going home

I was born in Lynchburg, Virginia. Small town then. Smallish now. Besides being my birthplace and its atrocious name, it is probably best known for its intrepid cleric--one Jerry Falwell and his more reasonable extension, Liberty University.

The year was 1975. The month was December. The day was the fourteenth of thirty-one--not quite middling.

Within a couple of years, I left Lynchburg behind for the larger town of Richmond where I spent ten years bicycling, shoplifting, collecting baseball cards, playing a variety of tags, whining, and being average at sports, above average at school, and below average at having friends--which was fine because I had a big brother and, before long, three little ones. Life, on average, was good. And, as it turns out (having witnessed and heard-tell of other lives) far, far too good for complaints.

Today, I am leaving for Lynchburg. My birthplace. For a funeral. Too easily ironic to elaborate the irony. In fact, I am troubled to find that my feelings about the trip are ones of alternating hesitation and resignation.

But why? Well . . . I suppose there's my natural aversion to dolor and its wont of sucking one into its melancholic juices, there to marinate until dour, until sour with thoughts of one's own mortality. Thoughts I've overthought already. Already having brushes near enough to taste. (In my experience, that particular taste is sweet, the moment calm, the resignation so pure as to obviate all hesitation. But this irony too is almost too blah to mention.)

What else? Well . . . there's the fact that the uncle for whom the bell tolled is the one I've interacted with the least over the years. (35 since 1975 [he calculated unnecessarily]). So there's a sense that among the nearer family members I will feel somehow unworthy of bereavement. That somehow, when I go to hug a cousin or an aunt, there will be a coolness in my touch that bespeaks my absence from their lives. On one hand, this is a bogus thought. An imaginary exclusion. But on the other hand, I believe there is something to it. Not a bad thing and certainly not a good thing but just a thing. A thing that makes you feel that way without offering excuse or implicating its agency. Just an icky, unavoidable thing.

Anything more? Not much. I'm not a fan of the shrinkray of adulthood. The redoubtable influence of time over matter. The squish of youth beneath the heels of experience. The verdant football yard now barely a swatch of brown grass.

Oh, and I hate, with a capital HATE, car trips. Anything over thirty minutes really sticks in my craw--which is saying a lot because otherwise I have no craw to speak of for all that I know. Craws are like the appendices that way. Unnoticeable until molested. In that case, craws are also like one's feeling upon going home. Not just for a funeral but for an encounter with the living. The rest of us. The flesh-wrapped skeletons, still warm from birth.

an unopen letter

Ether,

My brain weighs more than my mind. By degrees of nth. Fury. Hell hath. Paths of righteousness. This, that, the other. thhh . . . and what else since then? Oysters, verses, cloisters versus clam shells and all that remains are the acorns and the sweet-gum balls and the bare feet she finds them with. She? Me. I mean her in mean on average is me. Median--where the wildflowers are. Mode--in which you operate. Method . . .check. Madness . . . double check. Plaid . . . checked, paislied, argyled, tweeded. Beguiled and needed you for disenchantment. You? Me.

In other news, the ship sank. Down deep where the stars are so many the night is just pricks of black. Back in the day, slack-jawed, ship high on roils, embroils the captain and the mate. And the fate. Of all. Of all who sail. Who fail. Quail? A bird and an option. Sink. With the ship--the glory and the madness. Check. Down deep. China. Australia. Hell. Deep down. The furies. Sirens. Muses. Confuse the effort for the win. The platter for the trophy. One's the dish, the other's the Baptist. Salome of the veils. Fails.

Seriously, though, I love you. My mind is full of you. My brain even fuller. Petrarch here has something to say. To do with lilies. Calla lilies. Floating on water. Ophelia. Rosemary for remembrance. Honestly, though, I remember you. With flowers. Wild ones. On average.

Still,

Jonathan

P. S. I have the shirt you gave me. The flannel one. Oh, and that quill feather. It has alit. For good. Kisses.

yet my jogging days

Sometimes, New Friend, I consider my capabilities. What are my strengths; what are my handicaps? Almost immediately to mind and for as long as anyone can remember; my two or three cups of tea have been of the cerebral variety. Which is to say, as a child and youth, I spent a lot of time in the woods familiarizing myself with loneliness--unless you count the squirrels and caterpillars. But being alone was fine; it gave me time to consider. Things. Stuff. Whatnot. The stuff of science and poetry--the abstract made tactile, odoriferous, enumerable. From such a springboard, my trajectory could hardly shoot me anywhere but where I landed. Where did I land? In college studying literature and philosophy. (In gymnastic terms, one might say I "stuck the landing," too--given the virtual decade I haunted the information-stained walls of my two alma maters. Ha--that sounds like a sitcom. My Two Alma Maters. Something to do with lesbianism and awkwardness . . . hmmm . . . I'll think about it . . . )

On the other hand, what of my physical strengths? Do I have any? Have I ever had any? Short answer: No. Long answer: No, not really. Longer answer: Sure, with four brothers, I spent a good deal of time playing sports and engaged in less organized physical activity. And I have the scars to prove it. And the lingering psychological torments. Going to small private schools afforded me the opportunity of starting on basketball teams. Because my six-feet of height was good enough to earn me a role under rim grabbing boards and slinging elbows. Sadly, I averaged about four points a game--abysmal for someone who often had the ball directly under the rim. For the most part, my athletic achievements were of the participatory variety.

So that's the background but where am I today? Cerebrally--essentially where I have been immemorially. That is, engrossed in things, stuff, and whatnot. Sometimes happily, sometimes begrudgingly. And physically? Well, I can muster a reasonable round of golf and lift piddling nieces and nephews over my head for a few giddy moments.

I have an old poem, New Friend, that arose from one of these moods of mine--this self-evaluation, of sorts. I think you might like it. You strike me as the intergalactic type.



On the Intergalactic Distribution of Talents

Light echoes star to star.
Time groans deeply in worm-
Holes like a tuba.
Five years to tie my first laces.

Hydrogen huddles and breaks
Into everything. Particles fox-
Trot, waltz and tango.
Six months and I manage a two-step.

Perennial Maypole of spiraling
Suns. Earth wobbles but never
Falls Down.
Yet my jogging days are over.

my mood tonight

Fast Falling Star

You are not who

They say you are,

But this is no fault

Of your own.

Is that why you

Flare and disintegrate?

Are you sad and now

It’s too late?

Slow Falling Leaf

You move as if you intend

To take your doubt

To the grave.

As if, absent some proof

Of breeze, you will

Meet your end

Happily whenever you happen

To reach it.