1944 (of light and love)

Truth is like light. Duration is of no consequence. A darken cave of ten times ten thousands years is just as bright of light as one continuously lit. Love is this way. I knew Virgil for just a few days, yet in the last forty years I have never known a love as true, as real, as enduring. And I think not of the loss, of his death, of that snowy December day, of all that was never to be, but rather the blessing of holding what few ever hold, for a heart once lit in love is never not lit, never not warm. And the warmness is not of memory or imagination. His life within me, decade after decade has been something eternal, forever present. So, in this way, I live alone. For who can sit across the table and not think I’m insane.

801. the holding of hands

It wasn’t till we buried Grand that I noticed. I don’t even remember the day, but I was staring at his hand, his old veined paw, fingers naturally clawed. We weren’t doing anything. Only the sun sat with us on the back porch. Each of us lost in our own thoughts. Lost without the sound of plates and glasses from the kitchen. That song of union connecting the three of us. So we sat now, just Papa and I. We rocked. We watched the ocean. And I looked at his hand as if I was seeing it new, as one sees a lion in the wild or a person behind bars. From somewhere I heard a wind chime, of a breeze gently rolling sand over the nightly crab tracks, of how nothing stands still and of his hand now, alone, solitary, sedentary. His gaze was of something else, his eyes unreadable in their unblinking silence, and I wondered if he felt what I felt, had discovered what I knew now, or whether he had always known it, always known this day would come, a part of his life shared only with Grand, a world that only the two of them inhabited. A world seen by their smiles and hugs, and above all, by the holding of hands.

Closing the Year

What is this speck of consciousness that floats on the day? I’ve been asking myself this question since the age of five. I remember clearly riding in the back of my mother’s green station wagon. We were on Monterrey Blvd heading home. My hair was short and I had bangs. Why am I me and not someone else? Why do I live now and not some time other, either past or future? And why now, this memory so clear, clearly true and not true? I remember the question, of asking it. I remember the memory of remembering myself in the back of the station wagon at the time of asking. Yet, we didn’t move to that part of town until I was ten. So age, location and memory don’t match. But as I look out my westward window now, into a sea of trees and a setting sun, I can only think of the smallness of my existence and the magnitude of (everything else.)

Happy New Year. May you hold and be held. May your dreams come true.

800. as sun and cloud

She sat on the porch and watched them walk to the lake. They walked like leaves fall and they held hands as children, arms swinging, fingers tight. They seemed to be talking from the look of heads leaning, of attention held, gyroscopic by way of centered, balanced. Their walk was not of time or destination, she thought, nor for show or presentation. They were as sun and cloud. They held that kind of endlessness about them. Moving yet eternal. An archtype. As effortless as autumn. From the distance, she could not hear them, the trail beneath their silent feet gutter worn. The lake beyond was smooth and blue in reflection, still and quiet. Tranquil. All of it. As clear as day is to night, as light to dark, as them to her.

Poet

Yellow Flag Press in conjunction with the third annual Vision/Verse exhibit has chosen one of my poems for broadside publication and display. I'm humbled and excited.

Quote: Marc Barasch

"Every now and then, I'll meet an escapee, someone who has broken free of self-centeredness and lit out for the territory of compassion. You've met them, too, those people who seem to emit a steady stream of, for want of a better word, love-vibes. As soon as you come within range, you feel embraced, accepted for who you are. For those of us who suspect that you rarely get something for nothing, such geniality can be discomfiting. Yet it feels so good to be around them. They stand there, radiating photons of goodwill, and despite yourself you beam back, and the world, in a twinkling, changes."

- Marc Barasch

799. one way

Mairi would take the train back to town. And at the station, which would be awash in unfocused color, a blurred brimming of mainly dark hues, she would purchase a one-way ticket. The sounds of the terminal would be clear, of wheel and rail and steam and torque against the muted backdrop of conversations murmuring like sweet summer grass. Her movements, she thought, would be slow, her hands gloved, and she would wear a brown felt hat to match her long coat, neatly buttoned top to bottom. All in order. The Chatelaine words echoed. All in order. Let action shape thought. Keep moving. Go through your progression. Yet, those images; of her arm hanging limp against her side; the look of the agent on asking if there would be a return; her mumbled reply; the sliding of her passage under the glass; all would seem a little too much like Bravo leaving Hyneria. There would be departure. But no return. As there was no appetite, no desire to engage, to speak of things as if they could be spoken. So she would watch the endless flowing into and out of the station. She would watch clocks ticking the seconds into minutes. Thoughts of Em painting would come to mind. Best not too many strokes she would say. Paint neither too thick nor too thin. Apply with a even sweep of hand across the surface lightly. Moving. Always moving. A place, Em would say, far, far from thought.

798. I love you

Zeke sat next to the bed as Grand slept. Sometimes just rocking, letting his mind wander over their years, as now, there would only be days. From time to time he walked to the bed and took her hand in his. Gently, rubbing her palm, his warmth becoming hers. She remained asleep, as quiet now as she was in life. A good life. Full of touches and looks, laughter and joy. Leaning down, he kissed her forehead, then her cheek. Her faint breath, barely a whisper. Her voice was that way too. In all their years, never a yell. Her tone, even now, as spring eternal.

He straightened her pillow and ran his fingers through her hair. She seemed to smile although it was hard to tell. She seemed to know he was there, as he said he would, that their union would be always, always held in love. Letting go of her hand, he pulled the covers up, kissed her cheek again before taking his seat, only this time, moving the chair a little closer.

When she had taken ill, he had begun a journal. Mainly, he documented his conversations to her as she slept, which was almost all the time. Late at night, when Kyra was safely tucked away and the house held but soft breath, he would read from the day’s entry. Sometimes he remained in his rocking chair and sometimes he would stand. Most of the pages were smeared. Emotion endless. The need to convey love, a love conveyed over decades, as urgent as their first days. So he wrote and read and cried. This was the routine. Day after day.

After several weeks, on a bright morning, for the bedroom faced the ocean and the window was always kept open, Grand squeezed his hand, opened her eyes and said, I love you. They kissed, her frail hand caressing his face as she had done so many times. Then she smiled again as her hand found rest and her eyes closed.

as you drive home tonight

As you drive home tonight, and the sky dims of night, think of the stars. We know them by darkness, their brilliance, their shine. And we draw the most magical myths from father to son. I remember morning recess as a small boy, maybe second or third grade in the cold courtyard. Standing on blacktop. Wearing khaki, my brown eyes still wet with innocence. I remember looking up into the pale blue sky and seeing a fading star. And I thought then as I remember now, they are still there, watching over me and waiting, till their time, again to shine.

797. singular summers

Kyra notes a conversation she had with Von shortly before he died:


My summers are singular. How many is hard to tell, but I feel some inexplicable calling. Mainly in dreams. He’s been coming more often. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes just holding and it is clear, he is holding me as once I held him. I see peace on his face and his voice is melodious. Our conversations, however, remain just beyond. Couldn’t tell you a single thing said. But make no mistake, these are not just dreams. There is no fear. Just a womb-like warmness where sound is muffled and light diffuse.


I listened to Von into the morning. He spoke of many things remembered and many more not. The envelope had remained unopened, and although he never spoke of it, I sensed he never made peace with that decision. Instead, the child became his life. He held nothing back, pouring himself into that newborn vessel, fueled, I thought, by his own premature parting. I left behind a grandfather. But Von left a son. I would say I understood, but I never had a child, so I never patronized him. I think he appreciated the listening. As Papa would say, one can heal a soul with the ears in ways the tongue cannot. I can’t say Von was ever healed, but I’d like to think his pain was a little less. I miss him. I miss the dignity and poise, of how he carried his sorrow.

796. night at noon

Sometimes, he said, it is hard to remember the ground when you are flying. And when you are flying, everyone on the ground looks so very small. I swear the man said everything slant. I told him this. He smiled but didn’t say anything. So I told him again. I had stopped as we were walking the beach at Valla. I still remember his gray hair blowing with the sea breeze and his white tunic flapping against his broad chest when he turned. I remember too warm water rolling over my toes then back to sea, exhaling as I could not. My ears whistling like seashells held to the wind. He knew the language of my gestures, for he knelt and smiled and motioned. The slant beam is straighter than the straight one. This is what he said. Then he bounced me off his knee, held his arms out wide and said, We have all of this. No more talk.

Von nodded, his finger sawing his lower lip. His eyes looked like wells. My words a bucket, bringing forth into light what I always thought later should have been kept in the dark. I too had learned this language, the tone of a look, the typography of a cheek either rising or falling. I have regrets. Some of which I can’t explain. I just know I sat in my chair as he sat in his, neither of us moving, neither talking. I didn’t know of time then as I do now. I didn’t know of windows and how they open only briefly before forever closing. As Papa might have said, it is hard to know the night at noon.

my window

I find that I am different from most other people. I make no value judgment in saying this for sometimes it seems a good thing and sometimes a bad thing, but either way, as far as I can tell and for as long down the walk of memory I can trot, it has been this way. From time to time the call of society knocks on my conscious and I venture out into the sun. I suppose this is where I notice the shadows the most. Once in the sun I realize my skin is too pale and I seek a shade tree or a hat until I decide I’d just rather be back inside. I enjoy the view from the window. I like seeing children at play, running, laughing and making the sorts of trouble that used to cause me stress. Adults are another matter. I see them standing or sitting, almost always talking. They never seem to be having fun. And this is where I think of my grandparents. Been two years since the last was buried. But I think and wonder if they had a second go, would they talk less and smile more?

795. dead as yesterday

ed note: this chapter takes place in the future from current events in the story--how far, I don't know

I said to Von that there comes a time when all that remains are fading memories. And in this barren landscape what roots is not the vine but rather a thicket of questions. He looked at me or maybe he was just looking in my direction, for I sensed whatever wheels were turning, they weren’t rolling my way. Then he spoke. What he said next I have forgotten. And this is the pain. You see, we buried Von yesterday. And all I can think is, he's dead. As dead as yesterday.

they said

They said he was in a new land and that the battles were different now. He’s lost weight. Smiles less honestly. Blinks more. This wager of gossip tossed back and forth, back and forth. But it is hard to know of a battle not fought or even witnessed. What of the orders lost or misunderstood? Of cordite and burning flesh in the nostrils? Eardrum bursting concussions? Or even the history between, say, the Turks and the Greeks or the Serbs and Croats? None of these things, however, slows the wagging of tongues. And one thinks of little boys and the pleasure of kicking a football, or friend, for that matter. And of other little boys standing mute before turning away in the comfort of twos and threes. The view is different from the ground with blood in your mouth and dirt under your nails.

more snow . . .

The weather had turned cold and everyone took on the weight of coats and sweaters. The landscape held less light becoming heavy with shadow. He looked at his watch. She was late. A light snow began to fall. The street a white robe with cuffed sidewalks. The edges of his table softening. His own jacket twinkling the last light of flakes silently winking out.

He ordered another cup of coffee and watched couples come and go in holiday pace, their gloved hands held. Store fronts were full of frost and sparkle. Everywhere, jewels of red and green inlaid on white. He looked at his watch again. Even the second hand seemed impatient. With a weak smile his coffee arrived. The waiter someplace else. As was she.

Children seemed as balls of wool against this cold, their rouged cheeks full of smile. School was out. Somewhere a church bell tolled and the lights on the corner turned from red to green. Cars passed, slowly, little faces peering out of fogged windows. Families, together. They all looked the same. Happy.

Still, nothing. She would wear blue. Or maybe silver. Standing out against the others. And too, she would be walking alone, her long hair bouncing on cloaked shoulders, glint eyes and a smile he needed more with each moment she did not appear. He knew in the ambient sound, he could not hear his watch ticking. What was fact and what was real, like the winter sky, seemed gray.

From inside the cafe, bread baked. He smelled it with each jingle of the small bells on the door, opened always by men. And as quickly, closing, hushing warm waves of aroma over him, muting laughter he could see. He thought of her arms, of how they laid over him, the warmth of her torso as it fit into his under their sheets. The scent of her perfume fading now with the night, still sweet. He looked again. Down the street and then to his watch. Nothing but movement. And he thought of her moving. Her lines of silver and black against starlight, so graceful, fluid where breath alone was heard, where eyes held and arms embraced against their flow. As around him families flowed. As before him sat her snow dusted chair. Empty.

She said she would come. He had the note. Worn now from reading, its creases like elephant hide. He saw joy in the loops of her pen. The blue ink seemed alive, vibrant. She had written love, the L swooping as if she were all curve, all grace and elegance, as if this note, as last night, would be the last. Down the street more families came. Arms and hands carrying bags as still it snows and still there was nothing of blue or silver, nothing coming his way, not this morning, not ever again.

the snows had come

The snows had come. Shyly, at first. Large flakes falling quietly in the morn as too the night. The countryside appeared quilted, little sugary ridges finding nooks and panes. There was a quiet to winter and one either embraced it or was driven mad depending on one’s propensity for solitude and the air not spoken. Or, in some houses, the madness was just the opposite, winter having driven folk inside and all their noise with them. Rooms grew smaller and tempers shorter.

Still, there was a warmth to kitchen and den, of stove and fire, coffee and hot chocolate. Lights became important in winter in ways they were never in summer. Lamps, candles and even Christmas lights imparted a measure of comfort against nature, the darkening sky, of endless grey. We never spoke of it in our house, the transient passage of mind and heart through this world just as we never spoke of death at funerals. I suppose this was the sadness. Not winter. Not less hours of daylight. But rather the highlighting of what was not discussed. And the feeling one got, but only later, that we lived in the shallows.

The Story of Kyra

if nothing else . . .

current word count: 277, 394

794. I'd like to believe . . .

I stood and watched from the bridge as Hyneria slipped away. Her dim light filling the observation deck as it filled our eyes. All were there, all leaden of foot and hunched of shoulder. There was shallow breathing and the quiet hum of Bravo. And one couldn’t help but think our coffin metal, these shiny walls of quarry and glass. To know the inside of one’s tomb, not with age and of purchase, but young, of within not as visit but swallowed whole, consumed alive by the infinite black soil of the universe. This is how I met the crew. Survivors bound by loss and weighed with grief.

My name is Kyra. I have passage because my grandfather was somebody, because he believed that I was too. These twin sacks I carry and the air I breathe is humid in memory of lesson and loss, of the dock and who was there and who was not. Of my family, I am the only survivor. I witnessed my sister die young in the arms of our benediction and ablution. The others, I can only pray imagination takes leave of me, of this sense of not knowing the last, not seeing the hand of peace close their eyes, a torment that knows no drowning. But I will say this, my parents died to me long before Hyneria consumed itself. I struggle to purge myself of the bitterness, the rejection they knowingly or not bestowed. And although it is not packed among our supplies, I can feel it as I feel the very leather upon my skin.

I suppose, as most, I am guided in this way, by what has occurred to me and of what is expected. I want to give what I did not have. I want a child. I want to know of warm blankets and of books read at night. But mostly, I want the tender kisses goodnight, of love exchanged in the first person, by choice, by presence. I want to look and be seen in the way of mother and child and I want to know of this giving of life beyond the giving of life. In a way, the child in me wants to be the parent. To know that in this interminable darkness, there is a light and to cup my hands around it, to protect it, to reflect in it. I would like to believe this is possible. I’d like to believe this is something.

793. blooded ghost

Imagined thoughts of Kyra as Bravo departs:


My life as I know it is dead. Everyone I knew, every place I visited, gone. How to write of this, or even speak of it. Words and emotions have never been close. Translation falls to hell and frustration burns beyond the fingers to soothe. Where we go from here seems pointless. I feel like the soldier who survives the massacre, standing amidst smoke and fire, surveying a landscape of death, of the hand of fate upon the entire company, save one, save myself. Some ghosts still walk with blood in their veins. I know. I am one of them.

792. water and fish and such

I would say you mean the world to me but that would be like a fish saying that water was important.

Overheard, Trev to Em

an easy smile

An easy smile. He never had it. Apparently, neither do I. I’ve been told not to trust my eyes. Been told that within his weathered visage, past those watery eyes, his heart was good. Fair enough. We all have our beliefs and who is to say what is real and what is not. But I know this. Treasure buried is still treasure buried. Won’t pay my bills no more than that check he said he’d write, that night, over several beers, to buy me some new basketball shoes. Thirty years later, I still remember sitting on that shag carpet, in his bedroom. He was drunk. In bed. Doing most of the talking. Beer tended to soften him and in that softened state he asked if I needed anything. Basketball shoes I said. No problem he said. Whatever you want. I never got my shoes. Never said a word. Neither did he.

economics

first draft:

He would take another sip of beer, (the edges of his day (smoothing) the edges of his day). His tongue would loosen to questions never asked and the answer, always, the same: economics. My father justified everything by bill paying, the holding of steady work, of having money in reserve. He lived in these narrows, sitting in his onion garden, an ice chest dog loyal by his feet (loyal as the dog he refused to own). The message was clear. Work and you are of value. But not just value. It was unquestioned value. Value beyond reproach. Or so it seemed as I listened to answers from questions I never asked.


He has been dead now half a dozen years. His words, however, have lived a bit longer. I needed help to see them as they were, as I was, (as it could be). (That there could be) A life beyond economics, beyond the (those) narrow straights to a larger body, one that could (large enough to) dissolve the salt of pain and (still) give life. She gave me this. A sense of value, of worth counted not in coin but of a different ledger. She gave me eyes. And, forgiveness. One could say, I suppose, she softened the edges of my day(s). I’d like to tell him of these things, if I could. But I can’t. He does not now, as he did not then, have the ears for such a conversation.

__________

second draft:

He would take another sip of beer, smoothing the edges of his day. His tongue would loosen to questions never asked and the answer, always, the same: economics. My father justified everything by bill paying, the holding of steady work, of having money in reserve. His wallet looked liked an overstuffed hamburger. Always. He lived in these narrows, sitting in his onion garden, an ice chest dog loyal by his feet. The message was clear. Work and you are of value. But not just value. Unquestioned value. Value beyond reproach. Or so it seemed as I listened to answers from questions I never asked. It was this way not just for a night or even a few sporadic nights. Decades. The man was, if nothing else, consistent. Untiringly committed to his view. Position entrenched. And I thought of a sentry, guarding some sacred ideal night and day, rain or shine.


He has been dead now half a dozen years. His words, however, have lived a bit longer. I needed help to see them as they were, as I was, (as it could be). (That there could be) A life beyond economics, beyond the (those) narrow straights to a larger body, one that could (large enough to) dissolve the salt of pain and (still) give life. She gave me this. A sense of value, of worth counted not in coin but of a different ledger. She gave me eyes. And, forgiveness. One could say, I suppose, she softened the edges of my day(s). I’d like to tell him of these things, if I could. But I can’t. He does not now, as he did not then, have the ears for such a conversation.

1944 (thoughts and notes)

thinking of Mary:

options--

. there is no pregnancy

. pregnant but miscarried (stress of war)

. pregnant but aborted (by her hand or Kate)

. baby carried to term (in Germany)

. under the Germany option--baby is adopted by Kathrin

. baby carried to term (in US)

. under US option, Mary’s father puts baby up for adoption


notes to the above:

Mary meets Virgil (nurse/soldier/France/1944) for one night before he dies. She is convinced it was love as she has never known and, over the next fifty years, claims never to be known again. She either becomes pregnant or she doesn’t. If she doesn’t, the story focuses on love, love loss, the management of grief and the edges of sanity. If she does become pregnant, she either goes AWOL and carries to term in Germany under Kathrin’s care with Kathrin adopting the baby as her own (for reasons not yet known) and all of the above with regard to love and loss takes on these new dimensions. In the US option, the army finds out Mary is pregnant and sends her home. Her father, who never wanted her to become a nurse (below the dignity of a woman, of his daughter) is horrified at the turn of events and arranges adoption. Mary sees her baby for less time than she had with Virgil and as soon as she is able, leaves home to never see her parents again. She relocates to the same town as Virgil’s parents and tries to make sense of her tragedy and so again the story becomes a study in the exploration of loss and sanity in the face of overwhelming despair. In this last option, there is the possibility that Mary and Virgil’s child finds her toward the end of of her life and the story ends with a coming full circle, a final healing and releasing.

1944 (pieces of Mary)

There is nothing untrue about sunshine. He is this way. A life without shadows. Everything known, held. And loved. There is life in this kind of love. It is of light, warmth, home and hearth, of bread baking, a place of open windows and whispering candles. All as it is. Nothing as it is not. Just pure sunshine where clouds are clouds and rain is rain.

__________

He was coming home. Arriving by train. To see again what once walked, now carried, what should be walking, walking never more, of hands within wood and not upon it, of fences never mended, of grace not held, or spoken, or shared, to see the flag not flying, of patent leather shoes under granite faces, of woman in black not speaking, of men who had left their bibles at home under a coat of dust, and of children with wide eyes at rail and train and station. To see blue skies and hear nothing but my own thoughts and see nothing but dreams forever dreaming, forever stuck as death upon life, forever playing what was and what would never be. This is how Virgil arrived, or perhaps, of how I remembered it.

__________

As I age and I think of life, of what matters, of what we remember as important, I can’t help but think of holding and being held, in sunshine of course, but mostly against the darkness, when nothing pass your hand can be seen and all that can be heard is the beating of two hearts. As my days fade, too the memory, ever so faint, of his heart against mine and I wonder if what I remember now is simply the memory of a memory as I reach for coffee long grown cold in my absence. I harbor no bitterness and in this I marvel and wonder and in this way I see a shard of my difference, of a life I’ve lived alone and would gladly do again to have what we had, however brief, however fleeting.

1944 (the sound of rain)

I woke to the sound of rain, to grey sky. The house was quiet of all but steady drizzle. I made coffee, pulled my robe tight and sat before the small table in the kitchen. His notes and my cup my company.

His journal was then, as it is now, yellowed of page, his blood, the darkness of it, even then, fading. I turned the pages. Traced my finger over his graceful lines. Raised the notebook and breathed in all of France, all of war, all of what had taken my soul to heights and depths that made the rising sun nothing but an annoyance.

But I could not not turn the pages. My coffee grew cold. I drank it anyway. The rain continued to fall and I thought of mud, of slush, of the color of young blood mixing in foreign muck, of his blood upon my hands, of my thumb making the sign of the cross on his forehead, his cistern eyes growing still, the tension in his neck released.

I thought now of what I knew, of what his mother didn’t, of her grief and my obligation. I thought too of the burden of my own weakness and I heard the voices of doubt as I had heard the chorus a few days before, those voices rising into the dark of wooden beams above wooden pews. And still it rained. Not hard. Not in anger, but softly. Relentlessly. And what rained was within as without and as my sight from table to field was not clear, so too, nothing else.

Those days have not grown as so many others. Some root remains barren and bitter, producing no flower, nothing green, nothing of life. Nor do I know the way of releasing, of pruning as so many others have learned. So this burden, so heavy, I decided, I would carry alone. I could not then, nor can I now, envision the benefit of sharing, of sharing what I knew was, without embellishment, a needless death, of a boy alone, dying not in the hands that bore him, hands I would see but never hold.

1944 (winter to come)

Leaves fell like days. He came no more as he would come never more and what seemed so alive just a few weeks before, was over. It felt like falling, like Fall, like the inexorable end not ended. And all to be seen was brown, used as summer uses fruit not picked. Still I came. And still I sat. And still I looked down the sidewalk for what I knew would never come. Just me and a rumble of regret that made coffee bitter among a mock of voices neither known nor wanted.

There would be a service at the church on the other end of main street. Words would be spoken among gray hair and black leather and ears would receive what minds could not hear. She would be there. I would see her. And again I would feel an anger in my stomach, the kind mother’s feel in survivorship, of divine visitation absent, of a home neither warm of hearth nor heart. We would have this silent bond as we would suffer, alone. I suppose if there ever was a point I wanted nothing more of life, it was here, awash cold stone under the cool light of winter to come. This was not home. But then again, neither was any place.

1944 (Gone)

I would watch him in the warm morning light, some seventy years old. Face tanned. Eyes clear as cloudless sky blue. I wanted to approach. To talk. To breath the air that had breathed him. To feel the hand that had held what I had held. To hold the look he must have known.

But I couldn’t.

And yet, still, morning after morning, I came, watched. I soaked his every movement into my imaginary world and dreamed of a life never lived. I look back now, father resting as son somewhere in the green hills. Both gone, perhaps together, perhaps happy, perhaps looking, waiting, wanting, a meeting, that meeting of us, of family, of smiles and hugs and words whispered on lips of acceptance. How I would have loved that. Just that.

I still drink my coffee, black. I still think of those days of creaky wooden floors and worn leather soles. I feel like that, a soul weathered and worn, my eyes dimming, gloaming, days fading with memory. Then it happened. He came. My boy. And what was held, released. And what was imaginary, gone.

__________

second draft:


I would watch his father in the morning light, some seventy-years-old, face tanned, eyes blue as cloudless sky. I had wanted to approach him, to talk, to breath the air that he had breathed, to hold, but not so much as hold as to feel, yes, feel, the hand that had held what I had held. I wanted his eyes upon me. To look upon what had been the most precious thing to his son. And I wanted to share, all that I knew, all that had happened. But I couldn’t.

And yet, morning after morning, I came to the small restaurant off main street. I sat in the same chair at the same table before the same window to the street, waiting. He was, in his professorial way, punctual, walking neither fast nor slow, head down, newspaper tucked under his arm. His overalls, unlike the others, were always clean, and at times, looked almost pressed and I wondered whether by his hand or hers. His hair, coin silver, thick, was parted on the side, just as Virgil’s. He wore no facial hair and his nose, in profile, was as the nose I had known and it wasn’t hard to imagine I was seeing the father as the son would have been--this world I constructed, as real to me as the snow to fall, so beautiful, so ephemeral.

Those mornings, I remember now, of life, fragrant of farm, of the day not yet warm, the light golden and the paper fresh of what was. I remember the creaky wooden floor, the smell of leather worn, of coffee and eggs and white aprons. Voices too, of men, old men with humorless faces, of white cups and black coffee rising between words. I still hear the sound of plates, talk of weather and crops, of local politics, serious as drought. And I still see those glassy eyes, fresh from a war paid in children’s blood, of son’s who would never work the land, buried in plots not for them. They knew what I knew. The line stopped here. Nothing would be handed down. And for some, they would carry their name to granite and no further.

One morning, not too long after I had moved to Tennessee, he didn’t show up. The coffee that morning seemed bitter. He didn’t show the next either and as I came to learn from the paper I’d never see him carry again, he’d see Virgil before I would. I’d like to think he’d introduce me and that together, they’d wait. I’d like to think that what happened next, they had a hand.

__________

third draft:

I would watch Virgil’s father in the morning light, some seventy-years-old, face tanned, eyes cloudless sky blue. I had wanted to approach him, to talk, to breathe the air that he had breathed, to hold, but not so much as hold as to feel the hand that had held what I had held. I wanted his eyes upon me. To look upon what had been the most precious thing to his son. And I wanted to share, all that I knew, all that had happened between Virgil and I. For him to understand, to accept. And, perhaps, forgive.

Morning after morning, I came to the small restaurant off main street. I sat in the same chair at the same table before the same window to the street, and waited. He was, in his professorial way, punctual, walking neither fast nor slow, head down, newspaper tucked under his arm in the way one tucks an umbrella on a clear day. His overalls, unlike the others, were always clean, and at times, looked almost pressed and I wondered whether by his hand or hers. His silver hair, thick, was parted on the side, just as Virgil’s had been. He wore no facial hair and his nose, in profile, was as the nose I had known and it wasn’t hard to imagine I was seeing the father as the son would have been--this world I constructed, as real to me as falling snow, so beautiful, so ephemeral.

Those mornings, I remember now, of life, fragrant of farm, of the day not yet warm, the light golden and the paper fresh of what was. I remember the creaky wooden floor, the smell of leather worn, of coffee and eggs and white aprons. Voices too, of men, old men with humorless faces, of white cups and black coffee rising between words. I still hear the sound of plates, talk of weather and crops, of local politics, serious as drought. And I still see those glassy eyes, fresh from a war paid with children’s blood, of son’s who would never work the land, buried in plots not for them. They knew what I knew. The line stopped here. Nothing would be handed down. And for some, they would carry their name to granite and no further.

One morning, not too long after I had moved to Tennessee, he didn’t show up. The coffee that morning seemed bitter. Neither did he show the next and as I came to learn from the paper I’d never see him carry again, he’d see Virgil before I would. I’d like to think he’d introduce me and that together, they’d wait. I’d like to think that what happened next, they had a hand. I’d like to believe a lot of things, but to see the child Virgil never saw, to hold him as I never held his grandfather, to know that although the name was not the same, the blood would carry on--I’d like to believe that meant something. I’d like to believe I could be forgiven. I’d like to know, when my time comes, I’m going to a place with open arms. And that perhaps one day, what was torn apart by war, could be put back together.

__________

fourth draft:


Each morning, I watched him walk to breakfast in the soft morning light, some seventy-years-old, face tanned and set with eyes as cloudless sky blue as his son’s had been. I had wanted to approach him, to talk, to breathe the air that he had breathed, to hold the hand that had held what I had held. I wanted his eyes upon me. To look upon what had been the most precious thing to his son. And I wanted to share, all that I knew, all that had happened between Virgil and I, for him to understand, to accept. And, perhaps, forgive.

Morning after morning, I came to the small restaurant off main street. I sat in the same chair at the same table before the same window to the street, and waited. He was, in his professorial way, punctual, walking neither fast nor slow, head down as if in thought, newspaper tucked under his arm in the way one tucks an umbrella on a clear day. His overalls, unlike the others, were always clean, and at times, looked almost pressed and I wondered whether by his hand or hers. His thick silver hair was parted on the side, just as Virgil’s had been. He was clean shaven and his nose, in profile, was as the nose I had known and it wasn’t hard to imagine I was seeing the father as the son would have been, give or take fifty years.This is the world I constructed each and every day, as real to me as the snow to fall, so beautiful, so ephemeral, falling as hushes fall.

Those mornings were, I remember now, of life, fragrant of farm, of the day not yet warm, the light golden and the paper fresh of what was, of what could never be changed. I remember the creaky wooden floor, the smell of leather worn of foot, of coffee and eggs and white aprons. Voices too, of old men with humorless faces, of white cups and black coffee rising between words. I can still hear the sound of forks, knives and plates, talk of weather and crops, of local politics, all of it as serious as drought. And I still see those glassy eyes, fresh from a war paid with children’s blood, theirs, of son’s who would never work the land, buried in plots not known in lands never seen. They knew what I knew. The line stopped here. Nothing would be handed down. And for some of these old men, they would carry their name to granite and no further.

One morning, not too long after I had moved to town, he didn’t show. The coffee that morning seemed bitter, the atmosphere, insipid. Neither did he show the next day nor the day after and as I came to learn from the paper I’d never see him carry again, he’d see Virgil before I would. I’d like to think he’d introduce me and that together, they’d wait. I’d like to think that what happened next, they had a hand. I’d like to believe a lot of things, but to see the child Virgil never saw, to hold him as I never held his grandfather, to know that although the name was not the same, the blood would carry on--I’d like to believe that meant something. I’d like to believe I could be forgiven. I’d like to know, when my time comes, I’m going to a place with open arms. And that perhaps one day, what was torn apart by war, could be put back together.

__________

fifth draft:

He looked like Virgil, only older. Same roman nose, same shock of hair parted to the side, same clear blue eyes set upon a glove-leathered face. Each day I would watch him arrive for breakfast, walking as I knew his son to walk, as I imagined Virgil would have walked if he had lived. I wanted to approach, to introduce myself, talk. To tell him all that I knew of his son’s last days. I wanted a lot of things I suppose and what was right and what was wrong, to this day, I cannot say. War does this. It changes everything and nothing is ever as it was.

So each morning, I arrived early. The small town had but one restaurant on the north side of main and I would take my customary seat just inside the glass window to the street and wait. He was, in his professorial way, punctual, walking neither fast nor slow, head down as if in thought, newspaper tucked under his arm in the way one tucks an umbrella on a clear day. His overalls, unlike the others, were always clean, and at times, looked almost pressed. His thick silver hair was parted on the side, just as Virgil’s had been. He was clean shaven and his profile was as the profile I had known and it wasn’t hard to imagine I was seeing the father as the son would have been, give or take fifty years.

Those mornings were, I remember now, alive, fragrant of farm, of the day not yet warm, the light still golden and the paper fresh of what was, of what could never be changed. I remember the creaky wooden floor, the smell of leather, of coffee and eggs and white aprons. Voices too, of old men with humorless faces, of white cups and black coffee rising between words.

I can still hear the sound of forks, knives and plates, talk of weather and crops, of local politics, all of it as serious as drought. And I still see those glassy eyes, wet of a war paid with filial blood, from son’s who would never work the land, buried in plots not known, in lands never seen. They knew what I knew. The line stopped here. Nothing would be handed down. And for some of these old men, they would carry their name to granite and no further.

One morning, not too long after I had moved to town, he didn’t show. The coffee that morning seemed bitter, the atmosphere insipid. Neither did he show the next day, nor the day after, and as I came to learn from the paper I’d never see him carry again, he’d see his son before I would. I’d like to think Virgil would speak of me and that together, as Virgil had whispered to me on that cold field of France, they’d wait. I’d like to think that what happened next, they had a hand. I’d like to believe a lot of things, but to see the child Virgil never saw, never knew to be, to hold him now as I had never held his grandfather, to know that although the name was not the same, the blood would carry on--I’d like to believe that meant something. I’d like to believe I could be forgiven. I’d like to know, when my time comes, I’m going to a place with open arms. And that perhaps one day, what was torn apart by war, could be put back together.

1944 (October of '45)

I arrived in Tennessee in October of 1945. Virgil’s parents, as he had said, lived in the country, just outside of a small farming town. I found a garage apartment on the road leading toward their home. My landlady was a widow, like Kathrin. We talked some but she didn’t ask a lot of questions and I didn’t volunteer much information. Mainly, just small talk. Who she really was, I never knew. Her eyes held a sorrow I simply had not the strength to bear and she not the desire to share. So we lived in the shallows, always within sight of the shore, cordial like strangers. We said our good mornings and our good nights and talked of the weather and gardens. But that was about it.

The town was small, conservative, and if not quaint, clean. Main street was as it appeared in pictures a hundred years ago, with old brick facades and canvas awnings. People were friendly without poking into your business. That I had served in the war seemed to go a long way with both being accepted and left alone. Many in town had lost boys, just as the Kanes had lost Virgil. To talk about it was to relive it and there wasn’t much economy for that, although you knew it was all anyone thought about, sitting on sidewalk benches, eyes full of empty road. So I lived mainly among, or perhaps between, two generations. Of storefront glass holding faded wool skirts but not too many pants, pleated or otherwise.

Virgil’s father was a retired university professor who dabbled at farming. Each morning, after chores, he would come to town, talk with the men and drink coffee, black. His skin, tanned as the others, was not the same, had not the mileage of those who had lived all their lives on the land. I watched him drink and talk, but mostly I watched him listen. And if I looked just to the side, holding his profile in my peripheral, I could smell Virgil. A certain muskiness of lumbered floor, of pungent chewing tobacco, sometimes a whiff of muddied denim, of the farm, of chores, of men who earned their sweat honestly. Their eyes as clear as mine were not.

And I thought of the women, back home, perhaps cleaning the kitchen of breakfast, washing dishes while taking inventory of lunch or even dinner. I thought of the table, and those empty chairs, one’s worn of boyish energy, perhaps a groove in the wooden floor, of the lacquered back dull from dirty hands not washed of the day, of mothers and their sons, of that sacred place of conversation and food, of family, of a togetherness known in laughter and light hearts. And I knew then why these men came to town, to look upon chairs full and not empty, to see faces haggard in labor and worry but not grief. They drank their coffee to forget. I drank mine to remember.

New Program: ArtTree

1944 (morning glories and fireflies)

When the army found out I was pregnant, they flew me home. My parents were horrified. I was an emotional mess, so what happened next--(Mary breaks down and is unable to continue)

What happened next was Mary’s father insisted the child be put up for adoption. Her mother, who seemed opposed to the idea, stood by and said nothing. Mary had not the strength to resist. She saw her child for less time than she had seen Virgil. Shortly after, when her father was at work and her mother running errands, Mary disappeared. Her parents searched for years with no luck. As the baby was gone from Mary, so too was Mary gone from her parents. Her parents, without letter or call, would die bitter, entrenched in their own unspoken views. Mary neither knew nor cared. To the end she maintained innocence of the irony.

She had moved to Tennessee. Same area as Virgil’s parents.

(Mary resumes) I needed to see them, to know they existed. I needed to breathe the air he had breathed and to walk the pastures he had known. The green hills were everything he said them to be and I became an expert at sunrise and sunset. Even went to the art store and bought some oil paint. Each morning, I would mix the colors I saw. Would just stroke them across the canvas. Nothing drawn or painted, just streaks of color, the color as it changed by the minute. You’d be amazed how many variations of green there are in a morning.

I suppose those that saw me, morning after morning, just painting vertical lines of various shades of green, must have thought I was crazy. I really don’t know since no one ever approached me. Grief doesn’t much like a party. So I went for months without uttering a single word. Just watching sunrises and sunsets, morning glories and fireflies. Pain is this way. If one is talking, no matter how much they complain, there are no worries, the shore is still within sight. But I was someplace else, beyond the shore, beyond sight of anyone else, and in this way, beyond words, beyond the salve of language. I needed him around me. I needed our baby in my arms. I had neither.

And the thought, and keep in mind, at this time I was in my twenties, but the thought was I had had my chance. But thoughts come and go. Feelings, however, the kind that live in your gut, are a different matter, and the feeling I had was that what I once had, I would never have again. So tell me, how does one live this way? How does one get up every morning and pull breath from the air? (no response) You dive into it. You paint it in streaks of green in the morning and streaks of blue in the dusk. There is no other way.

1944 (enough)

He had wide margins. I could breathe, swim, jump, run and know, through it all, he was there, same easy smile, same blanket arms. Virgil was Sunday morning breakfast. He was a full bellied afternoon nap. My fingers as children running through the waves of his hair. Waterfalling those beautiful brown eyes. He was the ground under this war and I knew no matter how much we moved, he would not. A harbor into I sailed. Fresh as ocean breeze. But all I can remember now is the smell of his blood on my hands and the taste upon my lips as I kissed his eyes shut. Of how time is not what we think it is.

I’ve lived a night and a day that seem as years and I’ve lived years that seem as nothing. The weight of a thing is measured not in seconds or minutes or hours. Just put your head under water and tell me of the air that enters your lungs after only a minute, maybe two. He was that breath. He was a light to eyes that had never known light. He was a reason prior not known, and as quickly, never again found.

But nothing is as words posit them to be, something always missing or lacking in the writing. He was everything in my life that was not indifference. Never has a man brought so many smiles and so many tears and for neither would I trade the world for I have lived with him as few live and I have lived without him as even fewer could. He entered my life, briefly and changed it forever. And he never knew.

So I dream of heaven, not for my sake, but his. That in his waiting, he had a place to know of where he took me. And I dream of heaven for how could he not come to know of what he gave me? How could he not be waiting to take me for that walk through the pasture, his hands behind his back, head bowed, listening to my years, the memory of him I kept sacred, of how I loved and never forgot that in this life there is but one path that crosses another and to meet at that crossroads, even for just the night and day we had, is enough.

791. and out the door

Continuation of Trev's last journal entry:

When she leaves and the smell of her is still upon the air, still in the room of kitchen warm, what flows into my vacuum is as a dam opened. And waters rise. To know of flooding, of how it comes and cannot be stopped, to know of nature in this way is to know of passion and desire unleashed by her absence. I ask not for this. Seek not this force of want and need just as one seeks not the hunger between meals or the thirst between drink. She has become necessary. Vital. I bloom in the sunshine of her smile. And although wilt is too strong a word, I am not the same when she is gone.

So she leaves, as she must. And the hours slow, the cottage silent but for ticking clocks. In this way I know of two times. The time of her and the time not of her. They are not the same and this is where I know math will not explain the universe, cannot manage the ticking of a heart or comprehend the seeking of a soul for union. Too, I know the essence of oneness by its breaking, for that is how it feels when she leaves, a breaking of wholeness into pieces and the feeling is of incompleteness and where before with two legs I could run, now with one, nothing is the same, every step a hop, a struggle and where before there was grace and elegance and dance, now there is only longing and sitting and waiting.

790. through the door

Trev's journal . . .


She walks through the door and what happens next is hard to explain. It starts with a look, of eyes that see only the moment, that see from someplace known not of sight or touch or any sense. The eyes look as if the soul is looking, as one looks for what was lost and is now found; and what is seen is raw, naked, without artifice, without facade or agenda, pure as hammered sweat upon the rail. The seeing is felt as one feels water when swimming or diving, as from the bottom looking up and all around beams of light refract minnows among beige and blue. The looking is of life alive, of a train coming to station in the night, inevitable, of a wait ended, ending, of a journey about to begin, of time and watches jettisoned or stopped or broken or just not applicable. Everything fades and vision is as sunlight, which is to say everywhere and nowhere all at once. Most of all, past and future exit. The looking is pure present. And what flows forth, time and time again, day after day, only grows, deepens--and this belies explanation, as looking seems afresh, new, like every day was the first day of school, every kiss the first date, every hug as a hug a thousand days out.

The above was crossed out. No date given as to revision.

She walks through the door and what happens next is hard to explain. It starts with a look, of eyes that see only the moment, that see from someplace known not of light and shadow or form and shape. They look as if the soul is looking and what is sought is not something other nor something of human hand or mind. She is the math we are yet to know.

Upon the distance closed, within musket range one might say, the things of this world slip from bound and moor and past and future fade with all earthly delusions. Gravity, too, treads not on this sacred ground, this place of harp and wing, of skies beyond the pale blue of terrestrial life.

There is breathing, to and from, warm, heated between lips tender in desire not of body or mind but in union of what once was, before sight, before thought. And light blurs as with speed, as through a portal of life in reverse, of childhood, of birth, womb, and then, weightlessness. There is nothing heavy of this place. And there is nothing separate. The moment is eternal. The feeling is of home, of a place known just beyond our consciousness.

1944 (of little feet and little hands)

Virgil was neither the first nor the last. But what I have known of others has only furthered my belief in divinity; and, if I am honest, and right now I am too old to be otherwise, of imperfection in the divine. With Virgil, I had eyes I never had before nor since. Others have told me I am crazy, some think insane. But they know not what I know, they have no template to hold what I have said and their eyes remain hollow and blank to my story.

To speak of a visit to heaven and to know that what is said is neither heard nor comprehended carries its own sense of loneliness. To know that what you know will forever only be yours, can only ever be yours is a form of torture. So when I walk the storefronts a little slower than I could and I visit the museum a little more than I should and every Tuesday I drink my coffee with two cups, well, I’ve learned to stop trying to explain.

It has been more than forty years now. My memory is not what it was, or perhaps I should say, my memory of recent events, of the last decade or so, seems fuzzy and often I have to remind myself of what I did last week or even of yesterday. The memory of that winter, of the snow and the mud, of the men and their wool, where everything was green and brown, red and white, however, remains as sharp as a dream upon waking. We had but a couple days. And yet, how can I not say he has lived within me these forty some odd years, has shaped my life and all that I know by those few hours he held me, looked upon me and whispered just a handful of words. And I think, how is this possible?

When I go into town, every Tuesday, my heart aches of past and present not by memory of what was as much as the echoing hollowness within me brought by little feet and little hands at play with smiles and laughter. I have no little feet in my life. Neither did he. And I think, how could that be? How could a loving God not grant to us what surely he must wish upon all creation, of life born in the light of love. Yet I sit and I know, he did not. My knees no longer ache from kneeling as a heart no longer bleeds from having bled out. A part of me died with Virgil that cold December day in France. The rest of me, well, it has died a slower death, one without end, one summoned to the block with little feet and little hands, every Tuesday, as I sit with my cup and his.

many ways

There are many ways to love. Showing sincere interest in another is one. To pour yourself into their cup and fill it with listen, care, concern. To look as if in all the world there is nothing else to see. Seems so simple, doesn’t cost a dime, yet one would think that to give of this is to give of gold such the hoarding. Or perhaps there is confusion in the way we confuse the beauty of a sunset with just another sunset, always to come as if we were immortal and our god-given right was to the eternal movement of the universe. And like a young child, each day, to, for or from our neglect or acknowledgement, that beauty is there--whether we are or not.

I think I can . . .

Can I know that I know nothing; and be comfortable with that? Can I enjoy the mystery of existence as children do the sun? Can I place my opinions and thoughts into a jar like butterflies and be content to smell of honeysuckle without reason and why? Can I leave my shoes at home and again walk as once I did among green grass and clover? Can I see a cloud and actually see it as it is within my imagination unfettered of the letters arriving of want and account? Can I again return to a joy once lost and acknowledge that I know that taste as one knows the aroma of home? I think I can.

789. near and far

Sigh. Miss you too. Want and need you. I am not the same without your arms around me and your lips upon mine as starlight on the ocean glittered. I need of your smell, of hair and shampoo, of neck and nape, soft of the day, of you within me by breath. I need the fit of you against me as if in all the world there is no other to my half, no salvation but through you. You live in me, near and far. But I need you near, as a diver diving needs air, again, soon. Let me know when we can talk. When I can hear of your day and know you are okay. 

788. not as now

In the woods lived a lady, known, it seemed, to Papa and I alone. We didn’t see her much in the summer when berries were plentiful, but in the winter, the path between her hut and Valla remained warm of our feet, the stones rubbed of snow, polished by our labors, through the wood, up the hill.

She lived alone. The food we brought, her only sustenance against the low sun and short days. She was about the same age as Papa and he had said they had known each other many years ago, for from the look in her eyes, she knew of no one any longer. Papa spoke of another time when what was tangled flowed over her shoulders like wine, and what was now yellowed in neglect, were as white as stars. She was then, he said, not as now.

When we walked that walk between the snow laden firs, and our hands strained with pot and pan, our backs with sacks of rice and grain, nut and berry, we did not speak. The sound of our labor, of breath neighing in the cold, of feet searching for traction, of backs silently aching of weight borne, this and this alone is the memory. Our prayer he said, although I suspected more in the way of penitence, for what was carried seemed more than necessary, more than vine and victual.

He said she had suffered. Her pain immeasurable. His advice sought. And given. Let go he had told her. Release judgment. Unattach from that which does not stop. Sit with the energy. Do not dam it or even try and direct it, but just sit, be.

So she did. Severed every relationship she had. Let everything she ever had go and walked into the woods. He spoke of it once and never more. But for as long as I can remember, every winter, we spoke with our feet. It was the only time I never saw him smile.

tone and mood

I sense tone and mood like others see color and hear music. Each room, moment by moment ebbing and flowing, a unique texture of energies, mingling, creating ripples unseen as root, forever reaching for water, nutrients. Every look, smile, frown, touch or non-touch alters what was into what is into what will be, endlessly into being, unfolding with no beginning, no end. So this battle wages of label upon what cannot be labelled, of pails holding the rushing river no more, of wave and ocean arguing as parent and child, ever unmindful that what appears is not what is. The eye, forever seeing, never sees itself directly and we know not by the great unity but by light and shadow upon an endless series of mirrors, each generation, a distortion of the one before.

Then there is the issue of noise. Used as shield, double-sided to protect to and from, them and us. Addictive these sonic walls, barriers, erected subconsciously to hide what is too direct to experience upon tender hearts and souls--silence. For upon this platform and this alone can we hear what beckons to be heard, forever tolling, patient, enduring as stone through time.

787. ecosystems

Everything you say matters. Each word a pebble in the cosmic lake. Each ripple lapping shore. The eye sees no change. But those few molecules washed from moor, taken from sun to shade, of root less rooted, of salamander quenched. They know. The universe is nothing if not a great accounting, endless pristine spreadsheets, forever calculating.

Don't believe me? Then run. Go. And when you can run no further, where are you?

You see Kyra, a thing cannot escape from itself. And there is only one thing. Only one universe.

_________

Von, you know what I could never reconcile? My parents. On the one hand, they understood this principle better than most. Their whole life was spent studying the minute changes of clime and climate and they knew the disastrous affects of even the smallest changes. And then, there was me. How could they not know of the ecosystem of me in their world? To see so clearly in one direction and be so blind in another. I think Papa spent his life trying to make amends, a father for the son, healing two in the act of one.

786. brush and canvas

On Papa's nightstand was a paintbrush, chestnut lacquered handle sprouting bristles never used. It was never not there as it was not ever used in the traditional way of oil and canvas. A reminder he had said. To know of the day as canvas and of our hand as brush; and too the night, that which started the day blank, would be of yellow or red or some combination thereof, always not blank, this creation creating, of life weaving as pen writing, as brush painting.

So each day began with sunrise, of light bringing color to life. This was the natural way of all things. Know it or not know it, what started blank would never finish blank. The halls of our life lined with the work of our hand, that brush, each day creating, touching, influencing light and dark, reacting or responding, holding or letting go.

When asked by Von of the brush upon her nightstand, ever present, she smiled and said, he lives within me still and not a day goes by I don't remember the brush of my grandfather upon my life. Then she paused before adding, and the brush of my own parents.

random scribbles

I live in two worlds. Three days there, four days here. Each is as different to the other as any two opposites and to know one is to see the other more clearly. Each is a creation of choice or choices, decisions made upon assumptions unasked, unspoken, these silent shadowy jail keepers. But I know this. One can choose to say good morning, or chose to remain silent. And likewise, one can value and honor relationship not by proxy or thought or blood, but by the law of the farm, as significant as the food upon our table and the water in our glasses. Each day we choose by the choices we make and by the choices we don't. Each day the root of relationship either grows deeper, stronger, or withers and retracts. There is no carry-over. No roll-over minutes. No compound interest. There is only dawn and dusk and all the choices we make, each day, between the two.

So I say to you, this day: Do you know what you chose? Do you know what you don't chose? By your hand the rudder of choice guides you down the river. By your action you say what cannot be said and you build the life you live, whether you know it or not.

__________

There is this issue of effort I refer to often. Or, as I like to say, effortlessness. As with all language, where each word by way of tone and definition and context can shoulder seventeen different meanings, miscommunication is ever present, especially in the medium of the written word. To speak of effortlessness is not to speak of no effort. The universe is nothing if not a constant flow of energy, always in motion, forever not still. So, one could say, always in effort. But there is the natural flow of life living and there is the unnatural flow of effort efforting. The two are not as brothers.

__________

And too, there is beauty. To speak of it is to miss it, to misunderstand it, to debase into language, into note and space, what has no separation. The river is not a train.

__________

I can remember acts of kindness visited upon me when I was seven years old. That is forty years ago; and still, they live within me, influence me, affect the fabric of my day. Acts of cruelty too, I remember, and they too live within my memory going on four decades, and before long, half a century. To think of what is within me, I find humbling. To think I have a choice, kindness or cruelty, each day. And to think, perhaps in forty years, some child, now an adult, will sit as I sit, and write as I write, of one or the other, planted so long ago, by my hand, my choice, today.

785. the universe is a lot older than you

Kyra: Papa, what do you want to do today?

Papa: Something new. Something different. Something I’ve never done before.

Kyra: Oooooh.

Papa: Our bodies grow old with time, but the mind is different. As long as we use it, challenge it, to our last breath, it will grow, expand, forever creating new neural pathways. It is, unlike the arm or leg, forever vibrant; but only as long as we water and sun the root and leaf.

_________

If there is a rhythm to the universe, you will know it not by effort, but the lack thereof. What is, is. Everything else, the unknown nightmare of illusion. And between the two, friction, pain. As one feels when holding desperately to a branch against the raging current. Let go, my dear one. Stop trying. The universe is a lot older than you. Trust it.

784. rounding the bend

They rounded the bend, the lake as coffee before the quiet rising sun. Trev sat upon a boulder and begin to write. Em stood behind, watching over his shoulder, occasionally kissing the top of his head. The cottage was a pastel blur from across the water and only the sound of birds accompanied the sound of his pen on paper, a sound Em had come to love, a sound unlike any other. When he finished, he tore the sheet from his notebook and handed it to her. With bowed head, she walked to the edge of the lake, soaking in the spaces between the words, swimming in his vision of present and future, of them as an us, of life blooming as only they knew it to bloom. She would later say, nothing was ever the same again.


I love you dearly. Miss you like crazy when you leave the room. Can think of nothing else but your arms, your lips, our home humming with activity, the energy positive as sun. I need to swim in your eyes and wade between your legs within that dewy blossom pink and red, tight and taut. I need to see your hair flow like rivers over the pillow as your cheeks arch before my kisses sweet. I want you in ways that would make you blush and take the words from your tongue and throw them out the window. I want you speechless of lip and expressive of face when you are asked of coffee, of us, of sheets that sing in morning light. Most of all, I want you pregnant. With our baby. I want to make you pregnant, to paint your world with colors you don't even know exist. I want you to know joy and happiness not as some occasion here and there, but as something abnormal by absence. I want you to know love, my love, as from a well everlasting, bottomless, of water cool and fresh on summer days. I want to walk us among maple leaves and stare upon the sky blue of winter to come, of autumn rustling, of hands held warm. I want your lips in the crisp of winter and your breath as plume upon me before bird and branch. I miss you. I want you. What more can I say.

love

Trev

783. just walking

Papa: What would you like to do today?

Kyra: Take a walk on the beach.

Papa: I’d like that. Anything else?

Kyra: Nope. Just you and I.

________

Em: We’ve been walking for close to an hour now and you’ve not said a word. What’s up?

Trev: Nothing’s up.

Em: Really?

Trev: You know, sometimes, I don’t want words between us. I just want your hand, your smile and the quiet of the two of us, walking, slowly.

__________

Yul: Hey Rog, want to go for a walk?

Rog: What for?

Yul: What do you mean “what for?”

Rog: Well, where are we going?

Yul: For a walk.

Rog: I know that.

Yul: No, I don’t think you do.

Puppies for Sale

I've posted this story before. Felt the need to do so again. Do you like the way I state the obvious? ;-)


A farmer had some puppies he needed to sell. He painted a sign advertising the pups and set about nailing it to a post on the edge of his yard. As he was driving the last nail into the post, he felt a tug on his overalls. He looked down into the eyes of a little boy.

"Mister," he said, "I want to buy one of your puppies."

"Well," said the farmer, as he rubbed the sweat of the back of his neck, "These puppies come from fine parents and cost a good deal of money."

The boy dropped his head for a moment. Then reaching deep into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of change and held it up to the farmer. "I've got 89 cents. Is that enough at least to take a look?"

"Sure," said the farmer. And with that he let out a whistle. "Here, Dolly!" he called.

Out from the doghouse and down the ramp ran Dolly followed by four little balls of fur. The little boy pressed his face against the chain link fence. His eyes danced with delight. As the dogs made their way to the fence, the little boy noticed something else stirring inside the doghouse.

Slowly another little fur ball appeared, this one noticeably smaller. Down the ramp it slid. Then the little pup began awkwardly wobbling toward the others, doing its best to catch up. "I want that one," the little boy said, quickly pointing to the runt.

The farmer knelt down at the boy's side and said, "Son, you don't want that puppy. He will never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would."

With that the little boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his trousers.

In doing so he revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg attaching itself to a specially made shoe. Looking back up at the farmer, he said, "You see, sir, I don't run too well myself, and he will need someone who understands."

With tears in his eyes, the farmer reached down and picked up the little pup. Holding it carefully he handed it to the little boy.

"How much?" asked the little boy. "No charge," answered the farmer, "There's no charge for love and understanding."

782. she cried, he left

Mairi had returned and her story filled the cottage through the night as if round a campfire. She had searched, village by village, town by town and he was nowhere to be found. Sitting in a small cafe one morning, he found her. They talked of what was and what was not and could never be. She cried. He left. And a cold wind seemed all that remained.

781. don't sigh me

Well, it is what it is and then it is what you think of it, said Trev.

What the hell does that mean? asked Em.

I think you think too much of things that were and things that never had a grounding beyond imagination.

Really? Is that what you think? You think my eyes deceived me? You think I don’t see what is not said between looks and touches?

No, I’m just saying there is nothing.

Look at me. I know nothing. Lived with nothing for a long time. And what I see, ain’t nothing.

Sigh.

Don’t sigh me.

780. upon the door, came a knock

They sat around the table and joined hands in silence, heads bowed, eyes closed. Ariel spoke the words of grace, her diminutive voice filled with a serenity and wisdom of word and tone beyond her eight summers. All were present save Mairi. Until, that is, upon the door, came a knock.

creation creating

To be in her arms is to be in the light of ten thousand suns, beyond heat, beyond radiation, absorbed seamlessly into the great solar wind, one again with the unfolding universe, one again with untethered being, someplace beyond you and I, this and that. Life wants to live. It wants to grow. And mostly, it wants to express through its greatest joy--creation. The purest act of life eternal.

growing together

The more we grow together, the more bitter each separation, the more poignant breathing one’s solitary air. We were not made to live alone. Sleep alone. Wake alone. You know. There is nothing natural about it.

upon the curve

She is my sun and with her the warmth of day. Without, the bitter cold wind of night. On the dark side, I know, I know somewhere that light is shinning, somewhere there are smiles, of hearts filled of her joy. So I run in place, my feet upon the earth, each step pushing, pulling rotation, to bring that light upon my horizon, see the sky lighten in mauve to pink, to know again what it is to breathe.

sigh

She is there and I am here. So don’t lecture me on hell.

BE THE ONE

779. attention

ed note: conversation between Kyra and Von, on the porch of the cottage

Papa used to take me into the woods at night. We didn’t camp. Just a long walk to a clearing where we would sit in total darkness and I would see his face only by the light of stars. Sometimes we would talk and his voice, as too mine, sounded so very different wrapped in that darkness, where the voice was for you and only you, where the only thing happening was union, connection, of one person to another. In that cocoon of night, wrapped in the heavy cloak of hushed fir, there was no multi-tasking. No talking while performing some other task. No clock of a to-do list ticking away the words. No eyes looking over your shoulder to the door or upon the desk to paper. In that place, there was just him and me, a grandfather and a granddaughter, talking.

The voice is different in that environment. Sacred. The way voice is in the great cathedrals. On some nights, of cloud, there were no stars and when Papa turned out the light, you could not see your hand in front of your face. So we sat without sight, as if with the switching off of the lamp, we had switched off our eyes, becoming blind as bats. The voice then becomes everything. The darkness is absolute. And the feeling is of sea, adrift on the great ocean. And that voice, his voice, was my tether, my belay--the words, his words, washing over me like warm waves and I floated on his stories, his lessons, his ability to paint with the tongue. Those nights, just the two of us, of attention so purely devoted of one to the other, were, then and now, as fingers in the soul, gently caressing, nourishing, healing.

As you know, Papa was one to show, not tell. Yet, on those nights, from the outside looking in, with sight taken by utter night, one would think all he had was tell. (Long pause)

But all the talking wasn’t telling, was it? asked Von.

No. The talking had nothing to do with talking. The stories told on those nights have faded, some forgotten. The lesson wasn’t in the words. It was in the act. Using the darkness to connect not person to person or grandparent to grandchild, but heart to heart and soul to soul. The power of that connection, of pure unadulterated attention paid and given, was as communion solemn, of grace bestowed, of love flowing as love can only flow as if when we sat, our two energies begin to flow, circular, from opposite directions. And at some point in the night, the circle connected and where there were two energies before, now, only one. I think he knew this. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. And you know what?

What?

It didn’t have a damn thing to do with what was said.

778. this idea of get

Into the night, long after the talking had stopped and Von had retired, Kyra rocked and her mind drifted from Trev and Em, to Papa, to Hyneria:

Where there is energy, there is motion, movement. Where there is life, too, nothing stands still. The sun rises, then sets. Rivers flow. Flowers bloom, give of themselves before fade and fall, from soil to soil, so they might say. So place your face to the sky and the warmth you feel is real. Likewise, your hand in the river or your nose to the petal. These things you can trust, this natural order of motion, of life rising and falling, living and dying, the eternal circle of infinite loop, innocent as the skipping child. In this we believe; in this we align. For in the action we find not fiction or imagination, device or design. And know this, Kyra, life wants to live, to flow, to express that which comes naturally, before there is thought, before there is want and need, lust and desire, greed and gluttony. These things are added upon. Do not be deceived. They are not part. Not life living but rather something added, like a barnacle to a ship.

This too, you must learn. Where there is effort, there is misalignment. The sun does not strive nor the river pant. With effort is friction for what fits, fits effortlessly and it is by this shadow of things that we know, by the ease and peace of fit that mirrors the ease and peace of dawn and dusk. Many will tell you otherwise. They will point to what can be achieved, constructed, built. Accumulated. Be wary. What does not move is not life. What does not move of natural ease is outside the eternal movement. You have the gift. Others will see it. But more important my dear one, you must see it. You must know it. And I say to you, you know it not by effort, not by accumulation. You know it by the unlabored flow. Release yourself into this stream. Swim with the current. Leave behind this idea of get.

777. feels good

Von: You see what I see?

Kyra: I do.

Von: Feels good doesn’t it.

Kyra: Feels like home. But yes, feels good.


Von and Kyra are sitting on the porch when Von brings up the subject of Trev and Em. She tells him about the night of the fireflies with Papa back on Valla, of how Love (with a capital L) is not an idea but an energy, something that exists beyond the mind while also in the mind. It is both within and without. No separation. As Papa might say, electrons don’t orbit without it. This Love has a heat signature. It becomes a force multiplier. The atmosphere takes on a charge. Cells reproduce as if in joy amplified, of life living as water flows and fish swim. When this Love is present, the air is perfumed with its drug. Even the most jaded quaff.

776. happy

Em: Are you happy?

Trev: Yes.

beyond

I'm in a place beyond language.

775. Aborted 2: no map, no warning

Yul sighed, begin to tap her fingers, louder and louder, nail on wood. Rog ignored her, more omission than commission. He had done something, just what he didn’t know. But it was something. He started to speak, then stopped. Started again, stopped again. Every road looked the same and none of them familiar, none of them right. So he said nothing.

Their room, later, was as quiet as his mind was not. She laid with her back turned. He sat up searching for words that would never come. Wherever they were, he had no map and contrary to her version of events, no warning either.

returning to grace

She is not a place, mood or emotion. Nor is she past, present or future. Not language or morning or night. Neither sun, rain or mist. She is not the mountains or the ocean, not land or sky, shower or rainbow. She is neither the first thing I see, nor the last. Her lips are not honeyed, soft in life’s gravity, firm of intent. Her eyes hold not the world in all its spectrum reflected. She simply is. And when I drop all the filters and labels, when I put aside need and want, lust and desire, past and future, when I am able to simply be, she simply is; and everything else I can think to say or write or do distracts, distorts and takes me away from the simplicity of her being, from that place unlike any other place, where the energy is just life as I imagine life is in those first moments, just alive. So I feel a kinship with birth, newborns my brothers and sisters. And I hope and pray their journey back to grace takes a few less years than mine.

paleographic fingers

The day dawns hushed of wind and the lake mirror smooth in reflection, silent of thought. He sits bare of shirt, the shadow of muscle taut in youth, her paleographic fingers vestigial, as too her scent. She sleeps content of face washed in morning light, only breath heard between muted birds. Each breath, of them taken, of bed warm, of pillow embraced of his shape, perfumed of his hair. To each, these thoughts, held often in the quiet of sunset or the rising of cups, sometimes the movement of pot and pan, the placing of plates before silver gleaming of candlelight. To this place of peace, walking the greens, flowered paths in witnessed hue, those quiet feet in step, the small movement of fingers touching, of looks stolen, of smiles surrendered and kisses exchanged. There is an energy in love that attracts, a naturalness that defies, a fit without effort or plan; and known it is not in proclamation, in that distant, diluted language, but in what is neither heard nor seen as much as experienced beyond the thinking mind, a language of birth, lost in age, and rarely found again.

Her eyes open blue, among rivers of time as memory is released as flowers to the sea. Toes bare of what was, together are dipped in the cleansing of passing seconds and allowed to flow into minutes and hours, never held as much as swam, no more owned than one owns the ocean. And too upon sight, a smile not asked, expresses what cannot be taken but only given, a simple gesture that touches the envy of fingers. Soon, the sound of sheets, of cotton woven of other hands as some body of white parting in the quiet whisper of reach, of flesh still warm of sleep, still tender in want, need. There is leaning and parting and what was dry, now wet, what was missing, now joined, what was needed, as water to root, rained freely, one upon the other.

in the touch

In the touch, of knee or hand or lip, sometimes of eye or whisper and even too of silence, is life, of breath breathing, of lungs filling of sun rising, of dawn dawning the day in warm tones, the streets golden, leaves glittering like sea. There are sighs that feel like lapping waves in summer and caresses slow as feathered quill looping thoughts into place, of the wayward calf gently guided back home, of the light upon the porch burning as beacon the way. She is the water to my fish, the air to my bird and how I swim or fly without her is beyond my comprehension. The world becomes literal. Moments, so rare, are seen clearly and held precious, each a bubble swirling and floating kaleidoscopic whirlpools upon its rising sphere where dreams live in the gloss of an eye held in heart’s sight.

I have not written much of late for how does one write of what cannot be written, where the attempt falls as knees upon concrete and the hands bleed as labor swings the hammer unheard upon the nail not seen. She is the lumber of my world and everything is built upon a shared foundation, of walls that welcome and not exclude, of windows that hold the rain and smile the light of day, quietly, without fanfare, this natural movement of sunlight upon hardwood floor, upon the table with two cups and two chairs facing the garden, of life awakening and all is seen, sun and rain, as life living those irreplaceable moments, where magic happens in unspoken togetherness.

In this touch, as sun on the face in late afternoon, the glow of day exhaling the way to dusk, is warmth and nothing other. A place where smiles bloom as flowers, nourished above and below what is known, as roots grow deeper in a farmer’s rain, in fertile soil rich in all that is needed and nothing that is not. As the flower needs not wail or whine or jump and wave, too this expression of life in flower, in bloom, in the smile of petal hueing the day, need not attention called, or word written or voice calling.

coming together

He watched her walk. Of nimbus light, of shadow envious, elegant, graceful. By ache and pain, he knew, by smilie and metaphor worn, by years paid in crow's feet and lips dry of words held. More than a quarter century, gone. The best years of their lives, lost. Like cliff pounded into the debris of regret.

There she was, there, walking, as she had always walked, diminutive curve of back, slight forward rotation of pelvis, straw-hued hair brushing delicate white shoulders. There was a quiver of cheek as arms opened, reached. The circle closing, fingers lacing, as lips to water opened, once torn from time, healing, coming together.

She sat across, looking away, hands trembling. Her coffee not touched, a faint smell of cream and sugar rising with the morning. The cacophony of breakfast broke around them as he reached to steady her hands, to know again their touch, to take the measure of skin, bone, time and memory. She stole glances. Her eyes wide, blue as sky, still. And they spoke of things past not spoken, of letters written not read. Sentence by sentence, slowly pealing back layers of darkness; words freed from wanting lips; the breath of light, of day seen, lived, walked.

In places, memory clear. In others, one held the other, kindly, with care, words chosen thoughtfully along the tightrope of reunion. Single steps, each, magnified. Opening the possibility of another, another gesture of touch or word or sometimes just a look. And most blessedly, there was silence too, moments of peaceful coexistence, solemn as vespers among varnished wood and leathered stone.

some other window

Do we not seek the divine in everything? Seeking is free. Why would we seek any less in any thing?

So when we are together, I look for a touch, a glance, a word, the language of a sigh, of eyes not looking seen, the braille of muscle, bone and skin. Sometimes it is the tilt of the head. The curve of a smile felt in the heart. Dopamine floods my neural pathways. The body relaxes as upon a summer lake floating. Cognition of pain is absent. Tear ducts dry. Production shut down. With presence, sunlight, dawn, day and blue sky. And as no rain falls without clouds, her atmosphere is clear to the horizon. The body itself has travelled, been touched of eolian time. Skin is not as it was nor will it ever be, as it was. Those years have passed. Recorded. Put away. Yet the inner lip has not changed of hue or glisten, some last holdout in youthful amaranth. So too the eyes rimmed in memory, wet of hope or loss or dream is not known but for the seeking, the needing of that touch as one might imagine a newborn, not knowing, but needing to be held, touched, suckled in union of mother in child. Sighs are released like balloons escaping from young hands unexpectedly. Beautiful in quiet release, forever rising into the pale cloudless heavens. In these moments, the language is not of words and sometimes not of touch or even looking. Some other window has opened. And the breeze is as nothing other than pure light.

outside my window

Outside my window, just beyond the computer screen, sits a beautiful house with a beautiful young family. A mom, a dad and a small child. I spend a lot of time on my computer. Always my screen framed by that house, by their comings and goings, this young family and their beautiful house. And this is where I just can't type anymore.

__________


They just came out. Shorts and baseball caps. Mom loading the little boy in his car seat. The dad wearing flip-flops. I watch him lock the house door. And then the car backing out. The three of them. Where are they going? Did they plan it? Were there discussions? And I wonder if they know of their day as I know of it? I wonder if they are able to live this life in awareness? Funny the worlds we create, each a separate universe of our own heaven or hell. Each unique to the interior of our psyche.

I see them in sun, like today, and rain, like yesterday. Always from the front door to the car. The little boy must be two, maybe three years old. Hair shorn, a little man living his little life and although we see the same sky, I couldn't feel more apart, his reality and mine.

to look upon her

I need to look upon her. And the thought occurs I can add nothing more. In her, I see my world entire. Past, present, future. And in her, life. From her golden hair to her pale grey eyes with flecks of blue sky. She smiles in the purest form of brow arching and cheek rising. Her skin has aged. I suspect in life more than time. But the eyes, her eyes, remain as they were. Brilliant flawless sapphires. I feel them upon me; mostly when I am not looking. When I catch her unafraid to look, before she looks away, again. Imagination perhaps, but in that moment, less than a second, I see what can't be said. I see the wideness of wonder that belies the passage of time and it is in these singular moments, so fleeting, so flutteringly delicate that I stare without blinking, the muscles of my face released of tension and time itself seems without measure or court or even sense.

The minutes between us flow into hours and the hours blend an afternoon of muted sounds and faded colors along the periphery, everything other, blissfully out of focus. I notice the youthful wet flesh of her lower lip as it presses my thumb, recording my warmth from her held hand. And through it all, she looks with limpid eyes, felicity in the linger, her breath warm. A warmth soon inside me, and I notice the seesawing of our breath, the rhythm found as naturally as sea to cove. There is no effort, no trying, no attempt to do or be and at times, no thought either. Lips simply fall one into the other as diver to ocean, a quiet falling of fate's gravity with nary a splash. And as the ocean torn is healed, so it is when she finds me. And within her, as within the sea, I find a serenity known not on land.