Works in Progress
l.slivinski
Your collection room downstairs
is a snug walk between shelves and desks
hung about with glass tubes in boxes,
marble-sized motors,
medicine vials of metal bits
and trailing vines of bright wire.
There are drawings here with footnotes,
airplanes without wings, globe shaped sculptures half built,
pieces and parts,
projects begun.
I had been meaning to ask about a few of them;
the books on chaos and complexity,
shiny drops of liquid chrome
and luminous pearls of silicone
in jewel-shaped stoppered bottles,
and the Bible I brought you
when I thought you needed it.
It looks like it’s not been touched,
but you kept it in reach through two full cycles
of my faith lost and found.
You could quote scripture and you once said that you missed the sound
of big church choirs in long robes.
There were ideas behind your eyes
when we talked about the world and its mysteries.
I could feel your wonder and it made me wonder, too,
posed questions that I knew I’d ask you later.
The mysteries are known to you now,
and you’ve been called to bigger projects.
You’ve set these earthly works in motion.
They are living things like aloe plants and kittens,
hummingbirds and grandchildren,
and when it looks like something’s been left undone,
when I’d like to wrap it up for you
but never asked what it was going to be
when it was finished,
I’ll listen for some echo of you still here,
pulling or building from your collection
some gift for the children,
or for me.
I’ll trust that before you moved on
you passed projects to us,
and that you’ll whisper to us
to compose our own treasures,
begun in your collection room.