runaway

He ran away from home. Although we were a real city, with 37,000 people, it made the papers. We were in fourth grade. It was 1961, ironically the same year as "Runaway," the hit by Del Shannon. We weren't close friends, but close enough that I went over to his house once, over in the projects. His projects, not ours. What did we do? We went upstairs to his room and looked at his shoebox of baseball cards. No brothers or sisters. Just his mom and him. His mom yelled at him. He hadn't done some sort of chore. Dishes? Laundry? Make his bed? It didn't matter. You could tell she just liked to yell at him. She was making some kind of point, as if to say, This is how we do things around here, kid (me). Don't try to get smart with me. She smoked Camels. But the part I wanted to forget, the thing I didn't want to remember, was the walls. The walls in the hallway were black. At the bottom of the stairs, the hallway that greeted visitors, if ever there was another visitor, was smudged as if charcoal was rubbed over the institutional yellow paint. I imagine he and his mom braced themselves if they came down the stairs too hard and pivoted left to the kitchen or right to the living room. Or the wall was a casual pushing-off point, a way to launch oneself up the stairs. Or they leaned against the wall to put on or take off their shoes or boots. I don't know. I was thunderstruck. I almost blurted out, What's that? Where did that come from? I, who came from an apartment on the other end of the cleaning spectrum. Today people would use the OCD label, but it was just the way it went, the way we were. Saturdays were consumed with my brothers and I sweeping, vacuuming, washing, waxing, scrubbing, vacuuming again to meet Dad's white-glove inspection Army standards. We hated it. But this. The walls. The outer fringes of the wall beyond the opposite steps had handprints, vestigial symbols of origin. These marginal imprints left no doubt as to the source of the fully darkened portion. Hands. I didn't know how to respond. I didn't go home and tell anyone. Who was there to tell? And what was there to say? 

He was gone a few days. There was no manhunt, no panic, no search, but it was on the radio and in the papers. They covered the story as if it were an entertainment, a curious amusement, rather than a dangerous incident. They were flippant. And kids in our class? Nobody said much of anything. Some crude jokes, wisecracks, about his riding a freight train like a hobo. This came from some of the boys, and the girls shushed them. Mrs. Anastasia never said a word. Open your books. Practice your penmanship.

He came back. 

He came back to school on a Monday.

Nobody asked him where he had gone or how, nobody asked him what he did, or why. We didn't greet him or welcome him back. He just sat in his regular chair at his regular, assigned desk, in the second row from the window.

When Mrs. Anastasia read the roll, to which we were to say "present," she got to his name near the end, because of the letter his last name began with.

She got to his name and he didn't say anything.

He was crying; he had been crying all the while.

She went on to the next two names.

"Present."

"Present."
 

burying the dead, and others

this interment no death dirt tossed the blue yellow butterfly flowers curlicued on the tabled urn her hard-earned urn beside the appointed Book of Common Prayer petitions we recite in common we mouth to the wind her uncommon age virtues demeanor generosity laughter tears we leave these severed maternal ashes for others for strangers to plant no not ashes cremains into the ground it is not her and it is not the ground yet the table the surrogate altar and it is not her here not quite do not look here said the angels at the tomb the gardener a simple hole in the ground a pale rose on the table an alstroemeria bouquet on the gravestone ashes to ashes burying the dead burying this dead engraving her memory what remains

let the dead bury the dead let the dead bury their own dead Jesus snapped hurried harried not my problem as if to say more urgent matters burn at hand such as now and the living above the dirt those of us still born still breathing

bury as in hide conceal protect shelter preserve

others

as for others entomb their reckless ecstasies those exalted maelstroms we loved to call love singing o happy fault o happy day night

bury it all bury it cheap or dear bury it deep

where every singed seed 

stalks the grave ground's readiness

where watered ripeness raves

paper clip phone bowl

It was here on the desk. Seconds ago. Where'd it go. Where could it go. It didn't just grow legs and walk away. Who took it. Say a prayer to St. Anthony, they say. So I did. Feel the surface of the desk, shake the sheaf of papers. Shuffle the pages. Look and feel on and under the chair, on and under the desk, in my cuffs, in, on, or under my shoes, between the buttons of my shirt, down my bra if I wore one (didn't), in my hair, under the stapler, under the mug, in the mug, in, on, or around the stitching of the rug, the walls, the ceiling. Search all of these once again but ever more slowly and with more concentration and feeling. Then in reverse order. Then randomly. Again. And again.

I have been swept from simple OCD to the shores of insanity.

Fear.

The universe is supposed to make sense. Things don't slip into another dimension. This isn't sci-fi or Harry Potter or Narnia. Objects do not evaporate or disappear. The laws of physics do not permit this. The laws do not stop for one paper clip. Nor does my rationality, its fragile vestiges. Like that time I lost my cellphone. I was in the first row of a theater, watching a ballet rehearsal. The phone was on my lap in the dark. I was shielding the screen’s blue light so as not to distract the dancers, so as not to be caught in flagrante delictu rudely checking inconsequential texts. I stood up. I heard a clunk, the phone falling. I felt around my body, my seat. Where did the phone go. I surveyed the floor, ran my hands under the seats, the scummy dusty grimy floor in front, my row, a cellophane candy wrapper, and the rows in back, places of impossibility, as if the phone were on a magical pogo stick. The fear of personal collapse, order dismantled, structure demolished. Repeat all those tactile and barely visual, slightly auditory, search exercises. My daughter the guest ballerina comes out during a break, after I went back stage and pleaded my case, my fervent wish for a universe with functioning rules, laws, and protocols. I told her of my incomprehensible plight. We spied a ridge in front of us. A slot, a gap running the width of the stage. The crevice had been there all along, a few feet in front of my first-row seat, several inches wide between the fixed floor of the auditorium. A movable stage raised and lowered for the orchestra. The orchestra pit. Of course. And that's where the phone dived, cascading into the deep dark. I couldn't have mailed it into that slot if I had tried. Mind the gap.

Back to the paper clip.

I discover a glimmer of hope — but not for finding the paper clip. As if in a biblical dream, I picture a ceramic tea bowl from Japan sitting in my kitchen cabinet. It was a non-occasion gift from a friend in America, a painter. I rarely drank tea from the bowl because it was too hot to hold. When I received it, I was given a gentle two-minute lecture. “You see that tiny squiggle on the rim? It’s not so much a mistake as a statement. It’s imperfect, unfinished. It’s meant to be.”

Until now, I had forgotten that tutorial on wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, asymmetry, impermanence, incompleteness.

A paper clip. A cellphone. A tea bowl. Me. Who knew we were cosmic cousins. I got up from my chair in front of the desk. Averting my eyes from the floor, the desk, and the chair, I walked into the kitchen, went to the cabinet, retrieved the tea bowl, poured water in the kettle, and turned on the right rear burner.

letting go

the missing step at the top of the stairs

the nobody at the other end of having a catch

a call that doesn't come

an unrung bell

a cup unfull

unrumpled sheets, undented mattress

the text unreply absent the notification chime

the her-completed sentences unbegun

weighed against

the oaken firm footing

southpaw sailing toss leather bound

incoming incantations

clarion trumpeting presence

sonorously sounding

overbrimming nectar

gale force bacchanalia

gonging anagrams of U and I

subject predicate object desire

holding on for dear life

The Weight of Absence

Morning rite, almost liturgical: three slices of Heidelberg Cracked Wheat, toasted, real butter on all three, not too dark, tan; one slice with Bonne Maman Raspberry Preserves. 

On this morning, in the fortnight tidal wake of Good Mother's passing, a succession of holes. Slices hollowed by air, by loss. Heart-shaped, one-half-inch diameter. Upper left, not perfectly duplicated as in an assembly line but discernible sameness just the same. 

With a hole silently skewering the loaf, is it still 24 ounces? 

How much does nothing weigh? 

What is the weight of absence? And at what cost?

Take this bread. Eat. Digest. Begin the day. Lighter than yesterday. And heavier, too. 

lost and found and lost

"The only people who get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost." -- Henry David Thoreau

Tell me about it.

Still searching, after all these years.

Letting Go of Letting Go

I've posted before of losing things. Things like what? Objects, objets d'art, detritus, money, talismans, omens, flotsam, jetsam, effluvia, phylacteries, memorabilia, memory, vice, virtue, navel lint, connection, magnetism, mass, thinness, agility, and gravity; not to mention love and loved ones.

I can't find my Obama campaign button.

Bothers the hell out of me.

For weeks and weeks, I know precisely where I had kept it: on my bureau (actually my wife's but I've been using part of the top of it since I've lived here), right next to my deodorant. That is a rock-solid certainty.

Then several days ago, I retrieved the button. Why? I guess to wear it for the inaugural events. A badge of pride.

But I didn't wear it. I kept it in my coat pocket, the pocket of my winter coat, fingering it like a novitiate telling his beads, keeping track of the button's whereabouts so I would not misplace it.

Then I extracted it at some point out of my coat pocket for, um, safekeeping.

Gawd!

Right.

Where?

God knows (presumably) (is it not presumptuous of us to assign the metaphysical boundaries of omnipotent knowledge? Maybe I've placed this mere object beyond the verge?).

It's not just the fetshistic and ritualistic attachments I am prone to, not just the neurotic-obsessive -compulsive mania; it's also the abject despair of: This Is It. This Is What the Sunset Years Will Consist Of. This And So Much Painfully More.

Plus, the shame of knowing that no one believes me when I say I know exactly where it was (past tense being operative here).

Spare us, O Lord.

Isn't that the refrain of many a litany?

The Litany of the Lost?

Vow Wows

Forgive the absence, and now the exhaustedness, arising from the vows taken by my first and only son with his betrothed.

So, here goes, some rambling reflections 'pon it:

Friday after two trips to the aeroport, I successfully greet and meet and welcome Grandma, my Mom, 90, on a hot October day, also nearing 90, delayed by flight changes and a sweltering runway plane, which she dubs a school bus, then onto the rehearsal dinner, a misnomer because nothing is rehearsed, splendid food for 17 of us, though alas we are mostly segregated by family but people had catching up to do and there was commingling and intermingling, I had the scrumptious chicken and have somehow switched tenses, though it wasn't too tense, except for maybe my eyes staring and jaw dropping at the date of the bride's brother, direct from Miami, and the father of the bride graciously offering to help pay and I accept, not sure if offense would be taken by an acceptance of that or a rejection oh well.

Saturday I refrained from panic or refused to buy into it the sweltering record or near-record heat exchange of texts and calls from Ballet Daughter wishing she were here, likewise the call from Cayman Brac Godmother; the motherly wifely (mine) 140 to 150 cupcake parade into the zoo, a perfect place for this wedding couple, having met at a pet store, and indulging in an ardent love of animalia exotica, a zoo that overlooks the cityscape. An afternoon thunderstorm I tried to nap through, a tying of E.'s knot by me, his silk tie, a paternal snugness, a double-Windsor bond; E. the groom at the zoo at 4 p.m. two hours early, pacing like an expectant father; his lapel flower forgotten, I rush to the zoo and flower him; back home, expectant for Maryland Brother and Wife who arrive in the nick of time, wondering in my soul at the absence of Massachusetts Brother and Clan; wondering further at a funeral and a wedding in the same week (for me and B. and A. at least). And then the vows, a justice of the peace (an omen one hopes); inside, threat of rain, not at gazebo; IrishStepDaughter reads Emily Dickinson clearly and proudly flowergirl too:

It's all I have to bring today --
This, and my heart beside --
This, and my heart, and all the fields --
And all the meadows wide --
Be sure you count -- should I forget
Some one the sum could tell --
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

right after I had read my just-composed barely ink-is-dry haiku:

October dusk light
wedding all here with love's fire
all ways radiant

resisting the temptation to say "this is a haiku, a haiku consists of" and then E. almost saying the vows even before the judge finishes the prompt an eagerness of love and J., his wife, his legal wife now, holding hands, staring seriously and meaningfully into each other's eyes. Followed by the photos and fotos and dancing and eating and former in-laws [including a chat re the serial comma w/ NYC lawyer Catherine; she's unfortunately against it but I may've converted her] and drinking (no liquor for your scribe not a drop not even at the toast...and no dancing for me with the J lo lookalike), Mom (Grandma) in tears because Their Song (for which they took dance lessons, it was sweet and innocent and endearing) was Unforgettable and our lost beloved Richard loved Nat King Cole, he did. If you look around at any wedding sadness you will find, and not just in corners. The breaking of the cake (muffins) results in sloppy messes, licked off the bride's bosom, so I'm told, because I was talking to someone, but, hey, he's My Boy, so it's no surprise.

Sunday brunch here at Purple House with Bro J. and Wife B. from Maryland here despite the quick preparations and tensions a fine food time and later Mom off on a plane all smoothly.

Whew.

Beat.

And I gotta work Monday, a holiday for some but not for me.

Cheers.