How do you translate silence onto the page?

I hear nothing but ringing in my ears.

My brain feels numb.

I want to write, but words surface in scrambled nonsense.

I cannot put together anything that makes sense.

Thoughts jump from one incident to another,

like a squirrel jumping from limb to limb,

from maple to white birch to hemlock,

never staying on a branch more than a second before searching out the next branch.

Doors to the past open wide.

I know the story.

Why can’t I tell it?

Why can’t I put the words down on the page?

There is nothing to fear in the telling of an ordinary life.

Is it just too much work?

Certainly it will take time.

Is it fear of failure?

What’s too fail?

It is just an abbreviated record of one life.

Just isolated memories of what it was like growing up in a small Iowa town.

Some days my mind is as vacant as the

elderly resident I encounter at Eiler House who waits

day after day for a loved one to come. 

Sitting by the door. 

Staring out the window. 

When are they coming? 

How long must I wait? 

Words are as elusive as the relative who never shows up. 

I search the windows of my mind. 

I open doors to the past. 

When will the words come? 

How long must I wait?

Watching the elderly resident gives me impetus,

gives me determination,

to tell my story before I, too,

am transformed to the bent body

sitting by the door,

staring out the window for

one who will never arrive.

K K McClelland

January 4, 2006