A Time Capsule in an Old Poem

I just found this poem from 2002

I’ve been spending my “writing time” working on a larger project, which means I have been less active on Substack. But I recently came across this poem from 2002 I’d like to share about a trip I took to visit my parents in Michigan, two years before I had kids, and well before my mom had dementia:

Autumn Day in Oakland County, Michigan

The breeze blows in soft, cool breaths,

Licking the strands of my hair into smooth control,

Filling my lungs with humid coolness.

I want these moments to last,

Though the cars pass at quick speed,

And the automatic sprinklers wet my back.

The perfect shimmer of the oak trees,

And the crunch of early falling leaves,

And the way the world seems to float in a mirage of perfection,

Leaves me feeling found.

Found with my mother, walking in step beside me,

Clearing her throat constantly from the surgery that

Robs her voice, then gives it back,

Renewed,

Stronger,

Controlled.

She is sixty this weekend.

She lives by a lake in Oakland County,

Her apartment brims with old books

And boxes full of her treasures.

My sisters say it is junk,

But my mother produces items to show me,

One by one,

Trying to give them to me,

Because she trusts me with their value.

Books and cookbooks;

Cards from my babyhood;

Old sentiments from my grandmother,

Who has been dead now

For 4 years.

Her handwriting still speaks,

In this still, quiet hour.

“Eileen, dear:”

Instead of “Dear Eileen,”

It’s amazing how the flip of a single word in a sentence

Can change the meaning.

My old paper from fourth grade:

“My family is almost happy all of the time.”

And that’s more true than the traditional statement:

“My family is happy almost all of the time.”

I’m sure some teacher

Would’ve tried to correct it.

These thoughts fall back at me

As I visit my past,

Pulling my entire yesterdays into a bubble of focus,

Leading me to understand

That this moment will pass.

And I want it to last.

I breathe in the cool air, close my eyes

And feel the soft warmth of sunlight on my lids—

I engrave upon my memory the feeling of walking by a lake,

in my mother’s suburban neighborhood,

With her presence beside me, saying,

“Why don’t you live closer?”

I have a hard time answering….

But my distance turns this everyday journey

Into a gift from God.