Peaches on the Ceiling
Peaches on the Ceiling
Justin Whitmel Earley
Last night, wrestling the loaded spring of his small body,
I had him pinned against the pillows when I first
saw contentment and defeat in the same eye.
A glimpse of something under the waters that sank back
into his squirming body, and a thought came to mind—
This is the life I was looking for.
Here is what I mean:
I once listened to Li Young Li talk about how he saw poems
everywhere. On the peeling ceilings of a waiting room, shaking trees
off the interstate shoulder, the thighs of a girl in the moonlit yard.
I marveled like a child at the thought of his life filled with such peaches.
Some decades later, at a lunch in Nashville, Paul told me of the moment
the Columbia River was re-carved. Something about a glacial plug in Montana
and hundreds of cubic miles of water reaching the Pacific coast within twenty-four hours.
That night I laid awake trying to fathom centuries of life about to pour forth,
and what the weight of all that water must have felt like up on the Missoula plains.
I am familiar with constant longing. Always known something fundamental is missing.
Most of my life I’ve found solutions. The pressure of a new speech. Brush of her bangs.
Ash and fire of an evening. Tomorrow’s trip. A bottle of bourbon. Small glacial plugs.
But having pinned that spring of his body. Having seen the contentment of defeat.
The enormous smallness of our life in this house rushed forth and I
saw at once that happiness was a fight against someone who is bigger than you
and stronger than you, but who loves you.
Within twenty-four hours the soft rock of my heart had been rammed through.
When I looked up, I saw a strange fruit hanging from the foyer light. Picking it,
I smelled something tangy and rich. Suddenly, they were everywhere.
“Li, you dog…” I laughed. That night my pen ran feverishly over my notebooks,
my heart beating the basso boom of water echoing off newly carved canyon walls,
as I wondered how else we might be living in the moment
just before the moment that changes everything.
Justin Whitmel Earley
Lawyer & Writer
Justin is a business lawyer who also writes non-fiction, fiction and poetry. He lives with his wife and four sons in Richmond, Virginia. You can learn more about him at justinwhitmelearley.com.
Photography by Lena Polishko