Leaving

Causes
How would it feel to lose everything
in a hurricane, earthquake, or fire?
Can’t even imagine it
If I tried, I’d be a hypocrite.
I’ve never been in straits so dire.
Never had to evacuate,
Choose the things I’d need to take.
Like life-preserving pills—what could be more
mundane than pills?
Even if I needed them, I’d probably refrain.

Suppose you are an immigrant
in an even worse predicament
if you arrived without due process.
No papers, no address, just
deportation or arrest.
You fled from threats of genocide
in Sudan or Rwanda—sanctuary denied.
My grandma did that very thing, with six children in her tow.
Possessions few and porridge served in steerage class below.
“Just ourselves,” my mother said—no more than that was shared
The journey on the New Rochelle, an unspeakable nightmare.

Possessions
Imagine what it’s like for refugees in shelters,
No clothes of their own, dressed helter-skelter.
When I left a favorite jacket in a NYC taxi,
I grieved its loss as if it were a penance for my moxie.
My own two feet are good enough to get me where I’m going—
If not, the metro’s more my style, in spite of some elbowing.
Who knew I cared so much for clothes? Most decades-old, it’s true.
Would I grab my alpaca cape, a treasure from Peru?
But sweaters that my mother knit are more important still.
Despite their age, I wear them and ignore their pulls and pills.

I couldn’t take her sculptures: abstract shapes, so elegant.
Her hands and heart were her true gifts, higher ed irrelevant.
All the years we were growing up, her fingers worked the clay.
Smooth marble nudes, rough granite busts, not subject to decay.
Perhaps they’d survive the hurricane—not so, though, my piano,
the one I love and often play—but ne’er before an audience.
I should play it now, but I’ve got to write—
I’m running out of time, the deadline is tight.
Just thinking about it fills me with guilt.
Better to salvage my much lighter quilts.

Would I take the blue indigo, Alyssa’s gift from Vietnam,
That country we pulverized in a war that was damned
Cutting and sewing a fabric so sumptuous
my enthusiasm lapsed and the quilt interruptus
I’ve a habit of starting and failing to finish—
The best of intentions fade and diminish.

What else would I take if I had to make
The kind of choices people face
When catastrophe threatens to erase
Their home and belongings, all defaced
Photos, of course, from four score and four years,
Of travels and old friends, beloved forebears.
My handwritten journals from years long ago—
It's too late to type them; I’ll have to forego.

Legacy
I hope to leave a lasting mark, but I am always late—
Late to the party, late to bed,
Late to recognize how little time is left.
Just a mortal, not promised a ripe old age—
What will I have accomplished when it’s time to leave the stage?

It’s well past time to take stock of my life and do all that still needs doing.
I don’t want to leave my heirs with tasks that are accruing.
Will they finish what I didn’t—like the books I started writing—
That won’t likely happen; their own projects they’re pursuing.
I’m taking steps to tie ends up, my singular recourse.
Donate those items purchased in our youth and looking forward—
Or else they’ll find me dead one day and say I was a hoarder.

Next week I’ll visit Solomon, an elder law attorney,
I’ll fix my will so it’s secure when I take the final journey.
I’d like to leave a legacy of helping to transform
Our divided country and the world, the issues are enorm.
I fear the future for our kids and coming generations—
With climate change and wars sparking human conflagration.

And here at home autocracy, a threat to freedom’s flame,
Our founding principles are at risk, in more than just in name.
It might take beyond my earthly years before the country is restored
America — with immigrants welcomed to our shore.