I am the kind,
old waterman’s shepherd guarding that empty and vacant house in the company of scentless mists I am not familiar
with- some of his breed but many not. None of the many, misty clouds trail scents though, and so, I have no way
of naming any of them. Each and everyone including me are in confusion.
He and his breed are gone now many winters. They
went up the drive one day in the dust of the twirling-footed, big, boxlike things emptying that house of its contents, except
for the scentless and misty clouds dissimilar but alike to me floating about the property.
If I bother to walk
in the day or bark in the night, my scent is now long gone. What is left of me betrays no trailing smells. I often
lie in my hole through each empty day or come out of a night to howl or try in vain to chase the living, lightning
bugs away. I once dragged my hind legs behind an old, sore body and whimpered too loudly, until the big, strong scented
man with the big, smelly belly, one of my master’s breed, kindly pierced something hot, loud, quick, and sharp into
my hide spurting away the pain immediately. He left me in this hole covered with sandy soil sprinkling it all the while with
water downing from his eyes-very strange. Did he mean to cover me down after fixing me?
I was missing the kind,
old waterman even then and weary at gazing to the end of the drive hoping to see him arrive suddenly in one of
those things that can run faster than me. I was no longer allowed in that house and found it that much harder to guard.
Two
summers before, a fast footed breed came quickly and rudely one morning and put my master into a loud, white thing,
with a red lighthouse whirling atop it. They took him and his scent down the drive and up the road. I knew there
was something wrong with my waterman for he never would have left lying down and without so much as a pat for me.
Before
he became slow and bowed over, and we ventured to this place not all our own, we used to walk the sandy beaches in
the brisk, early morning, before we breakfasted, he on his stool, me at my bowls on the clean, linoleum floor that
he was so particular about wiping my paws clean as he did. He was the only one who ever thought to cut my toenails in
that time when anything on me was still growing. I miss many of the scents, smells, and feelings That seem to be fading
but most of all I miss my kind, old, waterman that cared for me while I guarded him.
Beyond the Transparent Walls of these Hot Windowpanes
Throughout
the day, restlessly standing at the back windows, staring beyond the transparent walls of these hot windowpanes, I
spy blooms, rearrange hues, govern height-
search for wilting browns to snip;
note needed weeding, mark the level of the bird bath,
that begs on the level of my well, and again I invoke the stubborn rains.
I
reckon afternoon callers; hummingbirds, grazing bunnies, a novel and new woodpecker.
Every year I
slip a little more, gain another year. I am gradually dying. Is this unnatural? Since your death I've been down so many
hallways all leading to a locked door. I am tired of turning doorknobs. Is it not alright to tire? I need papers to
assure I do not become a vegetable in someone else's garden.
So many people use me I can no longer foil the
many thrusts. I am their pawn, the least important piece on the chessboard. For pity sake I wish they'd sacrifice me.
I discern the motives good and bad but I bristle at the interference. Everyone is loosing. Is loss not the key to eternity?
I only yearn to tinker with words, putter in my garden, watch my eaglets fly- to die, and then to join you.
Many
people choose to love me. I am grateful. I can not define love. It comes in many forms. I still love you. I try to do
no harm to anyone. I comfort in an uncomforting world. I peruse old magazines in doctors offices and try to be creative
at avoiding as many funerals as possible. I hide away your hats and jeans stuffing them in drawers. Memories have a
way though of opening out in everyway.
I look in the mirror to see an aging man. I am not afraid of the darkness
of no reflections. I loved you more than I could explain to anyone. My business is words and words still fail me.
In
the end it is all the same. I'm talking to ashes. With luck I will soon intermingle with your settled ash and crumbled
bone. I long to lie with you on the Palace Green where once we walked so often in love's greatest denial, that it can
never be interrupted.
So there we are, all but one, sitting
in the dining room, when, all of a sudden, I notice a chair walking by the door, an opening onto the hallway leading
into the kitchen. It isn’t hard to figure out who the propeller is. I listen and, before long, I hear the sound of
the freezer door opening.
She comes in and makes her way around the room, bag wide open, asking each if they wouldn’t
like a chocolate chip cookie. Daddy, whose cookies they were is last. It is yet another fait accompli in a well planned
sortie.
waiting to be boxed
and sent to a crematorium. In living he is much loved but not too liked. Much about him is an enigma for he closely
coddles his inner sanctum, and no one understands the core of him. He is forever carding his contradistinctions, and
he comprehends this passage well enough to not take it too seriously, or to dismiss too lightly that solemn progress
that senses the unveiling of what is righteous from what is not. “Luctor et emergo.”
This is a spiritual
man who does not argue or debate creeds. He senses the more empathic the being the closer that being is to the
Source of all that is good. He is humble enough to know that in living he can know nothing of the Mystery, and when
if ever can he die? “Hypotheses non fingo”.
The shedding shell upon the table is now silent before the secret. Its
dry remarks and humorous innuendos to lighten the solemnity of life are stalled somewhere in-between. “Hoc est
enim corpus meum.”
It is another Chucky
Cheese birthday bash- this one for our Taylor Haven; too soon aged five, and I am overwhelmed at so much packaged
into a celebration.
Her grandmother is there with a new husband in tow. In a hug I know she is happy, and
I like the man in question- depth of feeling, generosity, and intelligence are always good conversation and convivial
company.
Taylor is excited and happy. It is not often she can laud if over her sister with all the panache welled
up within a middle child. It is her day and she uses it well. Her sister, my little Aquitaine, is as unruffled as
the folds of marble that cover the effigy of the original.
The birthday girl’s little brother is at home, unwell.
For the first time I realize the depth of my love by the measure of the missing. “Sunshine” is shining somewhere
regardless of any strep throat.
Daddy is given the poem I have written for Taylor Haven. The bait is taken. Lawyers
amuse me. In law silence is construed as innocence. Holding degrees in the fine arts, I know the value of the painterly
stroke of the well placed lie. How often have I lied out of love, and how many more lies will I be blessed to tell? Heaven
is full of liars and hell houses many an honest man.
And the afternoon sailed on like this banked by parties on
either side each with their own stories to tell. At one point the din was so loud I was adrift in sound and panicked
thinking, “Silence is golden”.
A wise man once said: “Begin at the beginning, go the end, and stop”. Just
before the stop I had succeeded in getting Taylor alone atop the house on the token fed, great, riding horse that
towered over this Chucky Cheese realm, where with her wrapped in my arm I unwrapped an “I love you” to my birthday
girl.
At the stop of the horse near the stop of our play, high in the sky of Chucky Cheese’s, I suddenly was
overwhelmed at one more thing. Below us were a hundred or more people of so diverse origins, Exhibited by there decorum,
demeanor, and dress so as to light the candle of my patriotic heart. Here, Taylor is the future of you and your country. It
is damaged but not broken. You take the reigns now and you and they go forward. You are at the beginning. Pop Pop is
very near the stop.
You text me
from Paris in broken French, And I can tell you are so soon mended. Another passage for you, begins- another go
at love; and I am gladdened to my heart, You deserve it.
I conceal my sadness for your sake for life is hard.
We keep taking turns. My progresses are fraught of late and I feel as though I’m the fading fool, whose courtly laughs
grow fainter.
Our child, sown so long ago- her seeds grow so quickly higher. and now, now, I feel so outrun.
I’m burning out Lyndell and no one, not one, can tell me the flame does not flicker.
Burn on bright and do
not look back on me unkindly. I have navigated rough seas of troubles as best I could with never a thought to hurt anyone,
least of all my first love. Believe that! We were but a wave that broke upon the shore and then receded leaving
the next to break and leave her pretty shells in a line upon that beach that is so private.
Those years in the
blush and innocence of youth were not misspent. The young make early sortees- I left you with pirate’s bounty worth
far more than any gold: a cove from out sprung, Allyson, my Aquitaine; twenty three waves broken to the far shore- Taylor,
my Haven; thirty two ripples of Excalibur; and finally, that diamond not rough- Sunshine on my Shoulders; a billowing
wave from William, that bent Conqueror- a joke on all of you; Queer As Folk, Let if go untold to outlive me and
all the laughter I have cut- the joker in the deck, the joking, jockeying, jester. One more laugh for me? Come
on! I remember most of all the laughter.
She says: “Dad,
you’re in that stage of life.” She’s right but it does not close or sooth this strike ripping
into my shaken quiddity. Oh Shite! But how I love you!
I knew as soon as I heard your sage, sapient voice
caressing wire. No one has taught acceptance to me more than you; my marker, my messenger, my compos mentis, mentor.
“Begin at the beginning go to the end and stop”, were a repeated long time reminder of how many of
your quipped quotes picked from out this orb of fools, I carry in my head and bandy on in my own turn on this sphere.
Oh Shite! But how I love you!
You found me on the corner of North Calvert and 31st looking for what I
did not know; the real me, lost hope, a broken spirit. Poitier had fled to the rooftops. I fled to the alleys. And
so, as in ancient times, the older took a younger under arms, instaurated his soul, and initiated him into the orders
of Apollo. “Often the test of courage is not to die but to live”. We both were bewailing lovers we
were not meant to keep. You tell me Tom visited recently and that he is painting again. You lament that he is
sixty. Did he father? I can’t recall. I tell you Lynn is still searching for that Daddy I could not be. We
cut it all in laughter. Oh Shite! But how I love you!
Edie Johns is clucking over you, a mother hen of crows.
Randy is handling the will. Elizabet rots, and Randy has yet another queen with the seeds of two. The doctors
will know what you now know already. Your heart the best beating of you is too weak to bear their miracles. We
are at the beginning of the rituals reserved for those ordained. I hint at a Sulpician. You’ll have your Jesuit,
though. “That would be scann’d”-not by me! Oh Shite! But how I love you!
I tease you
as my mind multitasks at lightning speed, chiding you as my Lord Marchmain and trying like Ryder to manipulate predestination.
You, gone back to the see of Rome! Jesu! Decades before you took me to the seminary where you were to be ordained
before you chucked it all, knowing it could not be. You are one of a few I condescend to call Christian. Your matching
pair of sister nuns are dead and you are the last of your line standing. Peripherals of no matter mingle around.
We are of that flock that are born black sheep, the chosen, history’s whipping boys. No matter. Oh Shite!
But how I love you!
"Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.” - Alexander the Great
"I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers
and drink with the drinkers." – Walt Whitman
