COMMENCEMENT Nothing prepares you for the tracks in the snow that turn to muddy memory. A green hunter when you were young, when everything mattered, when there was a clear motive, a reason and a name, something you could explain— the blame you needed, so you could kill what needed killing. And what didn't need it back then? So much was so wrong with everything. Holocaust survivors committed suicide in Safeway parking lots. Grizzly bears got radio collars— narked on themselves. Who didn't huff, puff, snort, and grind teeth under chemical clouds? There was blood in the streets, on the castle stairs. It wasn't a dream: the world went crooked & Big Brother played guitar. You knew it all and how (and why). Their failed mythology paraded decrepitly beneath the machine that measured, discarded, and ignored. Chaos never cared, still doesn't. Do you? You've been under the influence all of your life. Hell of a trip— knowing less the further you go, and being okay with that; ready for the end, the tunnel of light or dark, regardless; ready for sleep, ready for quiet. No more dogma. Voiceless, you can finally begin. —for Sean
I wrote the above poem when my oldest son, Sean, graduated high school twenty years ago. This spring his mother and I will mark fifty years since our commencement, that pivotal moment in time when we leave behind the only life we’ve known and begin our journey out there on our own, that baptism by fire into adulthood.
I got married a year out of high school. We didn’t know what we were doing, but we wanted to do it. No one could stop us or tell us to wait (though many tried). And I don’t think we knew what we were getting into (how could we?) but for some reason we are still together. Or maybe we have grown together. We were lucky or unlucky depending on your point of view. We call it lucky, and admit that it took some work.
Relationships and friendships take a lot of luck and work to achieve love, trust, true love. There is a shortcut: have children. The beauty of kids, like pets, is they teach us unconditional love easily if we want it.
I felt loved by my parents, despite the tensions, the arguments and battles roiling us all flailing to survive on the codependent sea of alcoholism. Love appeared to me to be a test of patience and loyalty most often communicated with humor and actions. Talk was important but never easy. It was important to listen and then choose your words wisely. There were also times it was right to play the fool. I learned how to read people and proceed with caution until it became apparent I could drop my guard and be honest with them. Achieving that was equivalent to love for me. So I think my parents did a decent job of teaching how to communicate and love without trying. They were real with us and each other, and though that wasn’t comfortable a lot of times, it was honest, and a good preparation for what lied ahead. That said, they never said the words: I love you. While I don’t think it’s a handicap, it certainly makes life awkward when a majority of your friends are “I love you-ers.”
LEVELS OF LOVE How do you measure it? Like you measure pain? “I guess I love you about a four . . . and sometimes it's a six, maybe even a seven . . . then, you know, there are days it's when it's just a two or three, but we're not talking an eight or up, never that much.” Yes THAT is why it's tough for some to utter that oft used phrase— “I love you.” They don't know what that means, figuring kindness is a given, love for their fellow men and women, and of course the kids, even more so really, well, usually anyway. Always it's a question of degree. They know those they know but don't know really well don't warrant a super-high score. Love develops over time. Even old friends, tried and true, rarely get an “I love you” unless alcohol or death is involved. How does one know an eight from a ten? Nobody can answer that . . . yet everyone has felt the difference. When someone we love suffers a broken heart, it tears our chest apart, too, and our life spins out of control—a lost soul paces our guts slamming doors and breaking windows—no routines matter anymore, all the chores that meant so much . . . spontaneously drown in tears. THAT'S when we know what true love is. Like death and life, it can't be measured. Love bleeds us dry.
Most of my words of wisdom and asinine proclamations have been penned more than once in poems. I prefer doing my lango-lingo contributions for the enlightenment of humankind in that short-form, not in research papers nor buried in magnum plots. I’m a lazy poet who loves to jot and scribble, juggle and dream-mumble, pursue the zippity-doo-dah in-and-out nonsensical voodoo of carving, crafting, and logging a snapshot or the firing of a few synapses into thought. Something like the preceding variations or this afterthought. What comes next is all we got!
NEXT Waiting wasn't a problem for him, he'd brought something to read, yet sitting there for almost an hour in the waiting room at the proctologist's office, while the badger in his ass huffed & scratched, dug & growled (as it had for the last six months) was enough to fan smoldering piles to flame, prompt him to plan his wake & epitaph—maybe lift a line from Carver or Plath. Hours prior to the appointment, he'd stood & stared, mesmerized by April rain, a steady downpour all day: noticed small buds bulging at the tips of branches; puddles blooming into murky ponds; & recalled the pure happiness he'd felt the night before: lying there wide awake after crawling back into bed from his midnight trip to the toilet, he slipped his arm around her, pulled into her heat, felt his heartbeats waltz her breath, & thought: Who cares what's next? The prognosis is death—but tonight, I'm the luckiest asshole alive.
"We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine," Eduardo Galeano, novelist.
We don't see the end until the end. Me. Forward your verse to my cousins Doug, who is recovering from a major heart attack.
Marianne forwarded this, and I'm glad she did. Right away you let me in, and kept me there for a while, reminding me of why we write it all down and share it. It's the bridge to somewhere.