The Third Remembrance

The chapbook title The Third Remembrance comes from The Five Remembrances, an ancient Pali text attributed to the Buddha. The third remembrance reminds us that we are of a nature to die, and nothing we can do will prevent our eventual death. My sister used to have an app that sent periodic texts saying things like "Death is inevitable." Rather than being depressing, the text messages made us laugh, and the remembrances help us focus on what's important, finding the sweetness and tenderness in each moment. These poems, dedicated to our parents, move from the loss of the Greatest Generation to aging as a Baby Boomer, to awe at my Gen Alpha Grandson when he tells me he's "Skibidi."

Excerpt from Ode to Falling

I was always good at falling.

When the ligament goes wobbly,

the ankle turns along the pathway,

Only fools try staying upright.

I go limp, not do it halfway.

Once I woke to van doors springing

open, spilling me to bouncing, tumbling

down a California freeway.

"Tuck and roll," a dim voice whispered.

"When you stop, you could be okay."

When I reach that final falling,

let me resist the urge to fight it.

Let me shed my self completely,

gently enter that good nightfall,

tumbling deeper into mystery.

The poems in The Third Remembrance encourage readers to contemplate of our aging and inevitable death, and to know that we are actually happier for being present with it. The poems are full of tenderness and humor even in the midst of loss, with odes to falling, riffs on reaching for nouns and the possibility of "senior moments that don't end." As the author follows poems of her parents' last years with confronting her own aging body, she explores the reality that she and her fellow baby boomers are now "out here on the edge of the cliff" with "no one in front to take the brunt."