At the Hayden Planetarium
In domed obsidian blackness
stars whirl past,
suggesting vast universes
fragile and finite
like our own,
yet each one rushing
on its particular
precious course
Beside me,
my small son and his
grandfather touch elbows,
tip their
heads back in awe
For weeks we have known only
one hospital room,
a life's single moment,
the crazed immersion
that illness brings,
the ache to encircle
what shimmers before us.
Now,
the sky alive all around,
distant moons blaze and blink,
roar to us in their infinitude:
how intensely one life matters,
how much huger than one
we are.
Puppy
Not recognizing death,
he brings
his boundless all
to this task –
first nudging the older dog with a paw
where she lies panting on
cool kitchen tile
then pushing with his nose,
then trying with utmost
gentleness to slide
their shared metal water bowl
across the floor,
so his companion of only
a few years
might take a long drink.
I wonder how he knows this,
that when we are empty hearted
when we do not understand
anything
when the light slanting into
a hospital window is
nothing but light,
when we have less
than nothing and are
dry with want,
hunched over, fighting
our own bones –
A drink of water
can become a small beginning,
can carry us, parched as we are,
bowls in hand.
Karen Mittelman
Both a mother and a stepmother, Karen Mittelman has been writing poetry, fiction and non-fiction for over twenty years. Her work has appeared in Fireweed, Red River Review, and the Comstock Review, among other journals. Her first novel, Force of Nature, recently won second prize for literary fiction in a nationwide contest sponsored by the Maryland Writers' Association. Karen has a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Pennsylvania, and has taught both history and writing. She lives and works in Owings, Maryland, a small town near the Chesapeake Bay, where she is working to create a charter school focusing on the creative arts and environmental education.
