Monument 14

Kitties on the couch, you cats just leave me be.

I’m in a biting mood, a fighting mood, a car-tire-lighting mood.
I need to sit here quietly.
If you know what is good,
you’ll stay away
And leave me be.

Fishies in the brook, don’t bite my hook today.
Doggies on the street, just go the other way.

I’m in a biting mood, a fighting mood, a car-tire-lighting mood.
I need to sit here quietly.
If you know what is good,
you’ll stay away
And leave me be.
Dear God, just leave me be.

Looking at the words, they seem pretty antisocial. But the melody was beautiful and mournful. Like a funeral song.

I don’t know. It was pretty perfect.

When the song was finished, Josie nodded to me.

“Now Dean has something to read.”

Alex looked at me in surprise. I shrugged and opened my journal.

I will tell you that not only did I not feel intimidated by Brayden and Jake, or nervous to expose my feelings, I wanted to do it.

And I hoped that Astrid was lurking near. I was pretty sure she was. I wanted her to hear me and know my thoughts. And I hoped that my dumb poem might help her feel better.

Here was my poem:

Night came and fell hard.
Not like God drawing a blanket over our land
But like someone snuffing a candle.
Sudden and total.
Out—just like that.

Now we are waiting.
Waiting in the dark
To see if someone
Will switch on the light.

We can cower,
We can fear,
We can get lost together or
Get lost alone.

But the truth is:
I am the light. You are the light.
We are lit up together.
We are silhouettes of sunlight
cast against the night.

Shining now, let us
Shining, hold the light,
Shining, so that our families
Can find us.

Shining.

I know. A poem. Gay. What can I say?

Josie got up. We hadn’t planned a thing, but darn if she didn’t strike a match and hold it up. She took her candle and lit it. It was as if we had choreographed it—my poem would be about light and then we’d light candles. But we hadn’t.

Josie turned to Ulysses, who was sitting to her left, and held out her candle toward him. He knew what to do; he grabbed his pillar and lit it from Josie’s. Then he turned to Max, sitting next to him, and lit Max’s candle. When it got to Astrid’s empty space, Jake just reached over and lit it.

I was glad he had done that. I wished I had done it.

When the flame went all the way around the circle, Josie reached forward and put her candle on the mirrors she had set in the center of the circle. She nodded for us all to do the same.

Fourteen lights stood there flickering together. The crystals and the mirror reflected the light, making it sparkle out all over the place.

The little kids were mesmerized.

Josie got up. She had a basket and in it were slips of paper and cardboard. They were photographs of people. Not famous people, just regular people. She had cut them out of magazines, off product packaging, out of book covers.

“These are just some pictures of people we don’t know,” Josie said. We each took a slip out of the basket.

“I want you to take one photograph and look at that person and just send them love. See them in a circle of light and wish them peace.”

Ulysses waved his hand at Josie. He whispered something in Spanish, as he held out his photo. This was maybe the third time I’d ever heard him speak. It was serious, whatever it was he was saying, and he started to cry.

He pushed his picture back into Josie’s hands.

“What’s he saying?” I asked Max. But Josie got it. She quickly looked through the photographs and gave Ulysses one of a fat Chinese man eating an apple.

“This one okay?” she asked.

Ulysses nodded.

I saw Josie look at the photo Ulysses had had. It was a photo of a smiling Latina grandmother making