“Deep in dark water, the fish replenish what’s cold, touching with whiskered snouts & gills of silk, the bottom of the spring-fed pond. I met you there, once. When your name wasn’t mine, or my son’s, or any precursor to disaster and pain. Here, in the rain, on the soaked ark of no covenant, I can feel the wet begin to saturate what’s left, of what’s dry. I’ve been standing alone, waiting, for someone to recover this mess. It may or may not be mine, which is a gift of age, that you can separate. Not everything is your fault, nor should it be. You can still be responsible, and act as if. Because stepping up and stepping into, without concern for personal damage, may be the only way out of a mess. Following a skunk-like path towards ruining your own reputation, may be your salvation in the end. Who really cares. You don’t even know who cares. The really caring people are often hidden from you, so that you don’t rely on them to make your acts of contrition or courage. Being “so alone” is such a powerful condition, often felt in terms of poundage or shackles, before radical change can occur. I took the cruise, with my coffee, on a random tour of our past, as described by road frontage. Here, he hid the gun. Here, “the other woman” gave birth to your child. Here, we bought strawberries, at a makeshift stand. The river, as they say, ran through it. And I continued the drive alone, once you’d moved on. This river is still sparking arguments. New landowners try posting the land, but still, the fish, they come. Seeking the fabric & habit of resistance and movement, the eager pulse of something to push against, as if swimming upstream were the only way. I get that, completely. It’s how I learned to live. Call it “the hard way” or the only way, or the karmic path of a determined gypsy band. Of star travelers, or misfits. What could possibly be the difference. Only time will tell. On my hard path to “Jesus”, be he a historical figure or someone inclined to haunt my bones, until I look up with a jaunty smile, I figure it’s a wrap. If I can’t see him, I can tell you, I’ve seen plenty else. That secret place I took Karl and his dog, for example, just yesterday. The beagle, straining on her lead, to reclaim what was denied of her wild nature. The orange, make-shift markers, not all that frequent, showing us the way into 10 acres of lost country. I’d been there once. It should be enough, when anyway I ended up living a stone’s throw from what’s completely not on anyone’s radar, save a neighbor or two. A moss glen. The kind that was the same during WWII, which Karl pointed out to me. Then went on to list off a bunch of other historical moments, when, similarly, the ravine where we sat would have been exactly the same. Not only the contoured spillways, but the confluence of surrounding stone, impermeable to man’s insanity or crimes against man. The water, the same water, cresting mystically in a perfect smoothness, as gravity pulled it down. Who knows what she smelled or how far back it went. Her nose was as her tail was, in total alignment with the sensory realm. Without knowing much, you don’t need anything to know what you know. Thank God.”
