When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back Read online

  Then all our phones start ringing.

  It’s my sister calling.

  My mother answers the phone.

  I can hear my sister screaming.

  Fortuna

  Fortuna

  I hate you

  *

  I wrote to you on January 13, 2015, two months and three days before you died:

  Hi Sweetheart,

  How are you? I dreamed about you last night; you fell and hurt yourself and cried. I was so upset about it in the dream. I woke up crying.

  You wrote back right away:

  Ha! I’m doing fine! I’m here editing. I think it’s going to be a good film.

  *

  We stood in my kitchen on New Year’s Day 2015. We were speaking about your great-grandfather who died a few years ago. He lived to be ninety-four. You loved your great-grandfather dearly and he loved you.

  You said: “I’m not afraid of death. I’ve never been.”

  I said: “I am. When I die I want to be cremated. I don’t want to be down under the cold earth.”

  You laughed, and said: “I’m going to be buried. I want to be part of the big system. I love nature, and I want to be a part of it.” I laughed.

  I said: “You already are.”

  I said: “Well, thank God I won’t have to be there for it.”

  In the pocket of your green jacket, I found a little book—Walt Whitman’s poems—beautifully bound by your great-grandfather, leather bound with gold letters. His name was in it. My mother had passed it on to you. About nature’s atmosphere, Whitman wrote:

  … I am in love with it,

  I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,

  I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

  The smoke of my own breath,

  Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,

  My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs

  “Song of Myself”

  Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems

  When I found the book in your green jacket, you were dead. It was in March 2015.

  You are singing in me.

  *

  Once you sat up in an old crooked magnolia tree hidden by the waxy pink flowers, the thick green leaves. I was sitting in a chair on the lawn reading. It was April. I could hear you breathing and the wind blowing through the leaves. You said: “When I get dead I want to be buried under Grandma’s magnolia tree.” You were four years old.

  Stop this day and night with me

  Now we shall hear about what no one wants to hear about

  We planted a magnolia tree at your gravesite. It’s the same magnolia tree that was next to your coffin at the funeral. There were also four apple trees. Flowers from your grandmother’s magnolia tree adorned your coffin. And white lilacs, white roses, mirabelle plum branches, scilla. There were forget-me-nots and gooseberry branches, cherry blossoms and a bouquet of lilies of the valley, which was buried with you. I read from “Song of Myself” at your burial. I read:

  Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

  Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!

  Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!

  Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!

  Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!

  Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!

  Smile, for your lover comes.

  How was it possible? It was possible. I stood up from my seat and read what was on the page. Strength in sorrow they say, but that’s a lie. Petrified, pure survival instinct, beside oneself, composed in a form of insanity. White, dead.

  *

  As a baby you would sleep in the afternoon in your carriage under the magnolia tree. In the green forest. You woke up and lay there looking up into the leaves. You babbled, it sounded as if you were singing. Flickering light, rain of light through the green leaves.

  I am out of my mind

  *

  You wrote this a few years ago:

  fly, fly, fly

  don’t push the world away

  but let the wind bear you up

  death, death, death,

  and I found your notebooks when we were clearing out your room, and saw that you wrote poems, and I hadn’t known that you wrote poems, and I saw that many of them were about death, and I thought FATE, and I thought NO, everyone writes poems about death when they’re young, and I froze just as when I kissed your hand for the last time, and the cold made me shake, and I clung to your notebook, and I staggered, about to faint, and there was so much I didn’t know about you, and there was a lot I knew about you, and you wrote:

  Speculation, is death a union?

  Død, Death, Mort, Meth

  A blade in the machine of the weak.

  Painful? Sleepless?

  Sad? Tired?

  Enjoy the fear, sour and sweet.

  Life ends suddenly, remember that

  Now—before you’re dead.

  now we shall hear about what no one wants to hear about now we shall hear about død, death, mort, meth

  (I summarize, my brain burns, I write, I call it notes:

  meth means death in Hebrew

  I didn’t know you knew any Hebrew words

  I didn’t know you read poetry

  I didn’t know you wrote poetry

  I didn’t know)

  you flew into death

  you were naked when you

  flew into death

  on March 14, at 11:13 p.m.

  But before that you were full of life and you blossomed

  Died on March 16, 2015, at 3:45 p.m.

  You weighed 194 pounds and were 6 feet 4 inches long.

  I smile at you from my bed like a white flower remembering the vanished sun

  *

  It’s March 16, 2016, and I write:

  He’s been dead for one year now. The spring light is pale and delicate. I went for a walk in the park this morning. A white mist hung over the lawns. Birds sang.

  I wrote in my journal:

  March 30, 1996

  He thinks a lot about things—is curious about what everything is made of: types of metal, plastic, glass, concrete, plaster, etc.—materials—and with the universe, World War II, Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, “the old days,” writing, math, playing cards, making magic, building. He does a lot, materializes a lot—especially—and with great skill—drawings and paintings—but also masks, robots out of cardboard boxes, strings of beads, things made of clay, paper airplanes. And he’s stubborn, but hardworking—sticks with things until he’s content.

  Satisfied.

  You lived in your name

  Hardworking

  Friendly

  I could hardly contain myself

  no language possible language died with my child could not be artistic could not be art did not want to be fucking art I vomit over art over syntax write like a child main clauses searching everything I write is a declaration I hate writing don’t want to write anymore I’m writing burning hate my anger is useless a howling cry

  I’m loaded with bullets, no one should come to me with their soft shit

  *

  The first thing I wrote is undated, nearly illegible. It was written in April 2015, scribbled on a napkin. I wrote:

  the magnolia exists

  the magnolia exists

  it sucks its nourishment from deep in the earth

  it sucks its nourishment from deep in the earth

  The first thing I thought about that was not you was poems from Inger Christensen’s Alphabet. I heard the poems, they came from within my body, as if Inger were inside me reading out loud. Her voice. That was the first time art wasn’t vomit. It was a relief. All I could do was mirror the form awkwardly, sticking some words into it. I couldn’t eve
n mirror the form correctly.

  The next thing I wrote was a few words in a notebook. I wrote on the last page of an empty book:

  today is november ninth they dug a hole for a headstone base for carl’s grave I cried all day

  That was twelve days before your birthday. You would’ve been twenty-six years old.

  I wrote in my journal:

  November 21, 2015

  when we were looking for a gravesite for you in the cemetery, there was a solar eclipse. when we visited your grave today, your birthday, there was a snowstorm. when I was grieving for you as if my heart were being ripped out of my chest, a blood moon, red and dark, rose in the sky. that was september 27th this year.

  *

  The French poet Stéphane Mallarmé never wrote a book about his eight-year-old son, Anatole, who died in 1879. He wanted to. But he could not. He wrote 202 fragments or notes. He wrote:

  2)

  so as not to see it anymore

  except idealized —

  afterwards, no longer him

  alive there — but

  seed of his being

  taken back into itself —

  seed allowing

  to think for him

  —to see him

  *

  I DARE NOT THINK ABOUT YOU WHEN YOU WERE ALIVE FOR IT IS LIKE KNIVES IN THE FLESH

  The French author Jacques Roubaud writes in his book Some Thing Black about the time after his young wife died. The book was published in 1986. He writes:

  I do not try to remember. I do not allow myself to evoke her. no place escapes her.

  *

  The first dream (May 4, 2015)

  The whole family is together. We are in a large garden, and it’s summer. My four dead grandparents are there. I’ve never dreamed about them before. Carl isn’t there. It’s as if my grandparents want to comfort me, but no one states the reason for it, and neither do I.

  The second dream (June 5, 2015)

  I see Carl as a figure with his back turned, doing nothing. He’s sitting completely relaxed, looking out of a window. Beautiful light on his half-turned face, his hair hangs down his bare back.

  The third dream (October 10, 2015)

  I dream I’m in jail. It turns out that it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. You can go out to a garden. But there are bars on all the windows, doors, and gates.

  The fourth dream (November 26, 2015)

  Tonight he was sitting on a step in a stairwell. White light came in from the large windows.

  “Carl?” I asked. “Is that you? Have you come back?”

  “I’ve got some difficulties with love,” he said. “I need to get something, but I can’t get into the apartment; I don’t have a key.”

  I sat down next to him and grabbed his hands. I stroked his cheek. His skin was warm, he leaned against me. I embraced him. He was calm and collected. He was dignified. He had his green jacket on.

  The fifth dream (January 6, 2016)

  I dreamed this morning that we were all waiting for Carl at an apartment. We were also waiting outside and the area was rather run-down with benches and wrecked cars and scrap lumber, and there was a playing field nearby where we were also waiting. We walked constantly back and forth between the apartment and the area outside, waiting and waiting. There were two rooms in the apartment. I never went in the one facing the street. Others were in there, his friends and Joakim and Johan. Once in a while they came out, exhausted, just like when we were waiting at the hospital.

  Carl never showed up.

  Garden. Solace. Light. Stillness. Prison.

  Garden. Light. Love. Stillness.

  Dignity. Key. Waiting.

  I dreamed about you last night;

  you fell and hurt yourself

  and cried. I was so upset

  *

  I am

  hard on

  myself

  I torment

  myself

  it’s your

  mother

  speaking, was

  I hard

  on you

  did I

  torment

  you?

    Grief is

  a

  fucking prison

  there is so much that I didn’t know about you, and I found your horoscope when we were clearing out your room, I found your horoscope, and I read your horoscope, I read scorpio, aries ascendant, moon in virgo, and I read:

  The subjective image of your mother that emerges from your birth chart is a bittersweet image. A cold and controlled figure.

  Even though it might have looked as if your mother was emotionally generous and gave freely of herself, you’re left with an unpleasant feeling that you were in some way troublesome and therefore unwanted.

  This has had an immeasurably strong impact on you.

  It is the foundation of your insecurity and lack of self-confidence.

  I torment my-

  self with blame

  and fling myself

  to the floor

  screaming

  I spit on

  astrology

  but torment

  myself with blame

  fling myself

  to the floor

  screaming

  I force myself to read your horoscope torment myself with your horoscope I want to talk to you about my guilt ask you if I’ve been hard on you have I tormented you did you feel unwanted I dash around the room crazily I howl cry I want to say to you that you never in any way never ever were unwanted but death is mute silent nothing else in the world so mute silent I am alone I hate my body that gave birth to something that has died that could not hold life in you I am alone I spit on my body I despise my flesh want to stick knives in my flesh punish my flesh

  death’s heavy unbearable stillness

  You wrote some years ago:

  I knock

  no sound

  I call out

  no sound

  I scream

  no

  sound

  A dark blanket on

  my face

  Mallarmé writes:

  Silent father

  opening of thought

  —

  oh! the horrible secret

  I carry inside me

  (what to do about it

  —

  will become

  the shadow of his

   tomb

  not known —

  —

    that he must

   die

  Mallarmé’s son died from an illness he inherited from his father. Maybe Mallarmé was unable to write a poetry collection about his dead son because of his guilt. The fragments are permeated with guilt.

  GUILT

  There was never time

  Why didn’t I make time?

  He didn’t call much attention to himself

  *

  It’s my sister calling.

  My mother answers the phone.

  I can hear my sister screaming.

  The blood drains out of my mother’s face. She can’t speak. She’s deathly pale. We don’t understand a thing. What? we say. What? What is it? My mother hands me the phone. Now a man is speaking. I thought it was my sister. It’s Carl, he says, Carl is dead, he says, Carl is dead, it’s Carl. I say: What are you saying? What is it you’re saying? I become furious. I don’t recognize the voice. I ask: Who’s speaking? He says, It’s Martin, your ex-husband. His voice is cold, mechanical. My oldest son begins to cry, he gets up and the chair tips over. I scream: WHAT IS IT YOU’RE SAYING? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? Martin says: You need to get over to the National Hospital now, we’re at the National Hospital, you need to take a taxi now. I say: Who’s at the National Hospital, why are you there, where is Carl, what are you saying? He says: You need to come now. You need to come over to the National Hospital right now, you need to take a taxi. What’s happening? screams my eldest son, what’s happened? I cry, I ask: But what has happened? Martin says: It’s Carl.


  He’s fallen out of the window.

  A night full of terror, a night

    A cruel, cruel

  Anne Carson writes about her brother and his death in Nox. Nox means night in Latin. She writes:

  I fall, you fall, I have fallen, fell, a neutral verb, whence casual and casually.

  *

  OFTEN I STAY IN THE APARTMENT THE WHOLE DAY I SEE THE SUN RISE I SEE IT SET I SIT IN THE DARK I DON’T READ I DON’T WRITE I DON’T LISTEN TO MUSIC I THINK WITH CONTEMPT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO WRITE ABOUT DEATH AS THOUGH FLIRTING WITH DEATH PAINTING DEATH DEATH WALKS BESIDE US IT IS REAL IT IS NOT CALLIGRAPHY NOT A FUCKING IMAGINED SUFFERING IT IS REAL IT IS A WALL IT MAKES ME FURIOUS MY SORROW MAKES ME FURIOUS FULL OF HATE I AM FURIOUS OVER BEING ISOLATED IN MY SORROW I HATE ART I HATE EVERYTHING I’VE WRITTEN ABOUT DEATH IN THE PAST OFTEN I STAY IN THE APARTMENT THE WHOLE DAY I SIT IN THE DARK I SIT IN THE DARK I DON’T READ I DON’T WRITE I DON’T LISTEN TO MUSIC

  Mallarmé writes:

  Bitterness and

  need for revenge

  when he

  seems to protest

  ———

  desire to do

  nothing anymore —

  to miss the sublime

  goal, etc. —

  *

  And they laid him

  in the damp black earth

  cherry blossoms and lilies of the valley

  rot on his chest

  the children cast

  white roses

  on

  the coffin

  *

  the phone rings

  someone screams

    your child

  your child  is