Dog Days

After the deed was done or maybe before: she mused "you're like my dog" an elegy a loving postcard mailed to me sprawled there summery spent beside her as she sketched her affection toward Rusty or was it Sandy maybe Rex his loyalty love obedience and companionship so I edged into sleep an afternoon nap against her arm her leg her side as she read, her Rolex off, her diamond stud earrings on the nightstand, cues for unshackling as a prelude to unbridled intimacy. So I gathered I knew what she meant by the canine compliment. I was fine with it not a slight not a condescension but a treasured tableau in her memory's slide show and now mine as well fast forward a decade plus and Doug is dying, everybody knew it would be the last day, a Friday, after Debby had told me the previous Sunday "get up there, he's not coming home, he wants to ask you something," now his last, and my last "goodbye, I love you." Doug in his hospital bed looked at me as I brimmed into tears and he said "it's all right it'll be all right" then he tousled my hair he ruffled the hair on my head as he would have to Divitt the same dog who nearly bit my arm off on the night of Bush v. Gore in 2000 because I grabbed his bone, Divitt, a perfect name echoing the divots of every weekend's rounds of golf, a so-called sport I never played, with Doug or anyone else. I stared into your eyes and I knew it was okay and would be after and forevermore. You asked me to "read something" at a memorial and who knew that request would be such a gift, such a gem, because we never so much as once even swung a golf club together, unlike all those other partners on the fairways and greens who I figured knew you more and deeper didn't they, so why me? Why ask me of all people sort of like what they say about Christ and the disciples he picked why me they all presumably said. Such a revelation, the first of that year, 2005, the discovery of death's secret surprise, death's wink and a nod, the magician's rabbit out of the black upside down top hat. Richard, speaking of golf, six months later, November, in Florida, "let's go hit some, go to the driving range," straw hats, blazing sun, gently kindly "hold your hands this way, yes no that's it, careful, slower, no that's fine" almost hit golfers in the nearby rough but that CLICK! oh God! the sound of it the jolt in the hands resonating echoing into the arms the soul. Richard my brother, we never said half brother, too weak too tired to swing, sitting on the bench, the blistering blaze of light, its merciless scorch. And this was the slide in the carousel, the slide show, freeze-framed, after his death, the ferry to the yonder shore, this the wallet-sized image, the frame of future sentiment and loss, your plantation straw hat the artifact of a Monday afternoon, the farewell in the dark Tuesday morning, you in your bed, did I say good bye or I love you, probably not, though we both knew, to find out later your childhood prayerbook and rosary beads were there under your pillow. Dogstar pointed tooth hair of the dog long in the tooth my life as a dog doggerel mongrel sobs and all that. Then, last year, Maggie put down, across the boulevard from where I sit, tapping keys in the battleship dun afternoon, her eye left open, where did she go, so quickly, invisibly, effortlessly, the hideous simplicity the reckless rudeness of death, to every man woman child dog or leaf, you me and everyone and everything else. I went into my car in the parking lot of the animal hospital. Hospital. Inhospitable Last Exit. A rainy Friday. I wept against the steering wheel. How can I ever leave this parking lot. What can I do. Where can I go. What do I do now. Where's that sought surprise. Under the Tuscan sun, the Syracuse rain.
 

hunger games, the questions

• What do I hunger for?
• Why?
• What appetites drive my hunger?
• What satisfies my hunger?
• Do I know what makes me so hungry?
• Am I more hungry tha others are? Or less? Or about the same?
• Why are you, dear reader, reading these 'hunger games' questions?
• And how would you answer them?
• Are they not challenging queries?
• And, like me, does a taste of 'speaker's remorse' tempt you to erase all these questions, to dodge them, dislodge them, evade them, eviscerate them, escape them, divert the conversation away from them, and on and on?

cash4life

Cash4Life, the new New York State Lottery game. Top prize: $1,000 a day for life. What does "for life" equate to? My life is in the latter days, not the salad days (though on some levels, you'd never think so; no details forthcoming here). But $1,000 a day. I saw it on a billboard, so it must be true. I thought, Gee, I'd take $100 a day. I would. You say, That's nothing? Not nothing for me. I live simply. It's not a lament or a complaint. If anything, I am boastful, even snobbish, about my simple means. $100 a day would be a sweet cushion. It's possible $1,000 a day would ruin me. You hear stories. That's the prevailing notion. It ruins folks. And then there's the obligatory, "But I'd like to try it. A thousand bucks a day."

Truth be told, yeah, I buy Lotto, Cash4Life, Powerball, sometimes Mega Millions tickets. Quick picks. Typically one shot, one or two bucks. Surrender to the Fates. At their mercy. Or mercies. But truth be told: each ticket purchase is a surrender, is a bowing to the lie. Each ticket says, Your life needs this big fix, this dramatic change, this remedy, this takeaway, this giveaway, this grand gesture. I know better. It does not need any of that. That's the trick, the lie, the shiny bauble.

Because we all know this deep down, even if covered  over, papered over by wants, desires, dreams, avarice, and suffering: you get "IT" and you only want more of "IT."

Which reminds me: my guru, the late Raymond Davidson, would often say: If you have enough, you have abundance.

I do have abundance.

Right here.

Right now.

till the cows come home, or don't

Today is the 79th day of the year.

Meditation Number 79 in Your True Home: the everyday wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh is titled "Releasing Our Cows." It relates a story of the Buddha. A farmer comes upon the Buddha and his followers sitting in the forest. The peasant inquires about some cows he has lost. The farmer is distressed. He can't find his cows.

"When the farmer had gone, the Buddha turned to his monks, smiled, and said, 'Dear friends, you should be veryhappy. You don't have any cows to lose.' "

This struck me. I struggle with this. As a matter of fact, I am missing some cherished items. I lost them a few weeks ago. I value them. It was (is?) driving me crazy. I've inquired at places where I had been, even though I know I neurotically check for my belongings upon leaving, say, a coffee shop. I've searched pockets and notebooks and my car and nooks and crannies and pants and shirts and coats and jackets and sheets and floors and bureaus and desks and bathrobe and pajamas and drawers and street and sidewalks and pockets and pockets and tables and chairs over and over and over again, and then did it again.

I can't find them.

I've lost my cows.

And this does not even talk about my real "cows."