As my dear friend Reeny stepped closer,
a pensive air
cast a shadow on her luminescent eyes
incongruous with the pleasant late winter’s day
I knew my life would be forever changed
She maintained her composure,
high-wire walker without a net
yet, an unbidden tear
slipped softly down her cheek
like gentle rain
dripping
off
the
roof
Her deep breath
In calm and direct manner
Took my hand firmly, tenderly, like picking up a baby bird
And spoke from her own feelings:
“You better sit down. It’s about Darcie. There’s been . . .”
Who were you before you were everything to someone else?
Who did you become after you became entangled with someone else?
Hyper individualism; it’s a trauma response.
You carry the perception of the present as the past.
Sometimes what you don’t know can tell you everything.
She’s the one that got away he cried
But he’s the one who threw her back in
Too small to make a good dinner he claimed
She swam away with his hook in her grin
The girls are trapped swimming in this pond
There’s no space for exploration in fact
When we live in a world with no fisherwomen
Female subtleties in expertise fail to impact
My accountant died last week.
By all measures, he was old.
He was a good man, worked hard.
Lots of accounting.
Late nights.
Tax season.
Estate planning.
Expense reports.
Actuary tables.
Every day, His whole life.
Until last week
When the final tally was balanced out.
So, in light of the end of Roger,
Let’s consider some options.
Consider project management.
Consider the flow rates of effluent.
Besides accounting, it was one of Roger’s favorites.
Consider the application of dental sealants,
Consider the importance of OSHA compliance,
The joy of well-appointed urinalysis.
Think about the excitement of a good
Clean podiatric exam,
I know Roger did.
At the funeral his Doc said he had the metatarsals of a 20-year-old.
Every day. His whole life.
Still, you might want to consider some other options, too.
Think about Chet Baker playing Autumn Leaves.
It’s sublime.
Look at Guernica by Picasso.
Maybe you already have.
I can hear the horses dying in the mud, eviscerated.
It blows my mind.
But I think Roger somehow missed that one.
Spend some time reading Whitman.
How on earth did that man live and write in 19th century America?
And Charlie Parker’s choice of
Melodic substitutions in Au Privave
Are an expression of mastery, love.
Listen to the analog recordings of
Segovia from the early 20th century.
I can still hear his asthmatic wheeze,
The string squeaks when he changes left hand position.
So Intimate, so personal.
The gentle soul of the maestro In the pops and hisses of vinyl,
A window into prewar Linares, Andalusia.
When he did my taxes last year
Roger told me he liked Lee Greenwood.
A window into postwar Branson, Missouri.
Those are some of your choices, then,
But the decision seems pretty obvious,
Don’t you think?
Go make art.
Make a living at it.
There’s money to be made.
Seriously.
There is.
Will you become Chet Baker?
Probably not.
Will you become Picasso?
I hope not, the man was an ass.
But my God, he could paint.
But you WILL show the world s
Smething new.
A remarkable thing after
four and a half billion years.
What ELSE is there?
As Vladimir Ilyich once wondered,
What is to be done?
Go bust your ass and don’t be a fool.
Stay sober, you don’t want to fall out of a window
Too high to manage gravity like Chet.
Dedicate yourself and study.
That’s what engineers do.
That’s what hygienists do.
That’s what accountants do.
You can, too.
Just like Chet.
Just like Charlie.
Just like Pablo.
Just Like Andre.
Just like dear Uncle Walt,
And just like Roger,
An example for us all,
Every day, His whole life.
Naked feet on the cold damp earth
Sharp talons turning the soil
Worms working the turf to bring fruit to my toil.
Bluejay calling waiting to break fast and glean
Another bloom met with surprise at it’s birth
This morning in June reminds me….
~~~~~That Mother Nature is Queen
Today I read an Appalachian
magazine from 1961. Those essays
about pollution, poverty, shit schools
summoning what miracles they can,
all the stone lungs, the hunger
and addiction, landslides and floods,
all the snake-tongued politicians,
all the red-necked mamaws throwing bricks,
those essay coulda been written today.
And my rage rolls in its waning hibernation.
Chapped and unsure,
The first tender press of lips against my own,
Chapped and unsure,
Out behind her granny’s trailer
Where we’d skip through knee deep vines,
Uncaring of what hid beneath.
The first one to trip goes down laughing,
Hard and giddy,
Til the second one inevitably follows the tumbling,
Hard and giddy.
I remember I wasn’t the first one to lean in,
Though I might’ve been the first to want to,
As tenderly and shy as a child wants.
We’d go back inside hours later,
Bloody knee’d and kiss bruised,
Pretending we ain’t know how we got so
Bloody knee’d and kiss bruised.
Hand in hand seems an innocent thing then
To two girls who ain’t got a clue
But will learn, as the church’ll teach,
A sin is still a sin,
Even when it looks like two lil girls,
A sin is still a sin.
