Soybean rows paved the fields in tan shades heralding by their dryness a nearing harvest; a crop, a cycle, the promise of a fulfillment. A lean, overalled old man paced his fields; squatting, testing multiple plants’ dryness. A taciturn self can’t hide the bliss of Harvest.
A seventeen-year-old boy has harvested, with, according to companions, “extreme happiness,” a young, rare albino antelope. Ask about the hunt, the harvester said, “I‘m was so happy! I couldn’t git a breath!” Culls blood runs thick-red over white hair.
“News! Breaking news! News just for you! An illicit harvesting may have just occurred! Apparently, the Harvester did not issue any notifications prior to this culling and states his intent was to ‘totally eradication, not just persecution, these sordid ethic beast’”.
The old man saw her the moment he pulled into the the convenience store parking lot at the four-way stop; by the dumpster; a frail, hollowed creature hardly able to stand. “Fuck!” He made his way inside trying not to glance at her again. He decided on a twelve pack instead of six and a liter of Sweet Red and slowly with practiced care made his way back to the car. He wasn’t going to look but he did. “Fuck fuck”! She was lying by the dumpster now, still in the hot sun, struggling to raise her head. He bumped his forehead against the steering wheel, really too hard, trying to activate some sense which was he knew not going to happen.
Again, slowly, he left the car and opened the rear passenger door. Leaving it open he made his way to the dumpster talking dog talk. The old dog seemed aware of his intentions and stilled her head on the ground obviously hoping for good, but ready, he could see it in her eyes, to accept whatever. She was blackish, short-haired with mangy spots and gruesomely starved. The old man grunted in pain as he tried to lift the now limp fur-bag of dangling bones. She whimpered a bit as he managed to lift her. Making it up with a jerk but still hunched over, the dogs shameful light weight pulled him forward and downward as he stumbled toward the open car door. But the four-way stop and some dumbass, forever unknown, intervened; blaring horns and a loud crash of metal caused him to jerk his head up, offsetting his balance. Knowing what was coming, with all he had, he tried to twist his body around as he fell, to protect her.
When he hit, the back of his head bounced twice against the hot asphalt. The dog, though trembling, was still in his arms and he knew they had survived, for the moment. The raucous in the streets fell to silence. Everything did. There was nothing but the feel of his clutched bundle; the touch sense was strangely familiar, soothing, like a reoccurring dream; one he did not want to abandon. Gradually, sound seeped back, and it was the running, gurgling of creek water. Singing Creek ran as always washing, polishing its precious stones formed over millenniums. The cold water sliding over his feet, as he carefully tested with his toes the slickness of each stepping stone, soothed him. Beth was there, too, but not being so careful. She was doing more of a stumbling dance, skinny arms flying about mimicking what he did not know. She seemed distracted by the cute kid with his assumed dad across the creek on the falls viewing platform. “Careful Honey. It will get slicker the further we go. Do you know that boy?
"A little.”
“Is a little enough?”
“Jeeze! dad!”she scolded him with her 11-year-old mind your own damn business face.
“I love you too!” he smiled.
They reached the huge boulders that formed the lip of the falls. The actual falling part was a narrow surge in the center and dropped maybe six feet during wet season. They had walked the trail to the north bank. From that side the boulders sloped down to creek level and were less smooth and polished, even jagged in spots with only enough water trickling over them to keep them slick. Beth, a resolute non-swimmer avoided the center, and continued her unscripted, flirting dance. He knew he should warn her again, but he had really never seen her so out of herself. He hardly recognized his daughter, normally so quiet, meek, even sullen at times. Of course, it only took one tiny, slimy slick of Diatoms to create havoc. Beth, her arms shooting straight up, gasped, but he was close enough to grab her and they fell together onto the sloping, sculpted granite. He managed to land on his back. A snaggy protrusion tore into his left shoulder, stealing his breath. Beth was immediately fighting his tight grip, struggling for release. “What are you doing?” she screamed. He couldn’t find air to ask if she was ok, but he released her squirming body, and she did an immediate crawling run to the bank. Still on his back, his eyes followed her struggling escape and he saw blood on her knees and saw her calling to him, again with a scolding face, but the sounds were a blasphemous cacophony foreign to the quiet, reverent creek.
Horn blares bashed the old man’s head while his eyes squinted against the harsh sun. The dog, still in his clutch, was quiet. He rolled to look at his car only a few feet away. No one was around them. Releasing his grip, he slid the dog to the pavement and grunted his way to his knees and then to his feet. Grasping the dogs rear feet, whose eyes were still open and darting with awareness, he dragged her to the opened door without resistance. With one stooping movement and another stuttering grunt, he grasped the dog; half lifting, half dragging, heaving her into the seat. Sirens screamed in their approach. The only unblocked exit from the store was south and he quickly took it before it too was blocked. Half a mile south and he turned left starting a swing north towards the vet clinic.
When he reached for the lease hanging by the door Old Dog was immediately there; her untrimmed nails keeping time to her clumsy-jumpy dance on the hardwood floor. His phone rang. “Shit!” It was Beth who he hadn’t actually seen in over three years. He plopped back down into his chair. Old Dog, disappointed, lay her gray muzzle on his knee. “Hey Honey, how you doing? I thought you died.”
“Not yet. We ‘re still apartment bound. We even get our groceries delivered and we are doing the HelloFresh meals thing. We haven’t been out in maybe three weeks. It’s still terrible down here, so many cases and they are redoing the apartments landscaping so there is noise constantly. It’s hard to get any work done.”
“IT nerds have a rough life don’t they?”
“Ha ha! How are you doing? Bob told me you fell trying get a dog or something. You’re eighty…eighty something, now? You need to be more careful.”
“That was months ago and no big deal. I’ve got a new best friend I have to take out dancing all the time.”
“Dancing! You?”
“It is a metaphor, honey.”
“Oh, one of them thangs.”
Old dog’s eyes lit up at the ensuing silence.
“You two need to get out. Move back to the mountains. Come and see me. OK?”
“Maybe someday.”
Another silence.
“Some ones knocking at the door and the dog has got to go out and pee.”
“I’ll let you go. My emails going crazy, anyway. Love you!”
“Love you, too!”
Sorry I told a lie in front of you. Maybe, you do have to pee. Hey, let’s drive down to the lake. I know this cool creek that flows over a small falls and into the lake. I haven’t been there in probably forty-something years. I want to see if is as I remember or if my mind is playing with me. We can walk to it if we take it slow. We have water bottles in the car. Want to go?
Old Dog did her butt wiggling, nail tapping dance in the affirmative. The old man’s mind was on the fall. He wondered if Beth remembered the fall at the falls. Surely she would; he knew she was just like him, never forgetting or letting go of a moment like that. Why had she stomped off up the trail leaving him in her wake of anger? Embarrassment in front of the kid across the creek? Could it be that simple? He knew he would never know because he would never ask, and she would never tell.
An apiarist, a priest and a carpenter walked into a bar.
OK. What happened then?
A cellist walked in, opened his cello case and killed those three with his AR-15.
OK. Why just those three?
As a child he was stung by a bee, reprimanded by a priest and his father was a carpenter.
OK. Was that his trial defense?
No. He was never caught and the three weren’t regulars at the bar, anyway.
OK. Did you just make all that up?
What’s your job? You’re new here aren’t you? Got to go. Due at the Symphony Hall.
with the flow’s blasting bellow of life heard only
mutely by us, whispering under our constant din
of rants, proclamations and squeals of whiny ills.
As the river scrounges, ravishing, stealing
fish cavern walls from beneath its own banks
that hinder the flow it knows no purpose only
the god of movement’s flood. Stopping is death.
The mother oak by strength and massive reach
commands her hill only by chance and entrée
by tenacious grasp of Gaia’s breast sucking
the flow of mother’s milk. Her mammoth face
in breeze sings praise. The flow, not by beat,
but by constancy plays the melody of her song.
This is a slightly revised version of a poem originally posted in October 2012. I am slowly adding photos to each old post and, in a sense, reliving past memories and experiences; some sweet, some not so much.
Memories do blanch, change, claim nonexistence
but one still remains clear as a straight razor edge.
1953 probably. 1st grade, small wood, rural rental
with an old outhouse...but we had running water!
At my new school we had "duck and cover" drills and
every Sunday service the preacher screamed at me
words directly from God; if deemed an unbeliever,
I would endure forever a lake of fire and brimstone.
My dreams of fire came at night way before I slept.
I knew my small bed and handmake quilts offered
no protection, only a sweaty taste of fire to come
as I clutched them in fear tightly around my neck.
One way or the other, I was destined to be burned,
alive by The Bomb or by my inability to accept gods will;
to be a red seething char like those in our coal stove,
only screaming with all the others in our agony.
I am no longer six. I am 76. Accepting the inevitable
is a process accomplished by most; a natural process,
not taught in schools. I went to a funeral home today
and purchased a prepaid cremation plan. Hello, Fire!
A resident, new to me, chair-paddled into the room
with long, flat feet padded in doubled hospital socks.
Enthralled by the new arrivals face, I fell to silence,
allowing mother to resume her private communion
with her other son unseen by either of us in 15 years.
The new she, yes, a she, floated diaphanously in, as
if fresh from the make-up trailer on a movie set of a
ghost-tale or a horror flick, ready to kill her scenes;
mumbling the lines of her lone perfected character
oblivious to all but her muse and her scripted tale.
Huge cheekbones drooped to tiny, pointed chin;
all sheathed in the thinnest, palest of white skin
fragile as a gossamer clouds feel. Corn silk hair,
white not golden, clung scantily to a slick scalp.
But the eyes, her eyes dispelled my brief fantasy.
Her eyes, a Matisse light-blue commingling with
sparks of light whiter than God, danced with joy,
speaking a stunning, rare tongue of their own as she
listened and conversed with her invisible visitor who
sat, stood, hovered joyously confirming all her truths.
The words her visitor showered on her could not be
belittled. All were accepted without doubt as true:
professions of love, devotion, her reimagined life.
Raising, then lowering her hands daintily, her eyes
and mumblings fell silent. She chair-paddled away.
Mother's head lifted, her own excited eyes shining;
Your brother just spoke to me! He and two other men
have been traveling the world all these past years!
His friends pay for everything! He said to tell you Hi!
Offering a weak side to side hand wave, I said, Hi!
Once again, the Final Edit begins;
a rearrangement...Cut...Copy...Paste...Delete
and regretted words are revised, changed...denied.
Perhaps, they or I said that but meant the other;
new words I just remembered; was it just a joke!
Ha! Ha! Did I appear to be laughing?
Anyway: a beginning is always the beginning
and the ending is never, ever really the ending.
All Vegan of course! Eggplant Roulade with Sweet Potato Cheese Sauce and Bread and Butter Pickles
Fuzz saw, no, smelled it first, the cruel pile
of dumped vegetables across our street's ditch
in brushes edge. A couple of deep sniffs and,
not enthralled, he yanked my leash to leave.
Vegetables, still pee-free, were not enticing.
"Waite!" I snapped, offering a Milk Bone to halt
retreat. Cucumbers, yellow squash, even eggplant
lay among a scattering of pinkish sweet potatoes.
Inspecting the trove, I found only one eggplant
past saving; the rest lay yearning for fruition.
The suspect perps live across the street, but
were gone. "Dammit!" I wanted them to witness my
smile as I stuffed three cucumbers in my pockets
and hastily returned with an Ingles bag to save
the discarded; glorying in my self-righteous.
Tofu and Eggplant Stir-fryBread and Butter Pickles
Yellow Squash Casserole with Sweet Potato Cheese Sauce.
Having neither reference nor degree
I’m untethered to roam, to render free,
my taste, my smell, my guts in poetry or song:
iambs so sweet or sugary rhyme,
or esoteric muddle out of time.
The choice is mine as is the reward;
to grin, to whisper, “Yes! Yes!” at rare
sweet morsels of insight, of pithy delight.
Too modest-shy to claim the honor “Poet”,
I’ll wait for it to be bestowed, or not,
and labor quiet, content, secure, alone.
If when I’m gone, melted but for bone,
a soul, naïve or informed, should say,
“He was a poet you know”, I’ll bone clack
in my eternal sleep and hiss through dust
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”
It’s hard to believe this blog has been around for eleven years. My Anthem was included in my first post and still residues on the About page. It expresses what I felt then, what I still do and hopefully will as long as I can maintain some semblance of cognition. Belated Words has helped me through many tough times like those we all must endure.
Drenching us in golden sheets of birthing scents
Gaia rustles us awake, aware to lift our heads
and sniff her tactile sky of soothing intoxicates.
We close our smiling eyes, caressing the moment.
Kakia too does lift her nose to sniff, but fearing
being seen, quickly jerks her head away to hide
that twinge of delight she so distains and denies;
her repressed smile contorts her face in pain.
But Gaia sees all; even those flickers of Hope on
Kakia's face and ours before we try to cast them aside;
to be buried in our vaults of need and greed.
All allures could not blanch todays golden sheets.
Belated Words 