morning

I cannot keep, I told her. She had asked. and so I answered. She asked me to talk about keeping.

The answer took days. I could not find the words to answer at the time of the question. I sat on the floor, dumb.

Finally, I can answer. I cannot keep. I cannot keep anything. I cannot keep the time from passing, and so everything within that broad realm slips through my fingers. Like water. I can keep something just as I can keep water cupped in my hands; the water eventually just slips through my fingers. I cannot keep my children small and wide eyed and new and the things that make a three year old different than a twelve year old. I cannot keep home. I find bits and pieces, and then home morphs, twists, moves. I get taken away, or the actual structure breaks. I cannot find a home that fits. I cannot keep from growing older, just like my children. My eyesight worsens, my time disappears.

I cannot keep. Objects can be kept, but for how long? These things are separate; they house themselves. They don't care. Clothes rot, glass breaks. Stability of the object is just temporary comfort. That goes away, too.

I asked her, can you keep anything?

She was quiet for a small time, and then said, I guess I can just keep my breath.

I said,

No, you cannot.

You cannot keep your breath. That is why you take another, and another, and another. You cannot keep your own breath. You cannot keep anything.

I try, I said. I try, because that is how we live. I try to keep, because that is what we do. I cannot keep, and so I make pictures.

I gather treasure, sew it up, hold on to the energy as long as I can. I am happy it is not mine. Simultaneously, a profound longing exists because it is not mine to control or ingest. It is not mine to manipulate or maintain. Although balance cannot be attained, it is perpetually sought. Rocks falling, thoughts escaping, ideas vanishing, houses waiting, all become parts of a language describing the inability to keep a breath.