lunch table, my 4-year old comes out with, 'Mommy, when you die, I'll miss you a lot.' And if that wasn't enough to send me under the table into a teary mess, she followed up with a dozen or so questions about death, and then, 'but Jesus fixes us all, in heaven, right?'

Yikes!

That poem was amazing. Thanks for sharing her name, since I'm going to have to check her out on Amazon now.

Minnesota Matron said...

Yes to all these wise and sympathetic comments! Intensity R Us over here in the northland.

Minnesota Matron said...

Finally: Joyce Sutphen is Rock Star, bar none. Buy all her books.

Anonymous said...

I agree, I want to know the Dead Song lyrics. THAT experience is enough to make us all want to drive faster to our mothers--regardless of how we feel about them;) Is your kid related to the Addams Family?

I've always liked that poem.

K. said...

This is so a moment that could be from my life and from my head, and brilliantly expressed. I loved the poem, loved this whole post, but the moment I loved the most was, "As the Matron guided the death-mobile down the treacherous freeway, she experienced virgin emotional territory: she could not wait to get to her mother's house." So unexpected and perfect.

Your kids are awesome.

Laura/CenterDownHome said...

I don't have anything witty to type -- I'm laughing too hard. I love this post, MM. Sending it to all my peeps ...

Oh -- many of my peeps are here! Cool! :)

Beth said...

You drive like I used to with a car load of kids (the death grip...) and with similar conversations. (I always thought they might have been picking up on my fear of highway driving.)

Love that poem. I can relate.

Jenny Grace said...

Oh my. I'm glad mine's only two yet.

Fairlie - www.feetonforeignlands.com said...

Holy moly...car trips with your kids sure are laugh-a-minute!