by Adam Swanson

Jen Fuller, *Daedalus,* kiln formed glass feathers, laminated glass face, welded steel body, H 67 x W 30 x D 35 inches, 2o21. Courtesy of the artist.

Mourning

Adam Swanson / Nov 2021 / Issue 11

1.

Imagine a father, in the morning, painting the secrets of honeybees.

Know, too, there’s pollen riding on the backs of little birds.

2.

To exhume a body, all you must do is breathe yourself out—

perhaps early, in the morning, as the sun wakes

somewhere in a watery desert or at the foothills of a sweet

yellow mountain.

There, there you are. Breathing. Your wind

supple as skin and the dead alive

in the morning’s warming breath.

3.

Hades hot in Phoenix. A Marriott.

You remember its dryness cutting.

4.

Mother sun grows flowers here, in the desert, like follicles on mountainsides.

Fields of golden wheat grass emerge in the mind’s eye

like the soft fuzz on a young babe’s arm.

5.

Breathe into the spine of your roots and feel

the tentacles of everything breathing.

6.

Life and death in a hotel room. A father.

Until now, only a story—one of a man and a girl in rehab. It’s clinical.

And now, the story of a man who lived as a painter. The facts of an obituary.

He painted the way he saw the world.

Later, on the phone, his brother says he painted houses.

7.

Rivers roll into themselves.

Secret meridians and snail shells still cover our backs.

Ferns unfurl like fingers and somewhere no one can hear, a bird’s song trills.

Here, let these flowers be your ears—listen to the black-tailed bumble bee’s gossip.

There are secrets in the pollen.

8.

Later, you go back. You go to rehab in the desert to breathe.

Hot in Arizona, you walk to breakfast when the bell rings.

You walk to group when the ranch bell rings.

You walk toward lunch. Toward dinner. Move when the bell rings.

Walk into grief when the ranch bell rings.

And feel something whisper through the thin leaves,

“You are wind and water.”

9.

The river still calls through the mountains—

come with me, take our cupped hands toward the steady sea.

Here, there is no need to explain your name.

Just be with me, sit a while.

Look for the dead swirling in the air with the birds.

10.

Dust yourself of this life—

make way for new seasons somewhere between here,

a desert living next to hummingbirds and dry earth,

and the future bluebell flowers sitting

in a vase on your kitchen counter.

There’s honey to be made.

Adam Swanson’s writing has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Washington Post, Lambda Literary Review, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from Writing by Writers, Lambda Literary, and the Creative Writing Program at Emerson College. Adam is the Senior Prevention Specialist at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.

Portland-based installation artist Jen Fuller has been constructing ephemeral glass, steel, and light experiences around the United States for over 10 years. As a self-taught artist, Fuller found her passion rooted in the traditional techniques of kiln-formed glass, industrial welding, and digital lighting. Her art reflects the delicate vulnerability and intrinsic interconnectedness of nature and humanity. Fuller’s work has been commissioned by Metro Regional Government, Ovation TV, Lan Su Chinese Garden, OMSI, Olbrich Botanical Garden and private collectors around the world.