A Haydn Serenade

A HAYDN SERENADE in memory of Betty and Lloyd Mark Gordon

The humpbacked and suffering human seems alternately to hold up the sky and to be oppressed by it, her back scraped like an ancient turtle.

I see shadows of her deceased husband. They hover on bejeweled knick-knacks. His voice tumbles in the workings of a wall clock. She uses his scent on unwashed clothing to lull her to sleep.

And on the radio this Sunday morning, a choir sings hallelujahs to a far-off god, while Haydn offers a serenade. I sense the honeycomb of this moment. It gathers the humpbacked woman into its perfect light, promises revelation for those whose spirits stay intact, although their bodies break.

I remember a heron abruptly rising from the marsh, skinny as this woman, who hardly eats anything now but memories. Its beady eyes seemed to know something, a morning harmony hidden to our sight, seemed to know the logic of the weather, the peace of bulrushes bent in the wind. Haydn, the old devil, he knew something, just as bees know a hive’s compartments, just as I know, lying in bed this morning, that something tests us at each moment, examines how well our world is made, if it will endure, when it will break.

The suffering woman makes one more turn around her living room, pushing a walker called Free Spirit. The candy color reminds me of a tricycle. She adjusts the angle of a gemmed bird; it catches the sun’s rays, rose and green in her eyes.