Oreos

There is a woman who works at Zagara's who has some sort of developmental delay. She's lovely. Hard, hard working. One of her traits is that she always apologizes, repeatedly, even for the smallest infraction. One time, she said that she was sorry six times when she had bagged some groceries that I just wanted to carry out.

Most of the time, she is the star bagger, but today I ran across her in the cookie aisle. She was given the job of putting away items that customers did not want to purchase or had left stranded in odd places. She had a box of double-stuff strawberry Oreos (who the heck ever invented that?) and was also holding a six pack of Sunny-D. She walked right up to me and asked for help finding the right spot for the cookies. Once we found it, she said thank you several times then told me that "sometimes (she) gets lost. The store can be confusing."

I ran into her again about five minutes later. This time she was trying to find the right home for a large jug of vegetable oil. She said, as I was leaning down to find some sugar-free frosting, "Excuse me, I do not mean to get in your way." I said, "You are not in my way, buddy. Plenty of space here." And even though there was nothing funny about what I said, she smiled and said, "You make me laugh."

Nothing in this day -- a good day -- made me happier. Something about it. Making this simple woman simply happy. And her, making me simply happy too.

It did not seem right to leave

the prayers of the people

on the lectern for someone to find later.

Two notes about death,

three more about needed healing,

one of hope, and a long scrawled message

about Tuscaloosa, Alabama,

the devastation there.

The prayers had been said already

to nodding heads and silence.

They were just dust on the air molecules now.

Speaks and flecks on streaming light,

not really seen, but moving between us,

breathed in an out or whispered

or sung as lullabies to other peoples’ babies.

But I could not leave them there,

even after the spoken prayers had been said.

The scraps of paper, the original stuff.

So I carried the notes out to my car,

and they sat in the passenger’s seat beside me.

To Whole Foods, then with the bag

of muenster cheese and oven-roasted turkey.

To Home Depot, to the drive through post-office box,

even to the movies. They sat alone for 112 minutes

as it started to rain. They even stayed in the car

when I went back to church for holy conversations.

Then I parked them for the night, went inside,

and watched TV, especially when the President

said we had killed an enemy. Yes, even then,

the prayers were in the car, while fraternity boys climbed

street poles and waved the flag

and people gathered outside the White House singing,

“America, America, God shed his grace on thee.”

The next day they drove with me, first to school,

then from school, then to the gas station.

Just staring at me, with their death, their disease,

the tornado, and one slice of hope.

Each prayer in a different print, some stiff and formal,

one in perfect school-teacher cursive,

one with the words sliding down the page.

I did not know what to do with them -- these six notes.

And their cousin prayers alight in me: for the country,

for the man who pulled the trigger, for the man who said

to send the troops in, for the man inside the president’s suit.

I did not know what to do with these prayers,

for the thousands of boys with guns slung over their shoulders,

the woman sitting across from an empty dining room chair

in Brooklyn, New York, the man who cleaned the rubble

for months, the little girl -- pulverized by jet fuel

and a World Trade Center --

her body now just dusty sparkles

passing between us and across the continents,

from Manhattan to Abbottabad.