Back Again

To Nathan and Brittany by your sister with love

A clock hung on the kitchen wall facing the dining room table. From the twelve, the second hand ticked around the face in rhythmic, perpetual clicks. Outside the night was a gradient of blackness and the moon shone through like a dimly set ceiling light. The sound of ticking echoed off the wallpaper along with the humming of the refrigerator and the crack of the settling floorboards. In a bedroom across the hall, someone whispered, “I love you,” then added, “to the moon and back.” And the second hand on the kitchen clock circled its face again.

To the moon and back again, like ocean waves, never arriving, but always changing, always in motion, tracking the rhythm of the universe like a child letting her head fall back as she is thrown into the air and repeats, “again, again!” Like a tiny bird leaving its perch, clumsily spiraling with gravity, sensing a violent impact before—there they are. The moment the meaning of flight is understood and wind is felt between the feathered armpits of small magnificent wings. Vital repetition carries the momentum, wings pumping air like two hearts beating in perfect rhythm.

And you will go back again, because you, like everything else, are an infinity of seconds, some capsizing, others beating so subtly they’re hardly real. Like the breathing of the water’s tides and the beating of birds’ wings you will rise and fall back again, a motion like the second on the clock’s face; there, a moment, a snapshot, a long inhale of movement. See the wave, its foaming edges, its sprawling momentum across the ocean’s surface, then back again, into the water, a rush of sound subsiding, giving out an enormous sigh before disappearing into the sea.

And in between a breath, the initial inhale, the moment the wave surfaces and wings feel the meaning of flight, that’s where life and love and possibility exists, where you both exist. It’s every moment your eyes open at twelve AM and she’s laying there beside you. It’s the second a smile spreads across his face when you reach over and hold his hand in both of yours. Inhale, “I love you to the moon,” a moment as thick as the tick on the kitchen clock. Then the respire, the sweet release, exhale, “and back,” a wave merging into infinity, a bird mingling with gravity, before rising up again.    

..

..
dm

Dear Grandpa

Grandpa, you were probably wearing a dark blue jean collared shirt and light blue pants with a toothpick between your teeth when you told me you’d take me for a walk one evening to the big high school across the street.

On the way, I said we should race, you said no, and I meant it when I said you weren’t too old. It was warm then, I remember, but the leaves were falling. You made sure I was holding your hand when we crossed the road. That is one thing. Grandpa, I have always loved your hands. You have such strong hands. I loved the way they swallowed mine up when you took and held them. They felt so rough and warm.

Every time, before I’d go, you held my hands in yours. You’d squeeze them tightly, tucking your chin down just slightly, and earnestly look me in the eyes. “I love you.” You’d say. I’ll always recognize the tone of it, husky and deep. “It is so good to see you, come back again.” And in those words I sensed just a hint of a song, like you were singing the psalm of your soul, and the words came through to me so easily.

Dear Grandpa, thank you for holding my hands in yours. I didn’t know what it meant then, but now I swear to God, those strong hands make me want to believe in something, believe that there’s more than chaos and busy cars in this lonely world you’ve left.

..

In loving memory.

..

Traffic Lights

We were staring at the traffic light, waiting for the color to change from red to green. We were silent as the city sounds spoke for us. I liked the presence of these strangers—with them I felt my absence. Like a mirror, I was a reflection of their human face. Mostly, they didn't know they saw me—only recognizing the busy traffic sights.

In the distance I could see the yellow screens of plastic as the lights in the floating lamps moved down. People were starting, slowing, stopping in the perpetual rhythm conducted by our law of light. And I wasn't alone. We were all waiting for the signal to turn. I looked at the man to my left. I imagined he was involved with important affairs—yet he could just as easily be falling into some great loss—it made no difference. To me this man was all but invisible. I'd forget him after the street was crossed.

Everyone was starting, slowing, stopping. The little lights moved down their metal frames. I supposed there was some sort of meaning, people truly believe in the traffic light. We believe in the unchanging change of three colors, this belief makes society better. I wondered if other beliefs could work like that. The man didn't notice I was staring. We were all impatiently waiting to return home, to eat, to be left in peace and forget about the invisible faces we saw.

..

Mud & Childhood

I knew what childhood smelled like. 
It smelled like wet, freshly turned soil, 
like the minerals, once concealed, 
drawn from the earth— 
a billion shards of the fossilized dead. 
Childhood was the smell of soft mud 
that looked and felt like chocolate syrup, 
whipped and stirred with just the right 
amount of water. It was course mud 
that could be packed and molded, 
rolled into a ball and chucked. 
And that whiff of the dark
earth's dampness, nature's pollutant, 
stagnant in the humid summer air— 
that belonged to my childhood. 
It was not just the smell of the earth, 
it was the earth unturned, 
shifting onto its back, revealing 
the smothered underbelly of all things 
decomposed and brought 
into the open again.

..

Remember

A Poem written for Ana and Steven Kolb on their wedding day:

It was Christmas day. I was standing in a row of benches in a church off of a snow-covered highway. The building was old, like nearly each member. Christmas that year felt unusually cold and I wasn’t feeling much joy in the songs that December. Something was missing, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. In the pew directly in front of me were a man and his wife, maybe older than that church. His eyes were a little glassed over and his hands were stiff and swollen by his long life.

Can I ask you: what is holiness? What does it mean to be holy, if not becoming completely whole? It’s finding yourself not in the mirror, but in another person’s soul. Every time you see her, remember that. Remember she doesn’t need someone to blindly agree with her decency, she needs someone to understand her flaws, to love her where she’s at. By putting your knee down on that rooftop in her favorite place on earth, you were saying I know your defects, but I still see your worth.   

I couldn’t see the woman’s face, her back was directly to me, but she was tall and thin, her body seemed hidden in her clothes. The song went on for a long time and in the middle of the drawn out refrain, I suddenly froze when the woman, overcome by some unknown strain, collapsed onto the bench seat. I thought I was the only one who saw her fall; I stood awkwardly, continuing to sing a little offbeat. Her frame was stiff and limp, like a rubber doll. I thought she was dead. I saw her face now; she had no color at all.

Holiness is wholeness. You two are holy when you remain whole; whole as in not separate, as in united and dependent. When you see him, remember that. Remember you cannot hate tokens like that flower he gave you after he messed up your date. That was only the beginning. Don’t expect the perfection you know you don’t show in yourself. Through poverty and wealth, through sickness and health, he is enough; he is enough on the days he remembers to put you first, and when he forgets.   

The man moved his stiff body to where her head had fallen and he bent over as far as he could to look into her face. A wrinkled hand was placed on her shoulder; he shook her gently and spoke into her ear, but the woman didn’t move, didn’t seem to hear. I took in the scene then: the pale motionless woman and the man, touching her frail body, speaking to her again and again. After a few moments he looked up from his wife to the unresponding people nearby, questioning us silently.

Holiness began the first time your arms touched, the brush of skin sending a rush of delighted synapses saying: that was incredibly exciting. And holiness, or wholeness, is refined long after reciting your vows. It’s dancing through tragic questions and human honesty and ending with a deep bow in the arms of your choice. Don’t lose feeling in that touch on your arm; he’ll still be standing for you in thirty, forty years so forget what you won’t remember a month from now.         

Finally, the woman shifted, lifted her head and tried to sit upright. Her husband continued whispering to her, supporting her back, asking if she was alright. As the rest of the congregation sang, the couple sat together. “Do you want to go home?” I heard him murmur. She shook her head and to my alarm decided to stand up again. “Just sit for a while.” He insisted, putting a hand on her arm, but again she shook her head no. With a sigh he unsteadily stood up too, staying close enough to touch her shoulders with his own.

You’re together today. You’re happy. Remember that. Remember the way you always admired her, how she walked to you down the street, the hallway, the Guatemalan mountainside, and now the church aisle. Remember him standing firmly on his feet in the field on game day, in church singing about Christ and the Bible, and while waiting for you to come down that walkway wearing his familiar smile. Life won’t be what you’re expecting. Now take each other’s hands. Go on, take them. Hold them. Remember that.

Their hands and shoulders were touching; they stood until the song was over. He took questioning side-long glances at her. When the room eventually fell silent again and everyone was seated, I couldn’t help noticing those two together. They sat so still and quietly. I don’t think it was their age that struck me as much as their mystery. What if he hadn’t been there? What if she had fallen alone on that church pew? Somehow I knew he was the one who gave her the courage to stand again.

..

Vagabond

I missed the bus that day and he offered to buy another ticket at the platform; when I thanked him for his generosity he said it was just a couple bucks. His face was young but long, deep lines crossed his forehead as he smiled, handing me the stub. I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that I was avoiding something, couldn’t think through the noise and the Thai phrases I didn’t understand. All I knew was that I needed that ticket to keep me traveling keep my body ambling on unfamiliar land.

The bus came; every vehicle I rode like that carried me further away from my responsibilities, the bills to pay, the goals that seemed to beat my will; offering up some vagabond existence with a backpack and clearer thoughts to fill. I sat next to the window and that man. After a while he turned in his seat and started sharing stories with me. He talked about his daughter, Janine: a genetic disorder had made her right side weak. At three months old she had a stroke from the tumor in her brain.    

He said soon after he developed the same disorder and almost never woke up from his hospital bed. Three months of rehab released him but Janine’s tumor was still growing in her head. At two years old she went into a coma on Christmas Eve; they predicted the hemorrhaging would cause a lot of pain. On Christmas day she woke up and the doctors removed the left side of her brain. I listened to his stories quietly as he wiped his eyes, suffering in his memories. His voice shook.

With palms raised skyward he explained she was thirteen when the driver lost control of the van and rolled it six times off the highway, ending her life hardly after it began and killing her with four other members of his family. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said sadly he sure missed her smile. The tumors came back for me, he went on, and now I live not knowing when they’ll take my life. I hope to die doing what makes me happy. I nodded my head trying my best to offer him my empathy.

He said something about simply suffering without an obligation to praise the cause of it. He trusted God once but he couldn’t warrant the nonsense anymore, couldn’t understand why the nonsense was permitted. Who wanted to know the fatal good and evil with such a high cost to it? I felt the weight of his question drying up like concrete in my soul. He said the whole world of knowledge was not worth the tears of his baby girl, her maimed walk, or the cruel impact killing his family. If God loved us, then how could he let it happen?

I could only shrug, remain quiet, and look away. I felt ashamed I couldn’t think of anything more significant to say. There we were framed in awkward silence and I wished my silence sounded a lot more like God. I could feel his eyes questioning me sadly. My suffering was not the same but I was human too and could easily have that tumor in my brain. If it was compassion that saved us, then I shared the suffering of every person in the world: and the world was right there inside that bus. He smelled a lot like sweat and we sat there a long time.

Finally the bus pulled to a stop and I made my escape, cringing at my own incompetence. He stepped off to light a cigarette. His hands couldn’t stop trembling and he broke into a sweat. I didn’t have an answer for him, it was more than my words could say; I vaguely wished that somehow I could pay for his ticket if not all the suffering he’d never forget. But I could see my bus was leaving and travel was on my mind. I was thinking of new locations away from my own obligations; I planned to leave them all behind. Like a lot of people now, I hoped to change my place.

That was almost a year ago and now I stand here sharing his story and I still can’t state my response. Because it’s my words that make my answers weak. I could say I hear you brother and I’m sorry, but words don’t mean so much. I still don’t feel my body’s mortality; I think I have a long life to live, but in reality…I see her tiny broken body leaning sideways as she tilts her shaven head to look up into his face; I see her soft eyes, the smile he misses so much. And I left hoping someone would be more than my empty words to him; I hoped he’d accept a ticket at a different platform.

...

A special thanks to you, Tobias, for sharing your story

...

{dm}

I read the poem out loud in chapel:
to watch go to 42:40

Thesis On Riprap

Life is incredibly hectic right now! Still, I am thankful I have a lot to look forward to. The NAIA cross country meet is next week already...as well as the first draft of my senior thesis. The thesis is coming along well, I'm writing about Taoism (an ancient Chinese philosophy), poetry, and one of Gary Snyder's poems. I'm on page 10 of 25, and thankfully still have more to say. 

The poem: 

Riprap

Gary Snyder

Lay down these words 

Before your mind like rocks. 

  placed solid, by hands

In choice of place, set

Before the body of the mind

  in space and time: 

Solidity of bark, leaf or wall

  riprap of things:

Cobble of milky way, 

  straying planets, 

These poems, people, 

  lost ponies with 

Draggling saddles --

  and rocky sure-foot trails. 

The worlds like an endless 

  four-dimensional 

Game of Go. 

  ants and pebbles

In the thin loam, each rock a word 

  a creek-washed stone

Granite: ingrained

  with torment of fire weight 

Crystal and sediment linked hot 

  all change, in thoughts, 

As well as things. 

..

Gary Syder

Snyder was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Turtle Island, his 1974 collection of poetry, which he hoped would override his “Beat poet” epithet; even so, his personal friendships with other leaders of the movement had forever endeared him as a Beat writer. He graduated from Reed College and began his masters in anthropology but quit soon after he began. In 1956, he left from San Francisco to Japan to study at the First Zen Institute of Kyoto. In an interview with Nathaniel Tarn, Snyder explained that “Anthropology was concerned with understanding human nature--but then why go to other people, why not study one’s own nature. So…Zen.” Two years later, in 1958, he returned to the States and published his first book of poetry, Riprap (1959). “The Zen tradition of Buddhism often defines itself as ‘seeing into one’s own nature,’” Snyder explained, “and its discipline of meditation aims at gaining a clear perception of the self and the external world.” Zen, an echo of the more “orthodox” Taoist philosophy, was the foundation driving Snyder’s work. When explaining the inspiration behind his condensed yet distinctly nuanced poetic lines, he said, “I tried writing poems of tough, simple, short words, with the complexity far beneath the surface texture. In part the line was influenced by the five- and seven-character line Chinese poems I’d been reading, which work like sharp blows on the mind.” Snyder’s “Riprap,” the poem his first book was later named after, is similarly composed into “simple, short, words” that allows the reader to feel the prick of reality beyond the syntax; the words themselves were not the pinnacle of meaning.

References:
Charters, Ann. (2001). Beat Down Your Soul. “Gary Snyder.” Penguin Putnam Inc.  
Tarn, Nathaniel. (1972). From Anthropologist to Informant: A Field Record of Gary Snyder. Alcheringa, issue 4. 
Almon, Bert. (1977). Buddhism and Energy in the Recent Poetry of Gary Snyder. Mosaic: A Journal for the Comparative Study of Literature and Ideas, Vol. XI, No. 1.

..

{dm}

Greatness: A Poem

Here's what I was learning: there was no such thing as greatness. I sat content enough with Crime and Punishment in my hand in the back seat with a beautiful person. She looked so small and perfect, her seatbelt crossed her chest, her toes floated above the floor. She was timeless. That spark, that delightful glint of something secret had never left. I was a part of her. I was a part of her dark eyes, the soft wrinkles dancing on her face, part of her shoulders, the way she laid her hands...those were my hands. A man was driving, wrinkles graced his face too, and his hair was touched with gray strands. He held the steering wheel; I saw a part of me in his hands, too.

These two people sitting with me had been everything--and in an instant they could be gone. One wrong move would send us rolling, weightless, into the ditch, the unforgiving lawn. And as I sat there, I had to put the book down. From the book's topic, I looked outside and wondered how anyone like them could die. No one could take such lives away, I would do anything to preserve them. But soon I was far away, in another life already. I had dreams to chase and memories, and something important and steady. God only knew I'd have bills to pay and a real job and more schedules and somehow less time and the rent overdue.

I was looking out the window and thinking how glad I was to be moving...anything that wouldn't keep me still. I would do anything to preserve them. But if there's no such thing as greatness, even great acts of saving lives is nothing. Is it anything to die for someone? For her? To die, no. She lived. She lived and breathed...for me...for all of us. How is it that I could die for her, but I couldn't call her on a Sunday afternoon? Or write her something; tell her yes, I would be coming home to visit soon? How is it that I could die for her? A great act? Hardly. To die is nothing new. She lived...for me. The desire to preserve her was real sincere, but the desire to push away was too.

And then the man, humming quietly to an old song I didn't know, was a whole world within another world, like a book of answers to so many questions never written down. And underneath my apprehension, I could never write those questions. I'd die for this man, but I think I was more afraid of the rest. Fear of what? Of what? I wouldn't say out loud, I certainly could never write it down. Only, I thought it was best to keep the distance long, the conversations short. For years I wouldn't come around. But with time, with how it just keeps on going, never stoping once for me to catch my breath, I realized I don't have many answers. And maybe dad does, he knows an awful lot.

Here is what I was learning: there was no such thing as greatness. Greatness distinguishes and promotes; it makes one famous. Isn't it obvious? Repute, high standing...none of those things are truly greatness. If greatness existed, it would be only in the anonymous, in the faceless. It would exist in waking up one day at a time for other human beings: people perhaps incapable of seeing any greatness at all, who couldn't understand such meanings. It would exist in small, unnoticed things, in being ignored, overlooked, and disregarded for a lifetime; and it would be timeless. It would be that spark, that delightful glint of something secret that had never left.

...

September 16, 2013

 
...
{dm}

Realignment

"Is this real
Is this real
This life I am living?"
                      --Tlingit or Haida song

I tread the empty sidewalk
My brown-laced shoes pass
along the concrete slabs
while my head hurts from things
I have forgotten a year from now

The windows reflect a face
of someone I cannot recognize
I have so much I need to do
trying not to think of purpose
I look down at my brown laces

At home an old man sits in peace
under a lamp on page two hundred
or three hundred sixty-seven
Perhaps I do not want to wait
until I am ninety-eight for that

What serenity of soul to stop
and take the laced shoes off
and discover solace in the solitude
I need escape to a soundless place
For in stillness silence is something

In the break of day's beginning
no sidewalks no shoes just soul
with a book or without a book
in thoughtfulness in prayer
in these moments I remember

--

{dm}

Patterns of Fear

Why
do
I
fear
for
you?

You:
why
for?
Do
fear
...I.

I--
you--
fear.
Why?
Do.
For...?

For
I
do.
You:
why
fear?

Fear.
For
why?
I--
you--
do.

Do
fear.
--
{dm}

Insomnia

You dread the sleepless nights that awaken
you with the ringing of thoughts. There is no escape in your bed.
Who will help the sleep-forsaken.

The night wanes away. Adrift, your mind has not taken
the nightly leave of absence from your head,
You dread the sleepless nights that awaken

the haunting fears of mundaneness unshaken
by daydreams; you are desperate for night dreams instead.
Who will help the sleep-forsaken.  

O sleeper, have you mistaken
the bliss of night for a house of memories you cannot shed?
You dread the sleepless nights that awaken

you. Yet can you awaken one who has taken
life for a dream, neither alive nor dead?
Who will help the sleep-forsaken.

There cannot be sleep if the nights have shaken
the soul with waking. You are the dreamer, captive in your head;
in your dreams of waking, are you still sleeping? Will you reawaken?
Who will help the sleep-forsaken.  

--
{dm}

The Tin Man

Inspired by "Heartless", the story of the Tin Man. PLEASE Watch this! It's worth it, especially the ending will really hit you. I promise, it's worth your time. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, start at 9 minutes 30 seconds.  

"This may be beyond my ability

to repair..." You look into the

mechanic's eyes; seas unsettled by
the tossing and turning of concern,
pleading, yet still knowing his tin refining 
cannot fix this part. You did not know 
your axe was cursed. It cut you down,
each time the mechanic treated flesh 
with tin. But now...you have no heart.

You forget why you are working.
You leave your wake of fallen trees, 
logs pile over an abandoned cabin---
the home is left unfinished. She's there. 
She's waiting, still wanting, still loving 
the man in the metal coat. To touch 
is coldness, painful. How can she kiss 
iron gates barred shut? Forgotten, she 
moves on through the forest of fallen trees.

The latch is shut. The empty hollow never 
waits. You cannot feel the rain run down 
your face, or hear your tin bones gnashing, 
groaning, vibrating through the leaves. 
Finally, the rust holds you. There is no 
reaching for the oil can by your side. 
Rigid, lost within this steel casket, 
time forgets you, silences your existence, 
wanes your life away.

Now motionless, her memories
sing to you. As you stand, eyes
yielding up, feet rooted in the ground.
All you see is a forest of trees fallen,
rotting away like the memory of you.
You remember your beloved as you
notice the vines crawl from the earth
and wrap their veiny fingers around
your legs, your arms, your neck.


You wait and listen for the rhythm.
This hole in your chest moans in ways 
no words could hope to manifest. 
But what of the story?
Is this the fate of the man of tin? 
What of the little red shoes? 
What of the yellow brick road? 
Take heart my friend,
take heart.    

--
{dm}