Monthly Archives: October 2005

Tranquility

It is early in the morning when I rise. The light of day has yet to grace this side of the earth with its presence. No longer do I need my alarm; my very instinct, something deep within, tells me when it is time to awake. Gathering my surfboard, a swimsuit, and other necessary equipment, I step outside and pause at the bottom of the stairs. Listening intently, I realize that the shouts from the amusement parks have not started, and the noise of civilization has yet to arrive. Everything is virtually silent save the waves crashing in a location just beyond my view and the summer gulls trying to collect their food for the day.

I smile and begin to walk. Up ahead, the boardwalk comes into view, and memories abound within me from childhood summers spent on that walk: bike rides I’ve shared with my family, trips up to the shop in the evenings for ice cream, chasing seagulls and even learning how to fly a kite. This boardwalk defines my past, each individual board somehow tells a part of my life story. As I make my way up the steps and onto the worn, splintering boards, I look down both lengths. The numerous stores that line the expanse are closed. Their lights, once welcoming and bright are off, as if they need a rest themselves. As I make my way across and finally off of the wooded walkway, the undeniable and easily recognized smell of the beach, a combination of salt and seaweed, overwhelms me. I pass through the dunes, covered with ocean grass and the most beautifully natural sight greets me.

“Tranquil,” I think to myself. If any word could possibly be fitting enough to describe the sight before my very eyes, tranquil would be the word. It might even be something beyond that, to some it could even be considered spiritual. It is a beauty recognized or at least acknowledged by the common person, but only truly appreciated by those like me.

We’re more than surfers. Our love of the single sport that binds us is built less on our own skill than by the secret we share, that the ocean is mystical. It heals inner wounds that nothing else can and is capable of consuming your very soul. Respect for the ocean, the result of the driving force of nature and our communion with it, define who we are.

As I sit on the sand, still cool from the previous night, with my board by my feet, I realize beyond a doubt that I am the luckiest person on the planet. The waves are breaking in perfect sets of four, some splashing into the jetties, while others make their way to greet me on the shore. I take a moment to close my eyes, and everything is free and completely at rest. Like the pieces of even the most intricate puzzle, everything just fits.

Then it starts to happen. This is something I have been a witness to on countless occasions before, yet it still never ceases to amaze me and never will. The sun, the very light of the world, begins to make its appearance over the distant, ever-present yet mysterious horizon. It is almost as though a giant light switch has been flipped on as glorious rays of silken purples, radiant pinks and delicate blues shine bright. The sun’s likeness reflects off of the vast ocean waters in front of me, and, despite its blinding qualities, it is mesmerizing. I do not blink at all, for fear I will miss a single second of the sight that is far too beautiful for words: something beyond mere mortal comprehension.

Now, almost as quickly as it had begun, it fades away before ceasing. The moment in time connecting the opposites night and day is gone. The sky shines clear and blue and the coolness of the night before vanishes. The day has brought its life and night has been chased away under its vanishing horizon to bring darkness and mystery to the rest of the world, before making its return.
As I grab my board and head for the ocean, the wholeness of day and with it, reality returns. I face it with excitement, regardless of the unknowns because this one thing I know with certainty. Tomorrow, that marker in the space of time will return and once again I know I will be awed and captivated by a secret known only to those who fail to take it for granted and remain humbled by it.

An ocean sunrise, tranquility at its best.

Did You See the News Tonight?

I saw a man in his prime

shrunken and emaciated,

eyes tinted red and unaware

his whole image stretched out

on a 12-inch screen.

“James R. Thornwell died today

of an epileptic fit.”

Moments of unconscious

rolled by like white-washed waves

in a black sea.

Up and down, flowing with

the current and then crashing

on sandy banks.

Heart beating in a fury,

eyes shocked wide,

fingers embedded into

white sheets as soft as clouds.

The sense of touch is lost.

“James R. Thornwell died today”

He left the manic depressive

world of floating orange clouds

and transcended

into a plane of floating light.

Corn

The cornhusk is

oblong and green with overlapping peels.

The interwoven quilt covers

a sheet of silky threads that sticks in white,

fades to yellow and then brown,

twisted ragged at the top.

Huddled underneath are the kernels,

deep yellow dulling to white

through the cobâ€™s length,

little teeth,

stuck in close and rooted deep.

Row by row the kernels dig into

the bed of the cob,

which nestles them close,

a firm mattress forming

to their soft, waxy skin.

I wonder how it is that they never argue,

lying so close together like that,

like my mama and daddy argued

before they divorced.

Now I have to find my way,

my teeth navigate the cob,

from Rock Hill to Cross Anchor,

with Lockhart in-between

and McConnells on the way

to Lockhart from Rock Hill.

Eccentricity

Silvery Silent

Out here in the moonlight

Half light, night light

When the pity and despair in your eyes

Says a thousand more words

Than could ever be uttered from your lips

Outside

You’re mercury

Fluid and liquid, but steady

Guarded

While inside you’re violet

Transcendent and flickering

With droplets of every rainbow colour

In the furthest,

Beneath your silver shell,

There is no jeering laughter

If you’re not what they expect you

To be;

But this you cannot show them

For fear that they will smother it

Or snuff it out

With their foolish consistency

Uncertainty

I am rocked with uncertainty.

My mama taught at Whitten Center.

Where the retarded children rocked

Back

And forth

In their seats. I wonder what they thought.

I remember my thoughts as a child.

I knew them, but could not say them right

Out loud.

I am rocked with uncertainty.

My mama got sick when I was in first grade.

My grandmama came to take my sister and me to school,

And I got there late for the first time.

Ms. Kelly was eating lunch with the other teachers

In the reading room.

She asked me to bring her a fork from the cafeteria.

I did.

I told everybody that the teachers did not eat in the teachers’ lounge,

They ate in the reading room.

No one believed me.

I am rocked with uncertainty.

I dreamed that I had extra toes on each foot.

It was so real.

I did not worry about fitting into my tennis shoes.

I was sad that I could not wear sandals.

When I woke up, I was so relieved.

I had five toes on each foot.

I slid them into

A pair of sandals. My toes looked like cute pink piggies,

And I was pleased.

I have not worn a pair of sandals in eight months.

I am rocked with uncertainty.

I think of the rocking chairs on the porch of the Cracker Barrel

In Rock Hill.

I sat in one as my sister and I played checkers on a blanket board.

Mama had taught us how.

No one could beat me at checkers.

I moved my king back and forth in the corner

Until she tired and gave up.

I have not played in four years.

I don’t know that I could still win.

I am rocked with uncertainty.

I am sure that I will go to heaven when I die.

Dr. Shrum’s son killed himself by overdosing

On that stuff the dentist gives you to numb your mouth

Before he pulls.

His father was a preacher.

Did he go to heaven?

Dr. Shrum read a poem someone had written called

“Spring Will Come Again”.

I remember a sermon about how everyone passes through

The Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus did not want to be crucified.

Allen Navlyt committed suicide in the eighth grade. He shot himself.

He had been sick with some kind of muscle disease.

He could not take gym class, so he was the library helper after I was.

He finished a poster I started – clouds and kites for March.

He put all the grey clouds together.

I wonder if he went to heaven

I wonder what he thought

Before he pulled.

Best Left Silent

There’s a screaming inside my head. I know it’s me, but of course that doesn’t change anything. It’s funny, how people always talk of that dry, analytical part of you that just watches while your world caves in. Always the writers and the poets and the psychologists can say that to you in their smiling voices, honey rubbed along a wound, but they don’t know that even the ones who watch can scream. Oh, God, but they can scream so loud that nobody hears them.

Once upon a time, I woke up in bed, and saw a crack of morning coming through my curtains. Two hours later, it’s impossible to summon the fascination that a chink of light can throw you into, especially when those hours have seen you burn your reserves of goodwill for the day. After all, smiling takes so many less muscles, doesn’t it? It’s far easier on the face; not even painful compared to trying to look neutral when it’s facing you across the kitchen table as if the sunlight means something. Nobody really notices a rictus when you’re drinking coffee.

School isn’t bad as these things go, which they do. The corners of your eyes get a lot of work, naturally, and you can spend a pleasant period spying out a teacher’s sad smile: that mouth-up-eyes-down flicker that manages to lose itself on any other wayward charge. It’s not limited to the masters and matrons of wisdom, heaven knows; you know the look social services have perfected, the one that wants to help you, child, but stops just short of moving the body in any meaningful way. As long as she knows you care, you’re allowed to comfort yourself with thoughts that a girl doesn’t make her real friends ’till university anyway, and a cup of tea can solve all her problems. Bags, though, not tea leaves – too bitter for children and adults alike.

The vastly superior Garden wins a battle with the television to hold sway over time and inattention, though each one clamours in it’s own way. After all, one could watch gardening on TV, but there’s always the chance of your father coming in, and laughing at the fat smiling men leaning on spades and talking about how to sow seeds in your own back yard. He has a very loud laugh, my father, and very strong. It makes his stomach wobble up and down, as if he were breathing very fast, or hard. Or both.

Trees and bushes offer shade to fit the mood and a paradise for the scuttling beetles and centipedes, chased in and out of sight by every innocent child you can still summon to mind. Most of them look the same, though none of them look like me anymore. It’s surprising how sad that can feel. Hemlock and nightshade grow up against the far wall, lustrous green and purple providing too fine a trap for many a poor cat, intent on stroking their lithe, slender bodies though every patch of the poison they can find. It’ll make them sick eventually, of course, but for now they look healthy enough.

The sun slides away taking the sunset with it, and a million yellow streetlights spring up for those of us defenceless enough to miss her. They can’t quite make the dust motes dance the same way, but they shed enough light to cast faint shadows on the walls, until a real shadow comes to close the curtains, and leave them that way. I used to be afraid of the dark, like most children, but I had a father who would stay beside me for a while, until I discovered how misplaced my fear had been. I outgrew it, but he’s always been there when he needed me.

I’m not afraid of the dark, anymore, and I’m not afraid of the nightmares, it’s the waking up from them I don’t like. Screaming out in the dark used to bring them running, but I don’t do that anymore, not even when he’s already there. After all, why would you make life more complicated than it already is, when you can scream inside your head for hours and hours and be sure that you will never have to stop, that you will never have to breathe hard or fast or smell the hot humid air all around you, no-one will ever see, no-one will ever hear. No one will ever know. You can try and sit vigil by the streetlights until the sun saves you again, but not even they are witness to the things that bump against your life in the night. Cry for me, if you feel like, if you think your empathy can bring me some pity I don’t need, but don’t leave the light on. No one will ever know. Don’t leave the light on. No one will ever know.

Goodnight.

Shards of Memory

The light steps of John O’Malley sank into the thick, muting cushion of snow without the faintest snatch of sound. The flakes settled softly in his wake, swirling flurries of a gentle blindness, slowly, sweetly tucking away all slips of sound in the deep caress of forgotten dreams. The late hours of evening had yet to pass over the day, and O’Malley’s worn leather soles, peeling and brown-black from the snow, halted their steady procession, paused, and settled their weight firmly to both feet, as their owner craned his head, one hand subconsciously clutching an old tweedy hat to his head, as he stared, squinty eyed through the snow at the large, red “Condemned” letters spelled out across the cracked and dusty windows of the old building. Marked out against the expansive white banks, the fresh new sign peered out from the midst of swirling snow flurries as a trace of unwanted color, in a world comfortably black and white.

A stray, still form in the midst of bustling bodies, collars up to the chin, cheeks flushed with cold, eyes beady and black, O’Malley painted a queer picture in the middle of the shabby street, an oddly clear figure frozen in time, surrounded by the grey-blurred outlines of rushing passerby. Stepping closer to the building, the sound of his own footsteps crunching in the snow seemed suddenly more solid, and, as he pressed a weathered hand to the frozen bricks of the towering old Grand Hotel before him, a shiver ran down his spine, an empty echo sounded down the street.

Hours, or perhaps minutes later he still sat, hunched against the rough stone wall, his patched, wet coat drawn up to his ears, his once fine face paled with the cold, tinged blue around the eyes and lips, pale blue eyes sunken deep into their sockets, fine wrinkles the only outline of what had once been. He had placed his hat before him, weighted with rocks to keep it from being blown away, and as he sat half in, half out of the world, a man who had once opened doors to him dropped a coin in his hat without looking at him. O’Malley remembered that man, the superb quality of his tailored suit, the look of respect in his eyes, the way his eyebrows lifted in barely concealed surprise, the quirk of his mouth as though unsure whether he was permitted to smile. But perhaps it had only been a dream after all…the days of golden arches , of strings of pearls wrapped around swanlike necks, of glittering jewels presented for his, the largest, grandest parties, the awed whispers of his hotel, present under even the most insincere and same-standard cordialities. Black Thursday as it was called had shattered those dreams…or begun them, for reality now faded into sublime, and sublime faded away with the snow.

The next morning an irritated demolition worker leapt angrily from his crane to see what had caused the delay, cursing as he pushed through the small crowd of workers around the condemned building. He stopped as he saw a man curled and small at the base of the old hotel, and paused. Soon however, the crowd dispersed, grew disinterested, resumed their tasks, and with the aid of a couple fellow workers, the body was hosted unceremoniously down an alley way, and buried in a makeshift grave of snow. As the building fell in crumbling ruin, and the carefully crafted might of the hotel crashed to the ground, empty echoes streamed down the snow-muted streets, lost on the ears of the deaf-toned passerby.

Symbiotic Summersaults

Sometimes

when the planet does

summersaults

and your words slash my

thoughts

half,

I, in the fetal position,

feel the blood beat

in the skin beneath my ears.

A hand touches my back and,

like IV leeches,

we remain

symbiotic.