miriam - poem

Miriam
by
Michael Maestri

A warm soft voice every Thursday and Saturday. The hint of a German accent.
For years an on-air medium, masseuse and martial arts maven,
A blissninny, I thought, a utopian, an old hippie idealist, a fool in fox clothing,
Head full of mild guesses about whales and males and people and God,
A friend I probably under-rated on account of your pretty face.

Recently I learned a racing cell mitosis is attacking your liver, lungs and brain.
I'm not sure of the protocol at such a time.
I don't want to make more sadness for you,
But I'm pretty sure you won't be harmed by what I say here.
I don't want to be morbid, but I don't want to save my grateful remarks
For a later time that may not come.
I want to thank you for a lesson you taught me.

Sometimes for exercise I write my epitaph.
Here I write ideas about you which I'd publish if that made sense.
I'd say: "I went to a hard school -- I have no pity;
I love the smell of smoke, the rush of blood, the pain and noise of fighting.
They excite me and distract me from my self; this is my curse, my work, my mess.
But there are people, great teachers they are, who,
By their grace and kindly spirit, show how I can live, if so choose.
You, Miriam, are such a person."

I was with you once when you learned you'd been betrayed by friends,
Lied to, the way we all are from time to time.
I saw the flinch in your eyes when you learned they'd been lovers.
You'd thought they'd been honest with you; thought they'd been true.
Almost instantly, in that slim sliver of a second in which we make the world,
You raised your dark eyes and looked up at the sky.
You took a deep breath and exhaled slowly --
So you wouldn't take the hurt deep down inside yourself, you said.

I was awed.
I saw it as instant forgiveness, and done under fire, not as a pose in a pew.
Then you said with a gentle laugh,
"Actually, I'm glad to know that others can be as un-enlightened as me."
Such elementary kindness, such wisdom.

Now, after learning you're ill and that it's possible, if things go badly,
That you may be leaving us,
I listen to Madame Butterfly and try to remember that,
Despite all the drama, the damning and the dread,
We don't really die, we're not really separable,
And no one ever leaves us, because no one of us is ever really here.

We do not live on this battlefield. We live in that perfectly quiet place
Between and behind our conscious thoughts.
And in this holy, real place, dear Miriam,
We are always healthy, always together, and always loved.