Theme and Variations

Death is a topic that's been on my mind lately, from worries about possibly needing to put our dog to sleep to seeing one of my favorite bloggers dealing with the death of her mother, to talking with a former student about an essay she's writing on how the death of a child affects a family. It seemed quite a confluence, then, that I happened across this unfinished poem while looking for something else on my computer. I started writing it some time ago, after hearing that a student of mine's mother had terminal cancer. We were asked not to talk with her or, obviously, anyone else about it in order to respect the family's privacy. I did so, but I felt moved to write something. Ultimately, what follows is more about me and the loss of my father than it is about anyone else, but in any case I think sufficient time and distance have elapsed that I can safely share this poem without upsetting anyone. It may not really be finished yet, but here's where it stood on November 19, 2008, when I originally wrote this introduction and somehow failed to publish the poem.

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Theme and Variations

Theme and variations: a musical form in which a melody is repeated in altered variations over and over. Sometimes the changes are small enough that the theme is still clearly present; at other times, the variations are so extreme that the original melody is almost impossible to discern.

1.
The phone rings as I’m driving home;
I don’t know it at the time, but I’m hearing the
too-familiar opening chords of a symphony
from my past
and someone else’s
present.

2.
A theme with 500,000 variations
Every
Single
Year.
Young variations,
Old variations,
Mature variations in the prime of their lives.
Five hundred thousand variations
And their families.

3.
I’m told her mother has cancer,
late stage,
terminal.
I’m told the family doesn’t
want people talking about it
with her,
behind her.
I very much want to, because I understand
(As much as anyone can)
I very much want to, because I want to find words she needs,
But I understand:
My family didn’t want to talk about it either—
and so I won’t.

4.
A minor-key theme marks a major event
in the young life: more difficult than coming to terms
with one’s own—unimaginable anyway—death, 
is coming to terms with the imminent loss
of one we love.
Day 1 followed by
Day 2’s variation, followed by
Day 3’s ever-new, ever-painful variation, followed by
all the days to come,
each day a variation on the theme.

Same theme, different tempo each day,
Emotions an indistinct glissando
from the lows to the highs
in a crazy vivace
or a plodding lento.
Today and today, always today, followed—perhaps—by
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
in their petty pace.

5.
Some days the theme swells joyously: one more day,
One better day than the ones around it;
Hope sings out in trumpet blasts,
The fight is renewed! Victory from the jaws of…
No. Victory in the jaws of...
deceit.
We lie to ourselves
because we have to.

6.
Today’s theme is somber,
mortality creeping
into the cracks
of the façade she raises
each day.
Any day now.
Any day; now?
Repeat with minor variations.

Any day: now.

7.
What music at the end?
Ethereal violins playing high, muted atmospherics
of heaven? Brassy fanfares again,
welcoming Home?
A joyous coda repudiating
the sad strains that came before?
A Never-Ending Symphony?

Or just a double bar-line?
Just the end?
The final chords, somber
or joyous
or ambiguous
then fading
into silence.

There’s always an end;
variation after endless variation,
we can only take so much.

Sometimes, just
ending
is enough.

tags: death  cancer  coping  

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