Best of Nan Brooks: Blackbirds Bring A Blessing

 

 Grackle

In 2000 I was hospitalized with serious heart arrythmias that resisted treatment. We tried a new drug that might have worked, but instead it nearly killed me. Thanks to one nurse, I lived; simple and profound as that. The evening after my near death, four women came to bless me. They were the lowest on the hospital hierarchy, the cleaning ladies. 

Now, these twenty years later I live in a city where the grackles gather in the trees at certain intersections at twilight. The trees bubble with their chatter like a waterfall in full spring thaw. I think the grackles, those  scorned birds, must be talking about their days, passing along crucial information about the city and the silly humans. I love to linger there, listening to the birds, remembering the women in that hospital room and how they, too, managed to share the latest undercover news while they risked all that contamination. 

I ask that we all remember the "lowliest" workers; they are the ones who will suffer most in these times and they bless us with their presence as much as with the work they do.

BLESSING AT TWILIGHT

                                                                       

They swoop into the room

on a current of chatter.

They are four, a holy number,

and raucous.

One sweeps aside the bedside curtain.

opens drawers and closet door

to the rhythmic click hiss swish

of antiseptic cleaner

hosed and scrubbed into every surface.

One hums her own tune

as she plucks bits of paper

from the bedside table.

Two dance without a word,

upend the mattress

and dismantle the bed.

Click hiss swish.

Perched high on the wall, the television

bursts on.

The flutter of one hand turns Oprah even louder

so as to cover their own talk

in the language of subterfuge and sanctuary,

the language carried from slavery and

meant for white folks’ lazy ears.

They have something important,

something enraging

to discuss and scold.

I, immobile and intruding,

cannot turn from their graceful dance

their radiant beauty,

their sheer survival.

Struggle is tatooed into each body

missing teeth

broken arches

backs eased briefly by an arch, a twist, a sigh.

They are sturdy of body

in these rooms of

the fragile and dying.

Sturdy of spirit

in this room where sorrow has lived

for too long.

Light halos their majestic heads

nappy curls, braided crowns,

crows’ feet where smiles linger

bodies ample and stiff,

long-limbed and willowy.

Click hiss swish                                                                                                          

they clean every joint of the complicated bed

reassemble it

scrub the window sill

air conditioner

chairs

floor

The flock descends

upon my side of the room

suddenly silent until I say

“Ladies, you are a joy

You have been the highlight of my day”

Attempting to bow, hand on my heart,

“I thank you.”

The eldest pauses in mid chore, blinks once,

 “Honey, you in trouble!”

Joy of joys, I have made them laugh again.

Linens harvested, trash contained

and bacteria most surely banished,

they restore their laden cart to order

as a woman,

white and sharp edged,

commands the doorway

“What are you all doing together?”

“We just got all nine rooms done in a hour”

the no-answer answer.

Then a fast escape.

I have been blessed by the ancient ritual

My  sisters gathering at twilight

to lament and plot

sing and laugh.

Women comforting

and purifying the world.

         Nan Brooks

September, 2000