regenerative

What if there’s nothing next but
nothingness? What if the
brilliant, white light
is a rumor, or, worse, a
lie? What if we don’t meet anyone in
Heaven, because
there
is
none? Some might assail a faith
at the questioning,
but isn’t “faith”
supposed to be
in what’s
right and good and honorable and
just,
and not in
some sort of
reward? And what if “heaven” is
simply
a
splinter of a moment,
maybe even furtive,
a millisecond of awareness,
a knowing that what good
you contributed will
regenerate in other good? Isn’t
that
enough?
(P.S. The correct answer is “Yes!”)

unsaid

What the newspaper story didn’t explain was that Percy James Beauxcoup, though fervently anti-religious, had made a vow, a spiritual vow, no less, the day he committed his life’s savings to the purchase of his shrimp boat, which he later christened “The Emerald Queen,” even though it was, at that point, as sorrowfully downtrodden as he. He didn’t exactly look skyward, just out, out there, across the diamond blue Gulf, and promised that if he were able to make this work, this shrimping business, that he would respect, with all appropriate dignity, and defend, with whatever force necessary, the waters in which he fished. And he meant it. So, it was with that in mind that he listened to the East Coast-educated BP veep, in shirtsleeves and Red Sox cap, offer him and the others from the tiny fishing village 15 miles east of Biloxi $100 an hour to help try clean up BP’s mess. Percy didn’t move a muscle nor bat an eyelash, until the vice-president, one of 16 in the international firm, said it was the company’s way of trying to help the fishermen. “It’s not a handout,” the BP VP said, “it’s honest work,” at which point, Percy stepped forward and shot the sorry motherfucker right between the eyes.

I like airports

I like airports, have always liked airports, and not because
of the airplanes, which
I
liked 2. It’s all the coming
and
going. People on the move,
and I can sit and imagine from whence and
what
they’ve come and to
who or where – or both –
they’re headed. There is
promise in that, mostly, though
I’m sure that
some of each – the comings and goings –
are those of sadness and loss and
maybe both. So, I sit,
here, watching, observing
folks
at
that in-between place before
the
destination finally is
met. I wonder about them. Some
of
them. I can’t fit in all.

peli-can

I would be a pelican,
with ungainly grace and
indigenous dignity, knowing
my place, for the pelican
does not try to be an eagle,
nor aspire to be a hawk. It does
not strut like the egret, nor preen
like the cardinal, nor flit like
the roadrunner nor flutter like
the hummingbird.
It stands, quietly, in wait, then, when
the time comes, when its
time
comes,
it
spreads its brown-blue wings and flaps
and soars, not too high
and not so low, but in its
own
space.
Always.

matriculation

They are fresh-faced and honest, mostly,
honorable, we like to think (though they would
have trouble defining just what that might mean
in real-world terms), and they are about to enter
a universe that is part friend, part enemy, part mystery
and wholly sobering, at some points, at least.
They will leave behind much less than they
will grow to meet, but, as they do, what they’ve
recently left will prove to shape them more than they
can imagine and more than anything they encounter
down the road.

They will smile and weep and toss their hats into
the air, for they have been freed, they think. It is
only later that they will realize that their freedom, a
freedom,
is not presented to them, but, freedom, if it is that
that they choose (and that which they should choose),
is earned, though never really understood, nor ever really
appreciated until later, though in their impatience they
will try to understand it now, right now, and, more,
to celebrate it.

They are to be welcomed, yes, but not dispirited, even
for their naivete, or, better, least for that, for the
value is in the journey, as they say, and not
the destination. And they are, at the very least, willing to embark on
the trip. Wish them well.
Wish them Godspeed.

the kathies

At nine, we all wanted to be priests,
for it seemed like a holy and wholly honorable thing
to do – to care for the needs of others in
a way that seemed hard and virtuous and somewhat
sacrificial.
But at some time, soon thereafter, give or take a year,
we
discovered the Kathies – Lutz and Bisjack.
We didn’t exactly understand the pull of their smiles
or the sheen of their hair,
much less experience the secrets
hidden chastely beneath their school uniforms. (Eventually,
Paul Slapnicker did, it was surmised,
or Tommy
Mulhol.)
But there was a time when we all decided that
the “call” we were told to listen for wasn’t the one
coming from Sister Angelica and Father
Englert.
It was a loss
of innocence, perhaps, that secularization,
because it severed a final tie to an idea
bigger than each one of us. But the pull was too strong.
And, besides,
the Kathies were really, really
cute. Sometimes, now, I wonder
what might’ve happened to them,
and I think
that if our paths crossed, again, I would
thank
them
for my liberation.

predator

It was the smile and how he looked
at them that told them they were special,
somehow, or, at least, different than the others,
at a time when differences were important and
made them feel special, because that’s how they
wanted to feel, away from home and
more than a little bit lost. Others saw it, all of it, but
just washed it away. It wasn’t any of their
business, not then, anyway, though it would
eventually become everyone’s business, because
the predator eventually oversteps his mark and
everyone is sullied, if not branded.
By then, he feels invisible to any scrutiny, of course.
He feels
almost entitled to his prey.
And, then, by then, innocence has died, and everyone wonders
how it happened, even though it happened in front
of everyone, right there, and the next days and weeks
and maybe months are spent recounting, bringing back, all the
hints that everyone saw.
But the innocence can’t be recovered, dusted off,
and returned.
It’s gone, stolen by one, responsible to many.