Restoration: For My Birthday

RESTORATION

I am a reconstructor,
repairer,
restorer.

After the rain in the afternoons
I walk along wet streets
and collect drowned patches of the sky
from the puddles,
string them on a magic thread,
fan them out to dry in the wind.

In the cricket drone of a summer long dead
I build my childhood house
(now somebody else’s home),
lay a long, white-clad table
for all the family, headed by
great-grandfather Tanasije
who never came back
from the First War.

In the slanting sun of the late afternoon,
I close my eyes and record:
the corner of a smile,
the angle of a look,
the light in a voice,
the tickle of a touch,
the whiff of a melody,
the shade of a moment –
wrap them in bubble paper,
and carefully store them
in my little red box.

When they are gone
and forgotten,
when no one is left
to re-member,
I sit under the bright sun
in my patched-up sky,
open the little red box,
and unwrap my trinkets,
turn them about in the light,
dust them,
stitch them up,
and piece them together.

Then we sit in the sun
around the white-clad table
under the sewn-up sky,
and everything looks new
and old at the same time,
and everything is exactly
as I remember,
and more.

I am a reconstructor,
repairer,
restorer.