You and I watched Mirai last night.
You are eight. You found the story,
About a Japanese toddler
Jealous of his infant sister
And then visited by visions
Of the family dog as a man,
His sister as her older self,
His mother as a little girl,
His great grandfather in his youth,
And even his own teenaged self,
Confusing. On the other hand,
The animation entranced you,
And after the movie was done,
I let you stay up late drawing
At my borrowed kitchen table,
My laptop propped in front of you,
Replaying scenes, for the faces
Caught in varying perspectives,
And sketching a portmanteau girl,
With features of both the mother
And the adolescent Mirai,
But with the father’s tilted eyes.
Once I finally got you tucked
Into your narrow sofa bed,
Your blue and silver Hogwarts sheets,
It was too late to read any
Of the Deathly Hallows. You asked
To hear my lullaby playlist
I made for you some years ago.
It started off with Essie Jain,
Her Until the Light of Morning,
An album that’s sent you to sleep
Since you were a toddler yourself.
You asked me to sit next to you
And give you my hand, and as you
Burrowed into blankets, pillows,
And stuffed animals, you murmured
That the third song, “Falling Asleep,”
“Always reminds me of that year
We stayed in that one place.” I said—
Making the association
That came uppermost to mind,
Of the May just two years ago
When you and I stayed in a flat
In a former forest service
Building in New Denver, BC,
That the new owner was fixing
As the house he would retire to,
Weeks I got into the habit
Of playing the whole Essie Jain
Album each night by the streetlight
Shining through the rustling maples
Outside of your bedroom window,
Even though most of the evenings
You fell asleep on the first tune—
“That time you and I were alone
For three weeks—“ But you objected
In a voice muffled by bedding,
“Not that one. I meant the cabin.”
“Ah,” I said, “that was afterward,
Later that summer, the cabin
Where you were always arguing
With the territorial squirrels.”
“No, not that cabin,” you grumbled,
Now a little irritated.
“The one way down the long dirt road.
You and Mom were still together.
I remember this song. Sometimes
You or her just sang it to me.
I remember collecting slugs.”
And then I realized how far back
Your memories were traveling,
A journey probably triggered
By the time-traveling boy
In the movie and the late hour,
As well as the familiar song.
You were in a world of five years gone,
The summer you were only three,
The age of the time-traveling boy,
Back at the dawn of memory.
I half held my breath with surprise.
I didn’t know you could recall
Details that far back, but I knew
That you would lose them as you grew.
“I remember collecting slugs
And dandelions. The cabin
Was in a meadow, remember?
Dandelions were everywhere.
And there was a big glass window
And all the white moths would come out
At night and fly to the window,
And I would catch them with my hands.
One time when there was lots of rain
And then the sun came out, I took
Off my clothes and painted myself
With lots of streaks of mud and leaves
And lots of petals of flowers.
One time I asked Mom if a whale
Would come and eat me in my bed,
And she said, ‘not in the forest,
Whales are only in the ocean.’
And you both went to the kitchen
And were talking about something
While I was trying to push down
Thinking about whales eating me.
I remember my little bed.
The cabin was in the forest,
At the end of a long dirt road.
Remember?” “Yes, I do,” I said,
But you had already slipped off.
Essie Jain sang “I’m not afraid
Of the dark,” and I stayed seated
Beside you for a while, my hand
Resting on yours, remembering
The rented trailer that we called
The cabin that summer, ‘14,
The steep, short dirt road down to it,
The overgrown grass full of flowers
And slugs, the added wooden porch
Where we spent our lazy evenings
Until the moths came out and you
Would catch them in your stubby hands.
I remembered the many mice
I caught in the pantry, kitchen,
And closets, your portable cot
In the one bedroom we three shared,
And how shabby that bedroom was.
I remembered the trucks rumbling
Down the rural highway nearby
And the string of poems I composed
That summer of my first swim straight
Across the middle of the lake.
I thought, as I rose and switched off
Essie, how deep that forest was
For you when your mother took you
To go on mushroom-hunting hikes,
How huge that gold picture window
Must have seemed with white moths on it,
How dramatic that steep dirt road.
I turned off the lights. Tomorrow
We had to rise early for school.
I couldn’t remember the whale.
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