Photograph by Michael Monteleone, (c) 1998

Through the Gate of Air
        
        in memoriam
        Mary Huntzicker Snyder
        January 4, 1924 - February 26, 1995


Moorings loosed, she drifts
Upward in a fever dream
She floats above my sleep
She cannot hear
Her falconer, my father
She spirals high, away
Up to the gate of air

        A matter of days, not weeks,
        The doctor said, and we wait, hours
        Out of time, holding her bony hands
        Breathing with her, shallow puffs
        Feeding her smiles when she wakes
        Her face round as a baby's again
        Surprised, afraid, then reassured
        When she sees the faces ranged around
        Her bed in the darkened room

I dream that I am driving
I hold the great wheel
Turn it hand over hand
Feel the car beneath me
Thump and leap
Beyond road's edge, float
Off the cliff, over water
Whoosh in palpable air

Car and I settle gently
On a sparkling celadon marsh
A man's face, concerned
Leans in at the window
I am abashed, I stand
Ankle deep in swamp grass
My open hands cannot catch hold
Of my anchor: mother

        Days later, many miles away
        From her dim hospital vigil
        I am divided, north and south
        I wonder, will I know the moment
        When she slips through the gate
        Looses her grip on the string
        That pulls beneath my breastbone?
        Will this small ache cease
        When her breath falters, stills?

In the dream I stand beside
The sinking car and try
To remember my name
The policeman waits,
I write it slowly, childlike
Feel tongue between my teeth
Round Palmer letters reveal
The name is hers: Mary

        From brilliant Saturday morning sun
        Beneath my northern window
        I phone into her darkened room
        Call her name, it echoes along the line
        Her voice is both thick and weak
        But still she inhabits that body
        Extends herself down from where
        She floats near the gate of air
        She makes it speak my name

        She is no longer frightened
        Of the journey, no longer willing
        To suffer this pain, this incarnation
        She tells my sister I have explained
        Taught her how she must let go
        She tells me I must write it all
        Once more she bears me, mothers me
        Generates my being, gives me
        Who I am, bids me farewell

When she is gone
I am torn, and I am lifted
A part of me rises
Hovers near the gate
Through which she passed
Above this bright planet
Hears her voice
Still in the air

I am enlarged
I am taken away 
I am a wisp of gray vapor
Shocked by the brilliant
Sweet of yellow freesias
Compelled to remain 
By her loving command 
Among these beautiful 
Ephemera. 


(c) 1995 Margery Snyder


This poem first appeared in Coracle [Berkeley], No. 3, Spring/Summer 1996
 and missing tablets and unknown oracles, an anthology published by
 Blue Beetle Press, San Francisco, 1996.




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