Read Online Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Roger Rosenblatt
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promise never to let go.
Ginny comes back for the opening of the conference. Soon she will have to return to Bethesda, where Jessie and Sammy have begun camp for the rest of the month, but for an unusual couple of days we have each other’s company. At dusk we take a walk. We feel older and smaller than we do with the grandchildren. The sky is orange and pink, the streets vacant except for the sounds of children in their houses. We speak of the presidential campaign and of things in the news.
On evenings in previous summers we would walk to the ocean, half a mile from our house. Or we would go only as far as the bridge over the Shinnecock Canal, and turn back. Tonight we stay on the streets that run like tributaries to the water. We are familiar with these old and confident houses, though not with all their occupants. We know some houses intimately, since we traipsed through them when they were up for sale. Our house was out of reach when it was first on the market, but the owners had three homes elsewhere, and eventually accepted our offer, which terrified us. We walk over to Penniman’s Creek, where the water rummages with the pebbles.
“I’m thinking of getting a kayak,” I tell her.
“Do you know how to use a kayak?” she says.
“I’ve done it two or three times.”
“Is it dangerous?” she says.
“No. I’ll get one for you, too.”
“I think I’d be scared,” she says.
I tell her, “If I can do it, anybody can do it.”
It is nearly dark, and the streets have gone from gray to black. We hear the pop-pop of tennis balls. We hold hands, the way we did when we first dated in high school. I make a mental note to call a place in Wainscott that sells kayaks.
On Quogue Street, we pass the home of our friend and next-door neighbor, Ambrose Carr, whose wife, Nancy, a kind and beautiful woman, died the November before last. She had been ill for a long while. Amby, a little older than we, has a patrician voice and the face of a 1930s leading man. One morning we chatted in the post office. In the early afternoon, he walked over from his yard to ours to tell me Nancy had just died in her sleep. When Amy died, he left a phone message for Ginny and me: “I love you.” These days he travels a bit, visits his children and grandchildren, tends his garden, and listens to jazz.
In Bethesda, Ginny writes a poem called “Arch of Shade”—
Rachmaninoff and Mozart
Sift through the haze
On River Road.
Two hatted women wait
In the heat for the Ride-on-bus.
The Wii is the summer wish
Come true.
Your babies’ crib is disassembled
And taken away
Accepted
With gratitude
To be the bed for a new life.
I am turning
To the camp carpool line
Only thinking of you.
The arch of shade hovers
The hot July sun rays
Dapple the leaf arch
To highlight the darkness.
I am here.
Ginny began writing poems three years ago, and has published a couple of them. They are very much like her. Nearly all begin with the description of a pleasant scene, often bucolic, then pivot toward the expression of a more serious idea or feeling. It is as if she were welcoming you into the poem, and when you walk in and feel at ease, she closes the door behind you, to reveal her real purpose, which, in “Arch of Shade” is to “highlight the darkness.” You must go back up the lines to detect earlier hints of that purpose, such as the women waiting in the heat and the disassembled crib. You might say, “I didn’t see that coming,” but the signs were there. So it is with Ginny. Her graciousness distracts people from noticing that she is alert to life’s dark places. She prefers it that way. Her poems hit their mark but gently. They crack the egg without breaking it.
All five grandchildren come to Quogue for most of the month of August—Jessie, Sammy, Bubbies, Andrew, and Ryan. Ligaya comes too, guaranteeing our survival. In two shifts, the children arrive late at night, and they run from the cars to the
Ginny comes back for the opening of the conference. Soon she will have to return to Bethesda, where Jessie and Sammy have begun camp for the rest of the month, but for an unusual couple of days we have each other’s company. At dusk we take a walk. We feel older and smaller than we do with the grandchildren. The sky is orange and pink, the streets vacant except for the sounds of children in their houses. We speak of the presidential campaign and of things in the news.
On evenings in previous summers we would walk to the ocean, half a mile from our house. Or we would go only as far as the bridge over the Shinnecock Canal, and turn back. Tonight we stay on the streets that run like tributaries to the water. We are familiar with these old and confident houses, though not with all their occupants. We know some houses intimately, since we traipsed through them when they were up for sale. Our house was out of reach when it was first on the market, but the owners had three homes elsewhere, and eventually accepted our offer, which terrified us. We walk over to Penniman’s Creek, where the water rummages with the pebbles.
“I’m thinking of getting a kayak,” I tell her.
“Do you know how to use a kayak?” she says.
“I’ve done it two or three times.”
“Is it dangerous?” she says.
“No. I’ll get one for you, too.”
“I think I’d be scared,” she says.
I tell her, “If I can do it, anybody can do it.”
It is nearly dark, and the streets have gone from gray to black. We hear the pop-pop of tennis balls. We hold hands, the way we did when we first dated in high school. I make a mental note to call a place in Wainscott that sells kayaks.
On Quogue Street, we pass the home of our friend and next-door neighbor, Ambrose Carr, whose wife, Nancy, a kind and beautiful woman, died the November before last. She had been ill for a long while. Amby, a little older than we, has a patrician voice and the face of a 1930s leading man. One morning we chatted in the post office. In the early afternoon, he walked over from his yard to ours to tell me Nancy had just died in her sleep. When Amy died, he left a phone message for Ginny and me: “I love you.” These days he travels a bit, visits his children and grandchildren, tends his garden, and listens to jazz.
In Bethesda, Ginny writes a poem called “Arch of Shade”—
Rachmaninoff and Mozart
Sift through the haze
On River Road.
Two hatted women wait
In the heat for the Ride-on-bus.
The Wii is the summer wish
Come true.
Your babies’ crib is disassembled
And taken away
Accepted
With gratitude
To be the bed for a new life.
I am turning
To the camp carpool line
Only thinking of you.
The arch of shade hovers
The hot July sun rays
Dapple the leaf arch
To highlight the darkness.
I am here.
Ginny began writing poems three years ago, and has published a couple of them. They are very much like her. Nearly all begin with the description of a pleasant scene, often bucolic, then pivot toward the expression of a more serious idea or feeling. It is as if she were welcoming you into the poem, and when you walk in and feel at ease, she closes the door behind you, to reveal her real purpose, which, in “Arch of Shade” is to “highlight the darkness.” You must go back up the lines to detect earlier hints of that purpose, such as the women waiting in the heat and the disassembled crib. You might say, “I didn’t see that coming,” but the signs were there. So it is with Ginny. Her graciousness distracts people from noticing that she is alert to life’s dark places. She prefers it that way. Her poems hit their mark but gently. They crack the egg without breaking it.
All five grandchildren come to Quogue for most of the month of August—Jessie, Sammy, Bubbies, Andrew, and Ryan. Ligaya comes too, guaranteeing our survival. In two shifts, the children arrive late at night, and they run from the cars to the
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