Islands Adrift

Yesterday I learned that an old high school friend had died at the age of 47, of heart disease.  It was delivered to me by a cousin of my friend, who just happens to be my best friend from college. Such news hurt me sharply, hotly, and more than to be expected regarding someone with whom I had not spoken in decades. Today, my impatience showed when I failed to let the pan get hot enough before deglazing the onions with a shot of red wine. It was dinner, and I was sad and angry.

How to reconcile Death with pork ragu over pasta? Is this possible? My belly did not care. Hunger is its imperative. My soul, on the other hand, disagreed. I wept into my fist.

Hunger will not be denied. Nor will sadness. It is a peculiarity of my being that I am ever hungry unless I am deeply ill or otherwise disturbed to the point of collapse. The news of my friend's death pushed me to that edge. Yesterday, I wept over my keyboard, feeling simultaneously ashamed and indignant that I was reduced to such a state. There was no denying that my friend  and I had drifted far apart over the past two decades. No communications had been had in the intervening years, notwithstanding the ease and facility of Facebook, Twitter and myriad other digital ways to find and connect. Perhaps it was partly that shock of realization that fueled my outburst at the stove tonight.

My friend had married, he had moved to Mississippi, he had become the owner of a country store. I was unaware of none of these facts of his existence. It seemed an impossible task to reconcile all this lost history with making dinner. Perhaps I really should not have tried. I was tired and sad and the walls between my day and my heart were breaking down. I thought back to the wakes I have known in my life, those impossibly strained gatherings where we met at the houses of the deceased or their family, and loved ones and strangers show up bearing platters of fried chicken, lasagna, potato salad and anything else grieving souls can think to pull together to succor those who have lost the most. Death takes its pound of flesh, and we can think of nothing but conversation and filling our bellies.

Then there was me, standing at the stove stirring a skillet full of sauce while waiting for the pasta to be done. Wiping my eyes, I had to grin thinking of my old friend. I knew perfectly well that he would not have tolerated any bullshit from me on this matter. He was a bright spirit with a world-class sense of humor. I heard his voice in my head, saying "Quit yer bitchin', you damn dumb Irishman, and shut up and eat!" In his honor, I complied. Even if the soul is empty, the belly must be filled.

Nearly fifty years on this planet, and time showed me just how far we may drift apart on the oceans of our lives. But I know, I know, how deep the currents run and how far they reach. The soul feels it when a part of its past departs this world. Currents of the heart pull and shift, and we feel the disturbance keenly across time and miles.

In memory of F.C., my friend. Good luck and godspeed.

Heart In A Box

August 18th, 4:36 PM. A few clouds, silvery light limns me as I write. I quite like it.

"Ten thousand words swarm around my head
Ten million more in books written beneath my bed
I wrote or read them all when searchin' in the swarms
Still can't find out how to hold my hands"

The music player surprised me with the Avett Brothers somehow knowing my heart ahead of time, they could foresee the future years ago, they must have. How else could they have known I would be delving into a box full of memories, heartaches and love this silvery-gray afternoon? My heart contracted and my throat tightened around a bolus of emotions, rough but not entirely unwelcome.

I was searching for photos. More specifically, CD's with photo files or a flash drive containing the same. I've been thinking about my twins lately, and I wanted to find the pictures I had taken when they were still in the NICU. Scoured my computer, the external drive, no luck so far. I thought that perhaps I had copied them off. I hope I did.

So it was a riffling through my desk, ransacking my briefcase, checking some shelves. I was avoiding the large box of mementos I had packed in my last move, but with no luck finding the right discs I knew I would have to open it.

It was among the very last boxes I sealed before moving. As I cleaned up my old house, I kept discovering the odd bit of physical memory, things I didn't want to discard, or couldn't discard. You know how it is when you move things that have been in the same place for long periods of time. Layers and strata develop. Chunks of memory form under the compaction of more stuff and time. Photos. Kids' drawings. Notes and cards and letters. Knick-knacks and curios. I had more than I remembered.

They all went in the box so I wouldn't lose them. The box itself had been set aside in a corner, resting there in the months since I moved. It was with some hesitation that I slid the knife through the tape holding the box shut. There was pressure, in my head and heart. I was hoping it wouldn't explode.

The Avett Brothers began to croon, the box opens, and into my hands fell shards of memory and love. I clutched to my chest artifacts from two pasts, one that will only be a future in my mind, and one of a future still developing. A small blanket, a picture or two of my son and daughter in the isolettes, drawings by my lovely Wee Lass, small crayon pictures scrawled with "I Love You Dad" in letters etched deep in the stone of my heart. Bits and pieces of my past youth and my Big Bro, all tucked away into 1.5 cubic feet.

The pressure in the box blew these fragile papers and relics up in a cloud, the words and images swarming around my head as I frantically scooped them up to contain them all. The world swam and blurred, liquid diamonds diffracting in my eyes. The papers, the pages, these miniature stelae forming the library of my history. Books beneath my bed? Jesus H., how did they know that? 

I never did find the discs for which I was looking. As I placed the things back in the box, they came to me as more books on the shelf. Books I am reading and still writing, because I know no other path to follow.

The box filled, I closed the flaps and pushed it away to another corner. Sitting there in the chair, I looked down at my trembling fingers. I clenched them, feeling small and sad knowing that, in some sense, I still can't find out how to hold my hands.

--
Lyrics from "Ten Thousand Words", by the Avett Brothers.

Dog Day Burn

River and sea collide
meeting on the porch
Hot as the hell inside
me, soaked and wrung

I rest my eyes,
fireflies hover and float
Little light reminders of
faded glow in my heart

People say, Get a dog
adopt a cat, (bitter laugh)
Dogs don't say I love you
cats aren't arms of a woman

No matter, sticks thrown
or jingly balls tossed,
Jaws fetching and tugging
won't retrieve a broken heart,

when goodbye is a dirty word.

Winter Poetry Slam: Cinco

When spring comes around
Heavy with flower and fruit,
Will you blossom, too?

Winter Poetry Slam: Quatro

Ice wind, rain falling
In the silence between drops
Hear the childrens' cries

Winter Poetry Slam: Tres

Sweating fever dream
Their names echo from the walls,
My arms lay empty

Winter Poetry Slam: Dos

Leaves falling, swirling
wind turns chill, your memory
cannot hold my hand.

Winter Poetry Slam: Uno

Southward the geese fly
Mournfully, I hear their cries
Broken heart holds you

Road To Mare Tranquillitatis

An invisible highway rushes on, and today your earthly remains will join the traffic. I remain land bound, too weak to follow and choking on the tears of shame. I will miss you.

When you left for good, it was to knowledge that I turned for comfort, as I often do. As if the tomes and the maps could bring you back, or make me understand why you had to leave. This time it was an effort doomed to failure, unless you count the sheer accumulation of data as success. Pardon my bitter laughter, but as much as I like a good, solid fact this time data may as well be vapor for as long as it lasted and as hard as it was to grasp.

The maps tell a very different story than the one I have written in my heart, the epic first recorded when you were born, and I followed, young lives becoming our Iliad and our Odyssey. The conceit I carry would make you laugh, of that I am certain. Maps. How do you map a surface that is restless and liquid? One that refuses to stand still?

The Spaniards “discovered” the Gulf Stream in the 16th century, using it as a highway for the ships carrying plundered gold from the Americas. Ben Franklin drew a map of the currents in the 18th century, all scratchy lines and sepia tones. Mr. Franklin’s map is in stark contrast to the digital satellite constructs I came across in my search, looking for that map of you. The bright colors writhed hallucinogenic across the screen and my eyes swam in my head. From tears or fatigue I do not know, but I smiled to think about old ink and Day-Glo posters and how these ends of the spectrum were the very essence of my memories of you.

Colonial powers used the mighty unseen power of the current as a road, and I cannot escape the comparison. This complex Ouroboros of upwellings and boundary conditions carrying life and salt over the swallowing vastness of the ocean is probably the perfect place for you now. The things you will see, at home with the fish and waves. I long to follow, but stand here on the shore, watching and waiting for courage which seems to have abandoned me.

Did you know the moon was full, five days ago? Of course you did, you have a spectacular vantage point I am sure. It was hypnotic and I spent some time staring at it through the naked branches of lonely trees as I walked through a chilly evening. The limpid breeze traced cool circles on my cheeks, lost in reverie. G-maw was there, too, telling me about the moon as we looked through her binoculars and the small telescope I used to have. She liked the moon, and could name some of the craters and seas. I still remember Copernicus and Tycho and Sea of Rains, their Latin names unfamiliar on my tongue. I stood still in the faint glow of streetlights as a memory surfaced, like Nessie in the murky loch of my mind. The big faintly blue smudge on the face of the moon, just right and up of center, that one is the Sea of Tranquility. It saddened me to think you may never have sailed those waters.

Speaking of waters today would have been your forty-sixth birthday, my brother, and it is today that your ashes will be cast upon the face of the Gulf Stream, by your beloved wife and in the presence of friends. I regret that I will not be there to see it, alone in my shame and timidity. Your loss weighs heavy on my mind and stayed my hand from making my way to join them. Know that I love you, my brother, and I hope that you forgive me my weakness.

Scientists say that the Gulf Stream carries the maximum amount of water in the fall, so it is fitting that you will be a passenger in this time of cold velocity. Brother, I bid you farewell, and pray that the current you loved to fish will carry you to your own Mare Tranquillitatis.

Sometimes...

...the things that I want to say, that need to be said, cannot easily be put into words...

...but at least I'm not writing alone...Slainte, one and all.

OH MY BROTHER*

Oh, my brother
Won't you stand here beside me
We shall carry each other
And should your soul grow weary
And the strength leave your bones
Oh my brother
I will carry you home

I lost a lot of good intentions
Deep in watering eyes
Crystallized blue
There's a whole lot of fear
That kept me here
I know fear ain't nothing new to you
Fear ain't nothing new to you

White on white
Hospital eyes
Should have been there
Now I know
And singing this song's no way to say goodbye
But it's the only way I know
This is the only way I know

And singing this song's no way to say goodbye
But it's the only way I know
This is the only way I know

____________________

*"Oh My Brother" is a beautiful song, written by Robbie Schaefer and performed by Eddie From Ohio on their album "I Rode Fido Home". Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Original Guitar Hero, Unplugged

On His way backstage, God kicked the cord out of the wall. The amplifier fell silent, the aural void near to bursting the eardrums when my Big Bro passed away. The Stratocaster solo that was his life cut off, the guillotine falling and we were in shock, unaware that a sentence had been handed down.

Sentence is unfair, perhaps. I am fully cognizant that his death was not a punishment. It is an inescapable fact of our existence that we are all not meant to last. Knowing it is inevitable does not lessen the pain, I am sure you would agree. Pain. Far too often it has been my travelling companion in the last few years. I have written three eulogies, now, in my life. I daresay I am becoming an expert.

Terrible occupation, it is, writing signs for people that I may be a limner of the departed. It is a spike of irony that Big Bro essentially taught me to read when we were kids, before I even started first grade. His eulogy another sign for me to paint:

Big Bro had a kind heart and beautiful, troubled mind. Growing up that trouble made him hard to reach, sometimes. As time went on, we drifted apart, the moon and the sun shining on the same sea but different waters. Our orbits were no longer the same. If I thought I was the sun, I forgot my partner the moon.

The sun, however, has a long memory for love. Eventually I came to see that Big Bro was my reflection, and I was fortunate to have it. We began to reach one another after years in different parts of the sky. I was humbled by his love and pride in me. I was astonished at his protectiveness. I was blessed that we could share these things.

Big Bro fought a lot of demons in his life, in his body and his mind, but one place he was happy was out on a boat, deep-sea fishing. It was there that he was happiest, absorbed in the joy of rolling waves and catching fish. He was happy, I think, because some demons cannot cross open water. It was there that he could be at peace, and I am pleased to know that he found some relief.

Big Bro made me realize that I am not the sun. If anything, I am closer to being the sea: restless, hungry and not the same without the moon to change the tides.

Big Bro was also a skilled guitar player, self-taught, and in love with music. It made little difference to him if he became a rock star, he simply loved to play. He could listen to songs and just start playing them, as if it were like breathing. His favorite guitar was a blue Stratocaster, and it had pride of place on his living room wall.

God kicked out the cord, the Marshall stack went silent and the stage was suddenly bare. My hands grasp at the phantom shape of that guitar neck, and my heart aches at the thought that he won’t be around to teach me to play. Big Bro is gone now, and I sit silent in the front row, echoes of a brilliant power chord fading into memory. Brilliant, strange and lovely.

Rock on, my brother, wherever you are.

I Can't Bring Myself To Erase It...

Chances lost...

Take You Higher, Take You Home

It is with sadness and regret that I have to let everyone know that Irish Gumbo will be on hiatus for the time being.

My Big Bro passed away suddenly yesterday, unexpectedly, and time is needed to get my head around losing a member of the flock.

Sometimes you have to blow out the flames to preserve the fire. Peace and blessings to you all.

" 'Good-bye, Sully. We'll meet again.'

And with that, Jonathan held in thought an image of the great gull-flocks on the shore of another time, and he knew with practiced ease that he was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all."

---from Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

The Ghosts In My Heart

I would have called before I came by, assuming that had been possible. I went to see you this chilly fall morning under a sky of crystalline azure. The wind was slight but the cold has a way of seeping into the bones. This time I remembered my heavy coat and my gloves. I stopped the car and looked across what passes for a lawn, straining to catch a glimpse of you both. Nothing. There was no one else around except for a pair of workmen. They were across the road, one working a backhoe, the other directing from in front of the yellow machine. They were talking with one another; their voices were muffled by distance in between growling bursts of engine noise. The hole in front of the backhoe was slightly larger than a coffin of an adult. A small shiver coursed down my spine.

Finger on the lock button, I hesitated as I always do. There is that moment where I want to turn around and go home, save myself some heartache. Then I feel ashamed. How could I leave now? I came this far already, and I do not get out here often enough. I imagine you both must be waiting patiently, day after day, week after week, and wondering when it is I will arrive. I inhale deeply. There is no real choice but to get out of the car and walk the short distance from the street to your front door. Front door? Who am I kidding, this is not a house.

Stepping out of the car into the white gold sunshine, I am amazed at the quiet. The main road is nearby with a steady stream of cars rolling by in both directions. I hear them as if through blankets. The backhoe coughs itself into silence as its operator shuts it off and jumps down from the seat. The two workmen peer into the hole, conferring with each other. I cannot hear their voices now. Standing now, I can just barely see your stones peeking above the grass. There is a curious sensation in my chest and arms, as if I can feel the turbulence of my blood flowing under the skin. It is not a pleasant feeling. I start forward. The leaves underfoot are no longer red or yellow or orange, but a hundred shades of brown. Their crunch under my feet is astoundingly loud. Beyond in the woods is a crow. Backlit by the sun its ebony silhouette looks like a hole punched into the crisp blue of the sky. Please leave, I mutter to the crow, I am uncomfortable with your implications. The crow ignores me.

How far is it from the road to you? Seventy feet? Eighty? A hundred? I don’t know but it always seems so far. The walk is discontinuous; I keep moving and moving and it seems I am getting no closer until suddenly I am beside you. Things are not very different from the last time I was here, which I find strangely comforting. The markers look metallically stolid under a thin film of dirt. The leaves are heavier on the ground and have collected in the shallow groove surrounding each stone. I feel a pang of regret that I forgot to bring a scrub brush and paper towels like I normally do. I’m sorry, kids, I won’t be cleaning up today. The flowers from the last visit have shriveled into tiny tatters clinging forlornly to blackened and brittle stems. The pot holding them has tipped over on its side, probably from the wind. I brush leaves away from the markers as best I can. There are numerous little stones around both of your borders; you have had many visitors. I choke back a sob, overwhelmed by the kindness of the people who came to see you.

Finally, the leaves are out of the way. Your names stand out in stark relief, yellow metal against brown. The letters waver in and out of focus, shimmering under a flood of hot tears spilling down my cheeks. I close my eyes and find myself kneeling on the ground with my hands on the plaques. I must have taken my gloves off because the cold metal shocks my palms. I can feel the heat bleeding out through them, draining my heart and flowing down into the ground. I hope it finds its way to you. I cannot stand the thought of you both alone, in the cold darkness. I whisper “I love you, I miss you” into the brittle air. Did you hear me? Are you home?

My composure regained, I stand and brush the dirt and leaves off my hands. Time to go. Walking back to the car, I realize I have made a mistake. Your home is not here, in the cemetery. Your home has always been with me: my heart, haunted by ghosts I will not banish.

(For E. and C. Winter isn’t here yet, but it sure feels like it today.)

He Wasn't A Race Car Driver, He Chased Squirrels

One of those things that, no matter who you are, makes you stop and think. A bit of sad news to report today, from the extended Irish Gumbo clan.

Jerry had to be put to sleep today.

Jerry was the dog belonging to my Big Bro and his wife. He was a German shepherd-something mix (part comedian? part goofball?) and he was a faithful companion to my brother for many years. He took great delight in frolicking around the yard, guarding the perimeter and making the family compound safe from the scourge of squirrels. He was also a big, big dog with a bark that matched the size. When Jerry barked, he was the definition of ‘subwoofer’. It could vibrate right into your chest. Jerry was a big dog, and also a friendly dog. He might bark at you on a first meeting, but the wagging tail and the friendly licks gave him away. You could almost use him as a sofa when he was lying down, or at least a good headrest. Or maybe a large, mobile ottoman with four paws and a muzzle.

As you might expect, age and weight began to take a toll on Jerry. His eyesight began to fail and being so large his hips began to wear out. He still liked to run and chase the squirrels, just not as fast or as accurately as in his youth. In one spectacular example, he saw what he thought to be a squirrel, took off as fast as he could, and crashed headlong into a concrete birdbath in the backyard. The impact knocked the birdbath over and probably left Jerry wondering when it was those squirrels started to pack such a wallop.

Like water over stones, time wore down Jerry. The eyes growing dim and the bones growing frail, in recent days it became almost impossible for Jerry to walk. Even when he could, it was obvious he would not be able to for much longer. The unthinkable became the inevitable, and Big Bro had to make the decision to end Jerry’s pain. The veterinarian came out to the house this morning, and it was done. My father sent me an e-mail this morning to let me know. It caught me a little off guard. I knew it was going to happen, just did not expect it to be then. I sat back in my chair, looked out the window, and to my surprise I found some tears in my eyes.

Anytime a companion dies, no matter the species or the reason, the partner always feels diminished. Necessity does not lessen the sting. Jerry was not my dog. I was never in his delightful presence for long; Big Bro and I live far apart so time and distance did not allow it. But Jerry was a good friend and companion to my brother, and I felt the sting by proxy. Big Bro had to make the best of an awful situation; he had to say goodbye to Jerry today. Tonight, let’s raise a glass or wag a tail for him. By now, he’s probably in a place where steaks grow on trees and the squirrels are fast, but not that fast.

Goodbye, Jerry. Catch that squirrel.