"Set in Stone" by Kevin Carey

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend September 27, 2017   Set in Stone   Kevin Carey

A rosary that was my mother's tucked in the glove compartment of his car and a copy of Exile on Main Street with instructions to play track 6 when he hit some lonesome desert highway. I love him so much my chest hurts, thinking of him riding off into his own life, me the weeping shadow left behind (for now). I know I'll see him again but it's ceremony we're talking about after all— one growing up and one growing older both wild curses. A train blows its horn the light rising beyond the harbor, a dog barks from a car window and the nostalgia (always dangerous) hits me like a left hook. I'm trapped between the memory and the moment, the deal we make if we make it this long, the markers of a life, the small worthwhile pieces that rattle around in my pockets waiting to be set somewhere in stone.            Copyright © 2017 Kevin Carey. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "I think a lot about ceremony and ritual. Not so long ago, my oldest child left home to drive across the country to live. I realized I was treating this moment as a ceremony (for both of us) and trying to protect him on his journey with my own invented or inherited rituals—the rosary, the right song for the right moment on his drive. So, here I was stuck with the memory of his childhood and firmly planted in the details around me thinking of this ritualized moment." —Kevin Carey   Kevin Carey is the author of Jesus Was a Homeboy (CavanKerry Press, 2016). He is an assistant professor at Salem State University. Poetry by Carey   Jesus Was a Homeboy (CavanKerry Press, 2016) "This Hour" by Saskia Hamilton "Everything That Happens Can Be Called Aging" by Carl Adamshick "After the First Child, the Second" by Mary Austin Speaker Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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