Sand and Water

(A poem written while Rita and I visited Omaha Beach in Normandy, France this spring. The situation is fictitious, by the way. We were tired, but not 'warring'.)

She and I came warring to this beach of our fathers’ generation,
A place of ocean sand a world afar, a time too far too far away,
When hating hate fused man to machine in tragic and scheming play;
Old Fortinbras' revenge renewed, inglorious for ev’ry nation.

Here, bloodied waters wash healing salts ashore, ne’er anemic, ever fading;
Memories vicarious give context to mine, shrouded in muted powers;
And, bone-white sentinels of cross and star stand for eternal hours,
Invoking God’s honor in borrowed nave, peace and promise persuading.

Her sandied feet bruised and wearied press this Norman earth now new;
Prints of heal and toe o’erlay the booted soles inclined toward death,
Liberating her, convicting me while entwining our envisionous breath:
Lo, the saviors up dying dune in duty, in love, they submit for me.

I kneel to wash her feet; a friend, a mate more sacred than before,
Beatified bride unveiled by crucified pride to love and war no more.

Son of Thunder

Thunder rattled me out of slumber. Rain pounded the roof, and lightning flashes lit up the lightening sky of a near-solstice June morning. I love the cadence of rain, stirred by the bass of booming thunder. I always have . . .

. . . As a boy, I grew fond of the change a storm generously gave to my melancholy of a day. Without human cause or prompt, an incredible transformation would occur without warning and, sometimes, within mere seconds, the universe was alive. Such power, such blessing, such striking danger. I would willingly succumb in awe, teetering between fear and love.

. . . Living by a lake is, yes, wonderful, but when it’s your first home, your honeymoon year couldn’t be any sweeter. A cabin made essentially of reclaimed materials – flooring from a school gym, a discarded wood stove, top-hinged windows that would swing out from the bottom so rain couldn’t enter even when the storm’s wind wall would fall – it was simple, yet there was an unexplainable elegance that sheltered our first year together. The life forces of water, wood, flora and fauna synergized here. And when a storm would arise from across the lake and sweep its way into ‘our’ cove, the world was relieved of its accumulated stains and Eden lay cleansed. On early mornings much like today’s, my soul-mate and I would lie in our bed bare and honest and free, secure in each other and ourselves while thunder rolled over the waters and the rain dripped through the tree-neighbors in slow, even rhythms, as our hearts beat as one. I can think of few finer moments.

. . . That night remains with me to this day, though it’s been some many years ago when, as we do every year, our family pitched tent and lived beneath the canopy of towering sycamores. (Modern man fools only himself when he goes camping. Finding his path-place far from his instincts, he beckons their companionship in the recreational, self-imposed vacuum of his own inventions. He soon tires, though, of his own smell, the pains in his back, and runs home to a hot shower and a soft bed!) In the middle of night, the valley shook with unmuffled thunder. Steadily, my fathers’ equation became easier, and the distance between light and sound narrowed. The eye of Zeus raged directly over us, and the universe exploded. No flash of lightning could be ignored; every note of harmonic thunder resonated with clarity; the percussionist was in rare form. My senses were afire, and mind, body and soul fused with my surroundings. I was gloriously alone, lying shelterless between earth and the heavens, between my surrogate mother and my Father, the Creator of all . . . even me.

I arose wet with the remembrances of Being there.

Dear Selekoni

I feel separated from life today. It could be that the feeling is more acute than yesterday and the day before and maybe the day before that, but I’ve slept since. The question is . . . Is this separation, this alienation, of my choosing or has it been pressed upon me? I think I need to know. You see, I don’t recall choosing; yet, I suspect this reoccurring ache of discomfort comes from a growing list of gentleman’s agreements I’ve made with, well, someone I don’t recall meeting.

I say I’m separated from ‘life’, but I use that in a general way, a way of escape when I don’t really know what it is. You say ‘describe it’. Here’s what it’s not: It’s not my physical being, yet I’m aware of a distinction between dust and breath. It’s not the going-on’s of others, for I’ve come to care little for that which others care too much. And, though, I tend to dwell there often, it’s not even the realm of ideas, for Plato beckons me to his Being World, but I tire these days of a trip with no destination.

The Existentialists would counsel me that it is Being that I crave. The church counts my days of absence and tallies my sins. Psychologists declare me depressed, repressed, over-confessed, and assumes such separation-angst symptomatic of an unfulfilled dream.

Perhaps it is all a dream, a lullabyed existence. Have I slept all this time? Forty-five years can go quickly when dreams are deep, desirous, and distracting. All I need to do is awake.

It's About Time

Today, I've taken the 'Cary Joice blog challenge'; something I needed to do years ago. Thoughts now turn to words, which is the real challenge in this. Ideas come easily for me; words too often hide. So, I need to coax them out of my cave, protected -- but also encouraged -- by today's public square anonymity. Still, you who know me . . . or those who will, if you so choose . . . will see my heart written on this virtual sleeve. So I write. It's about time.