Love is Easy

Your Valentine's Gift

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Love is in the air! I’ve been spoiled, blessed with love, all of my life. Every day I aim for love. One of my Valentine’s gifts this year (besides the the above beauty being mauled by me in 1973) came in the form of a documentary: Peter Jackson’s film, Get Back. Not that I needed a gift. My life, my wife and sons, my friends, walking through this world day by day, and waking up to it again like I did this morning, is way more joy and miracle than I feel I deserve or ever fully show my appreciation for. I know I am truly privilidged and blessed.

That said, I don’t have much money or own anything of value, but I’m filthy rich with friendship and love. I have been lucky. Granted I have also been buried in more than a few shit-slides, gone through the wringer once or twice, and planted too many beautiful souls in the ground. Yet, at the end of every day, I am glad to be here and feel grateful for it. As Ray Carver said in a poem, everything from here on out is gravy, and I agree that each day for me feels like another gift. So this is my feeble attempt at a blog entry since I have ignored regularly writing here. You get some poems for Valentine’s Day! Surprise! I know it ain’t chocolate or roses or dinner out, so I’ll blame it on the Beatles who helped me imagine a world of love, and that all we really need is love (for the most part anyway) everyday.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Pleased to Love

*

It's been fifty years since

we set up in the backyard,

washtub bass drum (on its side)

ski pole microphone stands

and survey-lath guitars

to play for Burt's sister:

She Loves You, This Boy,

I Want To Hold Your Hand,

All My Loving, and I Wanna Be

Your Man . . . All our loving

rose on those simple chords,

no minor gift to us, the joy

of opening our hearts

and mouths as the record

played on the phonograph

hidden behind the tub-drum

dented and calcified. We were

“The Beatles,” our scotch taped

sign identified us, and oh, yeah,

I'll tell you something I think

you'll understand: we really needed

it. Of course, we needed love,

but especially after Dallas

and the ugly scenes from Selma

and Birmingham we saw on TV,

the increasing battle footage

from Vietnam, Goldwater's

horn rims and mushroom clouds:

duck and cover before recess. Be

afraid. It was their silly antics

and messages of love-me-do

we needed to believe, so we could

survive each other and live together,

happy for awhile in the limbo of

a cold war heating up, aware we were

going to die soon one way or another.

Their passion and humor helped

us get back to being kids,

ignore the serious madness,

those heartless cruelties

of another hard days night

in the grown-up world

we couldn't escape for long.

And amazingly, it still works

for me, at least for the length

of a song—certainly a Beatles

song—and with a love like that,

you know you should be glad.

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Promising

—for Sam and Cache

*

At eighteen we decided to seal the deal

with a license, stifle the gossip

about living in sin, and cohabit

conventionally. I remember my dad's

terse reaction, pause and expression . . .

which I understand better today.

He knew I'd made up my mind, but

had to say, “You know you're promising

the rest of your life to that girl?”

*

I knew

The rest of my life was now.

It still is. I guess we both believed

we could keep that promise . . .

maybe that's what love is

because I don't really know

what love is, but then I don't think

I really know anything, really,

except what I think I know. And

I'm willing to let go of all of it,

every-one-thing I think I know,

except those I tell myself I love.

*

Yes,

I believe we are lucky, but

I'm the first to proclaim

good luck is the result of hard work . . .

though everyone knows life isn't

always a matter of luck or choice,

choice is all we can control . . . because

sometimes love flies out the window.

We both chose to live dawn to dusk,

this carnal dream of each other

together close to the ground

each day, our youthful lust

bound to a primitive survival-trust,

base as the behavior of wolves.

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Howling on the Moon

*

In the mud of the origin

of Hopeful Creek we find

a paw print, wolf track,

big as my fist, size of

*

the male they found on

Deer Creek this spring—

a hundred seventy-nine

pounds. Plenty lions there,

*

too. A few years back

some hunter shot a grizzly

up Kelly Creek, said he

thought it was a black.

*

We come here for that,

to not cross any human

signs, save these old

roads dozed years ago.

*

We know the animals are

aware and don't care about

us filling up on huckleberries

or creaking lodgepoles,

*

woodpeckers, pine squirrels,

noisy crows, this sensory

overload, that swelling

deluge we call heart. On

*

the way back we cross,

a huge pile of bear scat in

the trail—a fresh shat. No,

know we are not alone.

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Easy Does It

*

An old buddy of mine

used to call me Easy,

and I guess I was, am, but

*

for the most part I figured he was

joking me, sort of kidding about

our hedonistic proclivities.

*

Unless somebody was a total

asshole, I usually went along

with the flow. Fun was all I wanted.

*

Though no one has called me that

in years, I've recently caught

myself proclaiming, “I'm Easy!”

*

So, did Keith Carradine coin that

phrase with his Nashville hit? It's difficult

to remember that kind of shit

*

today, like the mirror's recognition of

my altered face, gray hair, and cellular

breakdown of the skin. Usually

*

before I leave a friend, I'll holler,

“Take 'er easy!” (That's my mantra.)

“Any way I can get her!”

*

is often their reply. Laughter is a big

part of Easy, like living in the moment,

looking in the mirror . . . fogging and clearing,

*

fogging and clearing as I clip the hair

in my nostrils, on the end of my nose.

It's hard to take anything seriously there.

*

“Now” is the time for a lazy man with nothing

he has to do or nowhere he needs to go.

“For Christ's sake, Do Something!” is not

*

my credo. I get easily lost in a poem,

lose track of time, and I refuse to take a job

that isn't fun or easy—seriously easy.

*

Living should be simple—like dying.

*

Mark Gibbons