Quell the Churning

July 26, 2007

It's time to subdue that constant churning in the pit of my stomach since Randy's accident Saturday evening. The churning came first with the shock of what might have been and has continued with the uncertainty and frustration of dealing with the insurance companies. All we want, at this point, is a rental van.

My brother is getting married on Saturday, and that we get to New York for the wedding is not a priority for the insurance company. And now we are going to shed our prickly skins and just deal with things ourselves, for now.

And so we are off to New York tomorrow. My brother's wedding is something I would not miss for "neither rain nor snow nor dark of night" nor totaled vans.

Supple Cord

My brother, in his small white bed,
held one end.
I tugged the other
to signal I was still awake.
We could have spoken,
could have sung
to one another,
we were in the same room
for five years,
but the soft cord
with its little frayed ends
connected us
in the dark,
gave comfort
even if we had been bickering
all day.
When he fell asleep first
and his end of the cord
dropped to the floor,
I missed him terribly,
though I could hear his even breath
and we had such long and separate lives
ahead.

Reprinted from "A MAZE ME," Greenwillow, 2005, by permission of the author in American Life in Poetry. Copyright (c) Naomi Shihab Nye.