Jonah Bornstein

The Dead and the Living

‌                 –for Jim Harrison and my mother

Someone found his friend lying on the floor collapsed in the pond
of his body he had no chance of denying death or saying so long
His friend had a hard life even though he laughed a lot

and made use of his time figuring out how guns work
and how to skin animals and live off a bottle in the sun
like an old timer although he knew Sanskrit and sang

mightier than almost anyone even when they stare
maybe with a kind of dread at someone whose face was so alive
with lines they felt afraid of their own absence from living

A friend of mine knew this guy and depression but mostly the bright
alleys his pen made for others to rest in or maybe to wallow in the beauty
of wriggling words going straight at what mattered most

And it felt natural for me to think of my mother who has been told
she’s depressed and maybe she is or isn’t and the dead man really wasn’t either
No I don’t think so even though she says, “It’s chemical you know?”

Only I think it’s because well how else can she tell us the real reason
which I’ve finally figured out when she cries out all times of day “oh” and “oh god”
and even “shit,” it’s only because she knows there is so much inside

that will never get out more than is meant for a single lifetime
how many one can’t tell she is so full her mind bursting
with grief over the fact of her tethered blooming

Jonah Bornstein taught writing in NYC and Oregon, and directed the Ashland Writers Conference. Publications include poems in Prairie Schooner, West Wind Review, One Fare, Jefferson Monthly, and many anthologies, including September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond.  Books include The Art of Waking and Treatise on Emptiness. Bornstein lives in Oregon.