Survival is a Style by Christian Wiman

 Out of print, but buy it from abebooks.co.uk 

From the poem Spirits, about someone whose father has dementia, I was touched by this

He was close to his father and is trying to find some way

of being close to the void his father has become.

I Don’t Want To Be A Spice Store

I don’t want to be a spice store.

I don’t want to carry handcrafted Marseille soap,

or tsampa and yak butter,

or nine thousand varieties of wine.

Half the shops here don’t open till noon

and even the bookstore’s brined in charm.

I want to be the one store that’s open all night

and has nothing but necessities.

Something to get a fire going

and something to put one out.

A place where things stay frozen

and a place where they are sweet.

I want to hold within myself the possibility

of plugging one’s ears and easing one’s eyes;

superglue for ruptures that are,

one would have thought, irreparable,

a whole bevy of nontoxic solutions

for everyday disasters. I want to wait

brightly lit and with the patience

I never had as a child

for my father to find me open

on Christmas morning in his last-ditch, lone-wolf drive

for gifts. “Light of the World”penlight,

bobblehead compass, fuzzy dice.

I want to hum just a little with my own emptiness

at 4 a.m. To have little bells above my door.

To have a door.