Billie Dee
The Stillness Left Behind
—after Robert Hass
After the matinee, we step out into full sun. We’d just seen a samurai film—not classic Kurosawa, something cheaper. But it held one frame of truth: a dying man on a hillside, closing his eyes and letting go with such authenticity, it did not feel acted.
On the walk to our car, you mutter about the poor production and dubbing, the graininess of vintage black-and-white reels. But I’m not listening to you—only to that warrior’s sigh, to a wind that carries the scent of alfalfa into town.
Later that evening, I walk the arroyo alone. Not to ponder old films, or you—but to think about my mother’s death: the shudder in that last breath. The quiet that took her.
Pines on the ridge sway in the breeze.
twilight hush
a bobwhite's call pierces
then fades
Note: After Robert Hass’s “Heroic Simile” from Praise (HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1979). This poem is available online at The Poetry Foundation.
About the Author
Billie Dee is the former U.S. National Library Service Poet Laureate. She earned her doctorate at UCI, has won numerous poetry contests, publishes online and off. She lives in the Chihuahuan Desert with her family and a betta fish named Ramon.