Gate C22

A few months ago, I picked up a book at Anthropologie called ten poems to change your life again & again by Roger Housden. I bought it on a whim and I am so pleased with myself. Roger Housden has been teaching me how to read and appreciate poems. I recommend his books to anyone and everyone.  Regarding this particular collection he says, “Every one of the poems in this book has struck me a blow, a direct hit, each of them, into the heart of hearts. Every one of them, in its own way, has opened a door for me to go deeper into my own experience, my own longings, my own sorrows and joys, and into the silence that surrounds all of this, all of us, always.”

I can’t say I felt the same way about all of these poems. I am still young and have much to experience, but over time I think they will eventually begin to resonate with me.  However, there is one poem that did make quite an impression. I read it about a month ago and have not been able to get it out of my head. 

This past Thanksgiving I was spending the holiday with my Mom’s parents… my Nana and Grandpa. They just finished renovating their house, and my Nana over worked herself trying to prepare Thanksgiving for 16 people.  Thanksgiving night we had a scare and my Nana was taken to the hospital because we thought she was having a heart attack. I went with my Mom and Dad to the hospital to take turns sitting with Grandpa while she was getting checked out. Fortunately, she is ok now and everything turned out well.  But while I was sitting in my Nana’s hospital room with my Grandpa I witnessed what I believe happens in the following poem. My Grandpa’s hand was shaking in mine and I could visually see  his love for her oozing out of his eyes, his skin, and his entire presence.  I’ve never been one to believe in soul mates, but sitting in that hospital room, I think I saw the closest thing to it. My Grandparents have been together over 50 years and still have that intense love for each other that you see on love-stricken teenagers.  Very few people in life experience… let alone witness… love that deep and powerful.  The following poem, Gate C22, describes an older couple and the moment they reunite in the airport. I can imagine my Grandparents experiencing a moment very similar to this one. Most little girls dream about growing up and marrying prince charming, having their fairy tale wedding and living happily ever after.  If I ever have little girls, I hope they grow up dreaming about experiencing this moment in the Portland airport, at gate C22. I know I will.

Gate C22

By Ellen Bass

At gate C22 in the Portland airport

a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed

a woman arriving from Orange County.

They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after

the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons

and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,

the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other

like he'd just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,

like she'd been released at last from ICU, snapped

out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down

from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.

She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine

her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish

kisses like the ocean in the early morning,

the way it gathers and swells, sucking

each rock under, swallowing it

again and again. We were all watching--

passengers waiting for the delayed flight

to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,

the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling

sunglasses. We couldn't look away. We could

taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew back

and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost

as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,

as your mother must have looked at you, no matter

what happened after--if she beat you or left you or

you're lonely now--you once lay there, the vernix

not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you

as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.

The whole wing of the airport hushed,

all of us trying to slip into that woman's middle-aged body,

her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,

little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.