Ginny Threefoot
THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA
night falls in this pretend Japanese village
it is raining here always twilight here
I trouser to my tea with my subtle mistress age
my son is working on a dictionary he promises me
will teach me better languages when speaking of my times
I tell him take me up the mountain
that high bowl of nesting bones is singing
I am loved and they are looking out for me tonight
on your back son in a woven chair steep me up the path
I am sorry for you but it will be a kindness
the spirits have assured a calm companion to your mourning
see it’s in your dictionary see this page see under: time
where swish I land with ease
I am already forgotten in the cities of course I am
already forgotten in the country too the suburbs the exurbs
the shrubs and hubbub and waddling all that gone now
rolling rolling I grow rounder and rounder
colder more complete an entire life of thinking rolled
into a globe and when in springtime you come hoping
for my garden shirt it’s hanging on a stick a flag of heaven
maybe so maybe not whatever is forgotten is remembered
what I wore on my last day son it snowed for us on the day we climbed
the little tributes fell about us all the way to the top of the mountain
fell all the way into the bones all the way to where the bones mingle
here I am certain it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter death doesn’t matter
honestly it’s in your dictionary see under: all the days and even if even if
all the pages went in a gust sfffsssfffsssfffsssfffsss!
my son it snowed for us the day you took me to the mountain
the little tributes fell about us all the way so many so many
piled in snowdrifts everything we shared it hurts me now to hear you moan
dear son soon soon our emptiness will mingle my shirt your coat our flags
will flap and weather and disappear and the snow falls always
it’s all there in your dictionary my dear one see under: goodbye
always its little tribute its whispery grandeur always its pleasant sleep
GINNY THREEFOOT has had work appear in The Cincinnati Review, Guesthouse, Poet Lore, Tupelo Quarterly, Under a Warm Green Linden, VOLT, and Zone 3. She has collaborated on several projects with artist Anne Lindberg, and their next exhibit will open at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa.
