It's Still Life

Liturgy for the Answers That Yield More Questions
(for the pacing, the waking, the silent photographs)

I. The Floor That Knows Your Footsteps
You have worn a path in the carpet.
Back and forth,
as if the fibres might rearrange themselves
into a confession
if you walk them long enough.

But they do not.

The carpet only holds the shape of your pacing,
the sound of your waiting
that does not know how to sit still
while the answers refuse to arrive.

You have walked this floor
a thousand times.
It has learned your gait.
It has learned your weight.
It knows nothing else.

II. The Night That Will Not Hold You
Sleep has become a stranger.
It knocks at the door
and then walks away
before you can answer.

You lie in the dark,
turning,
your mind circling the same questions
like a dog that cannot lie down
because the ground is not right.

Who was he?
What happened?
Why the quick probate?
Why the dogs facing inward?
Why the file so thin, so tidy,
so eager to be finished?

The ceiling offers no reply.
The pillow holds no comfort.
And morning arrives
whether you are ready or not.

III. The Photographs That Will Not Speak
Black and white faces
stare up from the table.

Your grandmother, your grandfather,
strangers who should be family.
Their smiles stopped in a time
that will not explain itself.

Trinkets beside them;
a ring, a key, a folded paper.
Each one a promise
of something just out of reach.

You hold them to the light.
You turn them over.
You search for inscriptions,
dates,
the smallest mark
that might mean something.

They remain silent.
Beautiful, patient, mute.
They have kept their secrets for decades.
They will not give them up
because you ask nicely.

IV. The Toast That Falls Marmalade-Down
And then
there’s the toast.

You are not asking for much.
You are not asking for revelations.
You are only asking for breakfast.

But the toast slips from your hand
and lands, as it always does,
marmalade-side down on the floor.

It is a small thing.
A nothing thing.
But this morning,
it feels like the universe
has chosen its side,
and it is not yours.

You stand in the kitchen
with the ruined toast at your feet
and you think:

Even the marmalade is against me.

And you laugh
because what else is there to do
when the small things conspire
with the large?

V. For the One Who Cannot Stop Asking
Feel the carpet that holds your pacing.
Dismiss the night that will not hold your sleep.
Listen to the photographs that will not speak,
the trinkets that will not answer,
the marmalade that falls the wrong way down,

the questions that multiply
faster than answers can arrive,
may they be a path,
not a prison.

And be steady, you
who paces,
who wakes,
who asks,
may you find strength to keep going.

Not every question has an answer.
Not every answer is the point.
Sometimes the asking is the work.