May 6: A Realization, Pablo Neruda, "Ode to Bicycles"

I realized this afternoon that tomorrow will be the first anniversary of my brother's death.

That realization really caught me by surprise.  Usually, I'm not a person that keeps track of things like that.  I can barely remember my own kids' birthdays, and I certainly don't celebrate death days.  In fact, I think that people who keep track of such depressing milestones are a little morbid.

Yet, here I sit, contemplating the last 365 days.  A lot has changed, and a lot has stayed the same.  I'm not going to get all maudlin.  I refuse to sit here and reflect on loss.  I'll save that for tomorrow.  What I will say this evening is that I'm going to enjoy the warmth of the sun as it sets tonight.  I'm going to hug my daughter, force her to give me a goodnight kiss before she goes to bed.  I'm going to go into my son's bedroom and touch the down of his hair.  And I'm going to tell my wife that I love her for putting up with all my insanities.

Saint Marty is going to give thanks for all the little things in his life:  my withered lawn, a cup of cold water, a piece of cheese, peepers singing in the dusk, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a quilt, a pillow, night, morning, and bicycles.

Ode to Bicycles

by:  Pablo Neruda

I was walking
down
a sizzling road:
the sun popped like
a field of blazing maize,
the
earth
was hot,
an infinite circle
with an empty
blue sky overhead.

A few bicycles
passed
me by,
the only
insects
in
that dry
moment of summer,
silent,
swift,
translucent;
they
barely stirred
the air.

Workers and girls
were riding to their
factories,
giving
their eyes
to summer,
their heads to the sky,
sitting on the
hard
beetle backs
of the whirling
bicycles
that whirred
as they rode by
bridges, rosebushes, brambles
and midday.

I thought about evening when
the boys
wash up,
sing, eat, raise
a cup
of wine
in honor
of love
and life,
and waiting
at the door,
the bicycle,
stilled,
because
only moving
does it have a soul,
and fallen there
it isn't
a translucent insect
humming
through summer
but
a cold
skeleton
that will return to
life
only
when it's needed,
when it's light,
that is,
with
the
resurrection
of each day.

The smallest things can be the biggest miracles