Adam Oyster-Sands
Banana Bread and Weeping Willows
Hamlet said
all life is suffering controlled by the whims and wills
of luck and the mysterious force of fate—slings and arrows.
I want to feel that Ophelia was wronged
and the true tragedy of the play lies with her flowers
floating on the water under the willows and moonlit winter sky—native and indued.
Her madness comes too quick though,
consumed entirely by the larger than life figure worthy of the title—
his name in everyone’s mouth.
The petulant child screaming for attention
the melodramatic teenager crying for unrequited love
the white man speaking too loudly on his cell phone in the store
the drunk at the bar reciting the same nonsensical story to strangers—
all assaults on our peace.
Before the end though, we understand—come what may.
Some believe our ancestors watch over us long after they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil.
They say we can pray to them and they will guide us
offer us aid, direction, comfort, wisdom.
I grew up with my grandmother—banana bread and lukewarm milk.
For the first nineteen years of my life she was a permanent fixture
a never changing north star—bear hugs and back scratches.
Then cancer ate the parts that made her a woman and now,
now I’ve spent more years of my life without her.
Last night in winter air I swear I saw her float across the deck with my breath—a ghost.
And I remembered what Hamlet rightly said
—The readiness is all—
and my ancestors watch and wait
for the reward of their life bequeathed to a future predicated on
luck and
fate and
the loudest voice in the room.
And Ophelia weeps still for her father but more for her own loss—
innocence stolen for the sake of a hero’s journey.
My grandmother baked banana bread and held my head in her lap
as the willows outside the window swayed in the winter wind
weeping with a child unable to give a voice to his pain.
Adam Oyster-Sands is a high school English teacher in Portland, Ore. He holds an MA in humanities. This may very well be his first publication. It will likely not be his last.
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