It's all on loan

T.S. Eliot wrote, “Midnight shakes the memory/ As a madman shakes a dead geranium.” And so it was. I woke at 2 a.m. restless, preoccupied with a project that would require a stack of post-its. I lay there asking myself where I put my post-its. 

I had to get up. I searched through an IKEA filing basket and found no post-its but a little hand-made book of Palesa’s poetry: spring-green poster-paper covers tied with olive green yarn bows. Bows she fashioned with her own fingers. I caressed the bows, hoping some energy of her hands was still on them so I could touch her again.

I read the poems and knew it was 2000. She was in 7th grade in Texas, had a crush on a boy named Diamond. She wrote,

blue is the color of the sky
blue is the color of the Ocean
blue is the color of Diamant eyes 

Then a wishful poem:

I wish I could
finish school until I 
get to college.
I wish.

It ends with two Limericks, her love language.

In Lesotho there was a girl
who wore pretty earrings with pearls
she loved the people,
the church, and the steeple,
and the flag, and watching it furl.

Two people went on honeymoon
and a long come a huge monsoon.
It rained and it blew,
they come down with flu,
and divorce followed very soon.

Next to the poems was her report card, Grade 3, Ridge Junior Primary School, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: “Palesa is a happy, outgoing child who responds warmly to her peer group. Her gregarious nature makes her a popular pupil, but she does need to develop self-discipline, as her natural exuberance often affects her ability to concentrate.” And on the back, a note from the school principal: “A determined little girl who is a ‘real character’—her mind is very difficult to change indicating strength of personality and definite ideas!”

You gave us your true self, Palesa! Well done. 

 Wislawa Szymborska writes, “Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.” (The link is to someone's blog, and the poem is followed by their interpretation, with which I disagree, so feel free to skip that part.)

The photo: three fat monks given to me as a bonus by a woman in a Lisboa souvenir shop in 2009 after I had bought some gifts for folks at home. When the monks came to me, Bella had not yet been born. Now she and Evan have played with those monks for years, and they migrated from book shelf to toy box and back again. It’s all on loan.