After the death of a loved one, certain places and songs can carry extra emotional weight. That is especially true of the closet, where the sight and scent of clothing and other personal items can trigger powerful feelings and memories. In this week’s Poetry Friday segment, KNAU listener Janine Kelley shares a poem she wrote for her late husband John Bojanowski, a longtime fixture in the Flagstaff music scene. When she recently heard one of their favorite Neil Young songs – Harvest Moon - Janine took it as a sign it was time for her to go through John’s closet, 4 years after his death.
JK: Once when I was driving, a Neil Young song he strummed on his Martin 12-string aired on the radio. Overcome, I had to pull off the road.
So, I decided to host a garage sale to raise money to pay for one of John’s medical bills. And, armed with Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I began to organize and de-clutter my home. But I discovered I wasn’t ready to part with any of my late husband’s possessions. I just couldn’t give away anything that John had touched or worn.
Standing back, it struck me that John’s closet looked like a painting, a still life. It was as if the threshold created a frame, and his clothes were a portrait of his life, and his musical career and our marriage.
I think with grieving, the past is always present. And, poems are kind of a river, a confluence of imagination, experience, memory. I finished writing and editing John’s poem when the monsoons came.
Today, I’m going to read a poem in memoriam of my husband and for my son, Brandon, and my daughter, Vanessa.
YOUR CLOSET
After Neil Young
I shuffle hangers back
and forth
in the breathless closet
that breathes Bay Rum
and imagine my blond hair
soft on your shoulder
as we slow dance
under a white river of stars.
You refused to dance
in public, but your heart
bowed to your wife’s fancy
for matching shirts, and you
wore the cowboy shirt
with the pearl gray buttons
for our private country dance
in our living room
where we twirled and twanged
to “Lovesick Blues.”
I smile at the Jimmy Buffet shirt,
the one with palm trees
swaying up and down the sleeves.
In the Sixties, he played
at our coffeehouse in Miami.
Buffett was always
Himself - like you.
On stage, you were a man
with his guitar, a Martin
crafted by immigrants
in Nazareth, a folk singer
with perfect pitch, always
in a blue chambray.
With my hand, I brush
the Nehru suit, tailored
for a barefoot wedding
on the beach
off Biscayne Bay,
the Harvest Moon
looking down.
Missing:
the blue flannel shirt
you were buried in. Chemo
runs cold in the body,
and I wanted you
to be warm
when you entered heaven.
The turquoise shirt, a wave
of Caribbean for the cruises
we imagined
but could never quite afford,
I wear to bed.
Its hem drifts and floats
down my thighs, circling
like seaweed
round my knees, flowing
from the sea of memory.
I am tired.
The bold moon
from the open window
follows me
as I undress for sleep.
You were so tall,
and taller in death,
as you stand
before my High Lonesome bed
offering your hand
for one last dance,
standing, as if
waiting in the wings
like a singer
listening for his cue
to enter
and exit my dreams.
Poetry Friday is produced by KNAU's Gillian Ferris. If you have an idea for a segment, drop her an email at Gillian.Ferris@nau.edu.
