Lisa Bellamy

What’s Going to Happen

In the human realm, we face outer, inner, and secret obstacles,
my Tibetan teacher says. When a urologist
informed my beloved he has prostate cancer,
he asked, Well, what’s the worst that can happen?
The urologist half-chuckled. That was the outer obstacle
of Dumbass. Day and night I ask my beloved,
What’s going to happen? Day and night, he answers,
We’ll be fine. The cancer's growth is glacial.
I nod and think, but do not say, glaciers
everywhere are melting. An hour later, I ask again.
I ask 12 times a day: a clock whose cuckoo
chimes Doom on the hour. This is the inner obstacle
of anxiety. O taste, and see, how gracious
the Lord is: blessed is the one that trusts in him?
No, Hard pass—I can’t. Like Kevin, my five-year old
neighbor who says I can’t, when his mother says,
For God’s sake, stop banging your sister's toy
against the floor, I understand the sense of a
force beyond one’s control. I know floods are coming.
I know water will one day cover great cities:
streets, potholes, oaks, bicycles, buses,
teeter-totters, bodegas; the dreadful smelly canals.
My teacher says, The Lord of Death is always
waving to us—Over here! See you later!
a Save the Date we pretend we have not received.
Our refusal to wave back is the secret obstacle.
Of course, tonight I cannot sleep. Everywhere,
black holes are swallowing suns. I look out
the window—no stars, no moon; just shapes, shadows.
Who is there? What do you know?
From trees you came, to trees you will return,
Someone, I imagine, said back in the day to our ancestors.
Maybe white pines are still awake,
whispering. There are conversations I need to hear.