The Old Mule

My California friend begins with so. Each time. So, sea rocks off Oregon, bent in to the dropped west glow, nothing except "sit" and "walk" and "unfold the blanket..."-- trail from the fogged coastal back-way through thickets, sand myrtle, set up a place beyond the dunes, before the tide. Define your terms. Dune: a haven from wave; blanket: a way of getting out of the house; sit: to move about. Be there for a bit since tomorrow is Friday, the best night of a man's life (when he has a woman), and (when the woman is deciding what to wear). Hangers on the bed, standing in her underwear. Jeans, a shirt, a long shower -- "underwater". Underwater: a method of a-rous-al. Men think of all this and it makes them happy. So the tide changes, Friday still, but the boat leaks. Damn. No, no, everything is "fine". Fine: fine. We dig heals into sand. Past dunes, before water. Not really "leak". But l-e-a-k: to take off your socks.  What is the way farther out, with the large galloping sea-tails. Sonar locution, the message sprung from the trunk of blue whales.  Trust me, it can be a brine-heavy "eroses". Eroses: the swift pull of a risen oar. Compass marks the rise: south, east, now north...we watched the sun go down. Coos Bay. Midnight, November. Welcome to giving thanks. 

It is 5:00 am, dark, cold outside, and I lying on my bed with a broken back. This is just the worst thing to happen to a man who is intent on not sitting still. I move with severe pain and can not get comfortable. I have 8 weeks of this, at least. Of course, I feel thankful it was not worse. Easily could have been worse. One centimeter and it would have been terrible. On Thursday I broke 4 vertebra. Rushed to the hospital. I kept telling the doctor it felt just in the muscle, just muscular, right? He would not answer me and I knew it was bad. CT scan showed what I know now -- L1 - L5 transverse process broken. Needless to say it was a long weekend. I feel thankful for those who have shown such true kindness. Now I will dream up some adventure or another, some plan to get me far out of the bed. Maybe Alaska. Spring. Or something to look forward to in late winter: Mexico. Always there.

 

 

I have been reading the Journals of John Cheever. I am captivated by this insight, this great coverage of life, and the keen observations of a man with his back against the wall. Every now and then I stumble across a passage that I just love. It is not thunder, but a subtle instinct that will haunt your mind:

By John Cheever --

Very humid. The air over the Hudson Valley is like a discolored fog. A baneful sun is reflected in the window of the hardware store. I sit on the terrace reading about the torments of Scott Fitzgerald. I am, he was, one of those men who read the grievous accounts of hard-drinking, self-destructive authors, holding a glass of whiskey  in our hands, the tears pouring down our cheeks. Thunder at three. The old dog trembles, and is so frightened that she vomits. The wind slams some doors within the house, and I smell the rain, minutes before it begins to fall on my land. What I smell is the smell of damp country churches, the back hallways of houses where I was contented and happy, privies, wet bathing suits – an odor, it seems, of joy. When Fitzgerald drops dead, I burst into tears, as I wept over the account of Dylan Thomas’ death. This morning I cannot remember anything that occurred after dinner.

Galveston, 1961

by Richard Wilbur

You who in crazy-lensed

Clear water fled your shape,

By choppy shallows flensed

And shaken like a cape,

Who gently butted down

Through weeds, and were unmade,

Piecemeal stirring your brown

Legs into stirred shade,

And rose, and with pastel

Coronas of your skin

Stained swell on glassy swell,

Letting them bear you in:

Now you have come to shore,

One woman and no other,

Sleek Panope no more,

Nor the vague sea our mother.

Shake out your spattering hair

And sprawl beside me here,

Sharing what we can share

Now that we are so near—

Small talk and speechless love,

Mine being all but dumb

That knows so little of

What goddess you become

And still half-seem to be,

Though close and clear you lie,

Whom droplets of the sea

Emboss and magnify.

It’s a quick turn back to spark,

light. Fire again. November and

the hickory trees are in their own

flame, we cross the fertile black

Spring Creek in the truck this Sunday,

park by the river and walk beneath

the clear bright sky, the sky of all

that came before is behind me now.

This is an air of setting out with new

breaths not yet soiled by lungs, but

sprung from the center of this holding

earth, wrapped in mats of cool fall

grass and earth-bound inhale, exhale,

send your wishes from the shores,

we have pushed off, now we paddle.

Here is an outstanding poem by Philip Levine. As a wayward young man I had the most difficult time figuring a way in to life. Or, at least a way in that did not compromise every stitch of who I was. This strange life is still a peculiar struggle. And "a burned world" indeed. How did we all get so far off track, away from who and how we were really meant to be? How do we get back? I am thinking more and more seriously about taking to a cabin, sharpening my knives, bringing a hunting rifle and cane poles. What really is there to lose?

-- 

by Philip Levine

At Bessemer

 

19 years old and going nowhere,

I got a ride to Bessemer and walked

the night road toward Birmingham

passing dark groups of men cursing

the end of a week like every week.

Out of town I found a small grove

of trees, high narrow pines, and I

sat back against the trunk of one

as the first rains began slowly.

South, the lights of Bessemer glowed

as though a new sun rose there,

but it was midnight and another shift

tooled the rolling mills. I must

have slept awhile, for someone

else was there beside me. I could

see a cigarette's soft light,

and once a hand grazed mine, man

or woman's I never knew. Slowly

I could feel the darkness fill

my eyes and the dream that came was

of a bright world where sunlight

fell on the long even rows of houses

and I looked down from great height

at a burned world I believed

I never had to enter. When

the true sun rose I was stiff

and wet, and there beside me was

the small white proof that someone

rolled and smoked and left me there

unharmed, truly untouched.

A hundred yards off I could hear

cars on the highway. A life

was calling to be lived, but how

and why I had still to learn.

November

Sunday alone, memory

descends. Listen to the record

of her song. Woman in a bath.

I relate to this past in soundless

pictures. Woman on a bike.

Movement now. Down-stairs.

Woman gone. Sunday alone, quiet

descends. Fall limbs wave winded

through after-rain night. Short breaths,

sounds now. A fire, book of songs.

Barred owl breaks dark, a call

from beyond. Quiet descends.

Chapter three, In Search of Flight.