Beginning at the end

Some stories have their end written on the first page, you know the ones I'm talking about, from Romeo and Juliet down to Bucket List there've always been writers determined to test themselves against the hardest wall.  I mean, how interesting can a story be when you know the ending before you've finished the first page?  We readers don't fall for it often, the idea that how they get to the ending will be so deeply interesting that it's worth reading anyway.  Romeo dead with Juliet's blood pooling around them both.  Carter waiting in a coffee can on the side of Mount Everest for Edward's coffee can to be carried up. We nod our heads and go home.  Why do we need to watch/read/hear any more? 

From Shakespeare to Rob Reiner, I admire anyone with the guts to tell us the ending first.  This dispenses with the smoke and mirrors lesser artists use to distract from their lesser stories.  Oh, I like those stories too, the adventure of racing along into the unknown, unable to put it down because you just have to know how it ends.  It's the ending that makes those books palatable, without that bit of mystery, "Oh, God, will Jake finally ask her to marry him after she's borne three of his children, forgiven his infidelity and perfidy, loved him through cancer ... and if he does will she have the self-respect to spit in his face?" 

No, I admire most the writers who tell you up front, "she walked away" and then dare you to come along for the ride.  Especially because very few who try that gambit have the talent to pull it off.  So when she walked away, I recognized the moment for the pure high art it contained. 

The day I met her she showed me how it would end.  But something about the way she told the story kept me hooked.  Through children, illness, good-times and bad it was there.  I got so caught up in the story, I forgot I knew the final scene.  Can you imagine?  I just forgot.  So there I was, drinking a glass of Red Bicycle Merlot, looking at the photo on the mantel.  Twenty years younger, I was in love and she was beautiful.  Only now I see that she was leaning away.  I'd been so caught up in my dream, I lost sight of who she was.  Or, maybe, she was such the artist that she'd obscured it under all the layers of drama and need.  No matter who's dream, no matter what I thought I'd brought to the story, she walked out exactly the way she walked in.  Awkward gait, cheap shoes, medium heel.   

Mom comes
on little fat feet

she sits looking
over her coffee mug
silent while children chatter
then moves on.

 

Nods to Sandburg

 

 

Oatmeal cookies with nuts and fruit
orange juice, champagne of truth
baby smell, oil of the spirit of healing
not quite enough for big house on the hill
more than enough for laughter and still
it's the sound of your breath I'm remembering
more than the heartbeat deep in your chest
more than the way that you loved me your best
the sad little catch that presaged your death
it's the sound of your breath I'm remembering
not one day we spent is regretted or mourned
hours together led us to be borne
labor of love sweeps linoleum floors
past the hope of the life we once bargained for
it's the sound of your breath I'm remembering
when you touched me as though you remembered me well
from a lifetime before what a story you'd tell
to convince me that you were the one who rapelled
down the cliffs of destruction to hold me
it's the sound of your breath I'm remembering
aaaaaaaah, when a life has been spent in this way
unafraid of the moments spent harboring play
delaying the moment when you must away
beyond the reach of my fiercest embrace
who could say its been any part waste
when your breath in my memory still lingers.

it's the sound of your breath I'm remembering

it's the sound of your breath I'm remembering