aftershocks
TRANSCRIPT
University of Northern Iowa
AftershocksAuthor(s): John KinsellaSource: The North American Review, Vol. 288, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 2003), p. 52Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25126903 .
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strings of ancestors streaming back
through the ages, those who have
stepped aside so I could have my turn to live on this earth. They are
returning to greet me, the thread of
generations tying me into family past and future, so that together we
form a web that supports each one
of us. They're half hidden in the
moon's shadows, their shapes
barely visible except that I can see
they are looking at me and smiling.
Watching me step and glide, step and glide. Giving their assent to
the directions I've chosen, nodding their approval at the decisions I've
made, blessing me even while they wait for me to join them.
I shake my head and they are
gone, and I remain skating circles
on the pond, cutting an ever-deep
ening ring of grooves into the ice, as if I'm settling into a track. Soon
the rhythm of step-glide, step-glide is lost in the larger rhythm of circle
upon circle, just as the minutes of
my life flow into hours and the
hours into days, in rhythm with the
earth rotating on its spindle. Around and around, unchanging,
year after year. When I was
younger, I would have condemned
such cyclical repetition as boring. But now the lack of event is what I treasure: the skirting of illness, the
avoidance of loss for one more day.
Now I see that the repetition, the
regularity of pattern, the ordinary nature of it all creates its own
beauty?the beauty of rising
healthy to repeat the same actions
until I sink into sleep so that I can
rise again the next morning. The
privilege of rising to repeat the
cycle, to live a day free of disaster so that I can pull my skates from
the hall closet one more time and
trek down to the pond. Somehow, that's become enough for me.
In my life I've done many things in the dark, or at least in the semi
dark when the moon rather than
the sun dominated the sky. Rarely could I clearly see where I was
going?and when I thought I
could, when I sped up because I
thought I knew the placement of
the next stroke, that's when my
falls were hardest. It's a humbling
experience, skating in the dark,
living in the dark. It's not the steps that have carried me forward, it's
been the glide?those acts of grace,
the gifts that appear seemingly from nowhere. The glide that
brings freedom and joy, as if one
were, for just a moment, a bird
soaring above the frozen water,
looking down to see the entire earth. It's trusting the glide that's
allowed me to keep going. And
trusting that the ice will hold?
although I know that some day an
unavoidable crack will open in
front of me and those who love me
will remember me by the hole
where I disappeared, and perhaps
by what I have left behind: a mit ten casually dropped on the ice, a
bit of brightly colored fluff. I don't time my skating sessions.
I just stop when I get tired.
Sometimes it's fifteen minutes.
Sometimes an hour. At some point
I skate over to the beach where I
left my boots and exchange them
for my skates. I tie the skate laces
together, ease them over my
shoulder, whistle to my dog, and
take off down the trail.
It's darker in the woods than on
the pond, but my feet can feel the
well-worn path even in absolute
blackness. The oaks and hickories arch above me. Sometimes I
glimpse a flopping body disappear
ing into a tree cavity?the owl
returning to its nest. Sometimes
coyotes yip and sing on a distant
hill. But usually I walk in silence.
The lights of my house flicker
above the distant rise, and smoke
curls from my chimney. But I return slowly, deliberately. The
exercise has warmed me thoroughly.
I have no need to rush. D
JOHN KINSELLA
Aftershocks
There have been at least fifty aftershocks
since yesterday's quake, which coincided
with a particularly vicious cold front,
perverse revenge for a dry winter.
Lines packed close together, non-gliding birds catch the wind or it catches them, and tossed over fragments of bush
disorientate; thin trees bearing up as thickset
classifications crack and fissure from inner
rings out; a rufous songlark flies low near
the house, intent on insects clinging to barely sheltered spots, standing water rippling
in gravel shallows, seismographs or omens,
volatile membranes holding the district together.
52 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW January-February 2003
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