what the living do

i've loved this ever since i first saw it on Atlantic Unbound, the online edition of The Atlantic Monthy. Ahh.... the good ole days, when you didn't have to pay for an online subcription....

This was written in memory of the poet's older brother who died of AIDS.

There are so many things i love about this poem i really don't know where to start.
How do i love thee? Let me count the ways...

i love the way it quietly asserts its poignant, clear-eyed truth.
The way it lovingly sanctifies all the daily things we do, the way it celebrates the mundane. The way it reminds us that the everyday is life, even if we don't normally think of it in such exalted terms.
The way i can see, hear and feel the crisp cold of an early winter morning. (Yes, you can see and hear the cold. The air looks clearer, less weighted, and sounds reach the ears sharper, with more immediacy.)
The way that comma in the last line insists on the simultaneity and, indeed, inseparability, of continued life and continued remembrance.

Geeky editorial note:
i'm not actually sure if i've got the linebreaks right. i have a sneaky suspicion, based on the structure of most of the other poems in the collection, that this is actually written in long flowing couplets. Still, i like the look of this layout better, and so i shall go with my aesthetic preferences instead of my literary gut instinct. Forgive me, Marie...


What The Living Do

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably
.....fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes
.....have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we
.....spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight
.....pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and
.....I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street,
.....the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying
.....along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my
.....wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush:
.....This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called
.....that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to
.....pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and
.....then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the
.....window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing
.....so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm
.....speechless:
I am living, I remember you.


by Marie Howe
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