Author’s Note:
August in East Tennessee is the hardest month I know. Its too hot to sit comfortably outside to read and write. And as the body longs for an indoor reprieve, the spirit recoils from partaking-in/evoking the majesty of the outdoors. It makes for lots of short poems that count as little more than false starts.
So this month, we’ll meet the minimum for this publication, and not much more. But September is one step closer to the best month of the year, October, and I can already feel the buoyancy and hopefulness rising within me.
Dutifully Yours,
Charles
Their Day in the Sun
It will be hot later.
It is only cool now because I’ve waded my way downstream and am sitting cross-legged on a surprisingly comfortable, still shady river-rock. The Pawpaws are beginning their summer droop just above my head, ripening gently in the river-mist.
Beech and Hickory and Boxelder and Hackberry are all working hard to hold this little scrap of island together. They jostle one another for the best light . . .
bursting upward,
whorling around,
stretching — into the no man’s land above the stream.
They’re young and vigorous, their enthusiasm for light and life not-yet tempered by the pain and suffering and heartbreak of winter floods uprooting years of deep rooted effort. But they come from good stock. Their sires have been making and re-making alliances with the river banks of the Valley and Ridge Country for perhaps as long as there have been river banks.
River and root weave an unbroken cord deep into the past.
. . .
The tough . . . and the lucky, will grow big enough, strong enough, to stand firm against the weight of the floods. But for now, on this mild morning, winter torrents are just a fever-dream, prophecies of an uncertain future that, even if they do come to pass, can’t be prepared-for any better than the work that is already being done.
Forgotten Roads
Before humans cut their roads all throughout the land,
the coursing water was the road builder.
Now, in the hinterlands,
these forgotten roads have grown over.
Trees cast their dark boughs over secret tunnels
and even when just ankle-deep, the water remains blessedly cool
in spite of the blistering August sun.
The human eye no longer sees these roads long forgotten,
too focused on speeding from important place to important place,
with no attention for the spaces in between.
The hidden riparian avenues are “only” trees
that the task-blind eyes don’t know to see as promises of treasure,
as dotted lines on the pirate’s map.
Glinting jewels hide in the bed of the shady creek,
golden step-stones on the path to El Dorado.
But ears are different from eyes.
They’re naturally broader in their areas of interest,
less prone to hurried, hyper-focus.
Unlike the eye, the ear knows an ancient river-road when it happens upon it.
The trickling, tinkling water calls
as the listener passes by shaded boughs.
Even when the voracious Summer Green mounds up and towers over,
shielding the water from sight of the rare curious glance,
the ears know how to find it.
That’s assuming they’re moving slowly enough to hear
more than the rushing wind of busy passage.
Make no mistake.
These are not ghostly paths.
These ancient river-roads see as much use as when they were first water-worn,
long before then humans cut trails of their own.
Perhaps they even see more use in this age.
The loud, violent passageways of rubber and steel
have forced the slower, simpler Folk to seek safer roads.
Perhaps once upon a time, human roads were open
to all Peoples of the forest and field.
But even the sturdy shells and tough hides of Turtle and Armadillo
are no match for the single-mindedness and casual cruelty of the automobile.
Accelerate first. Brake second. Stop and look rarely, if ever.
But those People of the forest and field have long memories
of life-ways past,
and they are nothing if not resourceful.
The bigger and straighter and faster and less forgiving the highways become,
the curvier and slower and more secretive and welcoming the old roads grow in return,
to all the Folk who care to let the passage of the sun in the sky
be the fastest thing in their world,
and not contest for such accolades themselves,
racing the day and burning the night as the frantic Humans do.
If you do stop to investigate this hidden realm,
you’ll not find the on ramps to these ancient river-roads
— except on foot.
You’ll hear tell of this hidden highway before you see it,
a distinctly different language of road-noise.
Your eyes will be of little help among the stemmy annual plants that
tower overhead,
unless you’re willing to squeeze between them and wind your way,
five steps along the contour for every one step down
as the four-legged Folk wisely do, limiting their erosion,
keeping the creek free of unnecessary turbidity.
There’s no place here for blazing new trails
or cutting straighter paths.
Leave those methods on the asphalt where they belong.
Honor the slow approach for the slow road.
Prayer for the Timid
I pray thanks
for the fear.
The fear that I’ve
walked over the edge.
Again.
The fear that I’ll surely be lost
— fallen off into the
void.
And I pray thanks
for the knowing.
The knowing that I’ve
walked over the edge before
. . . discovering back then
as I had almost
forgotten now.
I have wings.
Secret Animal
Is there a secret part of yourself,
a part that really believes in the magic
— out there in that other world?
You know that world,
the one that wasn’t built by-humans-for-humans.
Does your secret self think that maybe
— Heck! Your secret self can do better than maybe.
Your secret self knows.
It knows that with just a little bit of practice,
it could thrive out there,
in that other world.
Leaf litter for a pillow.
Cold mountain stream for a bath.
Bears and birds and bobcats for companions.
Learning all the lost names and forgotten tongues of the land.
Would your secret self ever even look back?
A Stroll in the Labyrinth
Within the folds of the
contemplative path
you need not fear
to lose your way.
With every step,
you shed a bit more weight
from that load you carried in
— unknowingly.
Your head begins to lift,
your eyes shed their mists,
and the twists and turns
of the path are unveiled.
You begin to realize
the winding of the way
serves not to confound or mislead you,
but to wrap you in loving embrace.
The labyrinthine path
upon which you walk
is but a wrinkle in the careworn hand
of God.
Candlelight Memoriam
Authors Note:
On August 27th, 2019, my father’s father died. I lit a candle and kept it burning for 9 days and 9 nights, in case he needed a light on the path to wherever he was going next. No one told me to do it, or taught me about such a ritual. I cobbled it together from pieces and parts of things I’ve seen or heard or read or dreamed. It felt good. It kept me focused. It was more than a bit inconvenient at times (how many people do you know who drive around with a lit candle in their car…) I woke up in the middle of the night more than once, bolt-upright and afraid it had gone out. I went through multiple candles, but I always made sure that a new one was burning before the previous light died out.
I wrote the draft of the following letter during that 9-day period and then published it on Facebook on the one year anniversary of his death. I see in this letter, the kernels of ideas I’ve further developed since then (and some that I still wrestle with to little avail). I am thankful for the time capsule that my old writing provides, insight into old thoughts and struggles, memories that wouldn’t necessarily come unbidden of themselves without the prompting words.
My golden retriever, Duke, is 15 now, and though he is happy and healthy and active, I know I’ll be mourning him too, before long. I’ve been thinking about his death a lot this year. I never used to. I wont know what to do when the time comes, and I don’t know what the signs will be that he is ready to move on. But I’ll do what needs to be done and I hope to build upon the lessons learned from my grandfather’s passing, and perhaps this is an opportunity for study and for more growth and insight into a critical part of the human experience.
One way or another, I loved my grandfather and I honor him as best I know how. And I love Duke and I honor him as best I know how.
Honorably Yours,
Charles
. . .
It was the time to mourn.
You don't tell this time by the watch, or by the sun. But it is a time, one that can be told, like any other. One that sometimes you know is coming, like a season. And sometimes you don't, like a storm.
This time it was a seasonal thing. Not in the calendar-regular kind of way, where the season of giving begins on the 12th day before December 25th, and the season of renewal begins on the 3rd day after the crucifixion. But in the way that cool, clean Autumn sweeps in overnight after the endlessly-long, hot dirty Summer.
My Grandfather had been sick for a long time. Ten years perhaps. Its hard to say since it came on so slow. Not to mention, people never tell you the truth when they're weak. Or even, when they are forthcoming, they've waited. They don't want to worry you.
After all, you're a modern American. You have more than your fair share on your plate already. Standard American Default-Mode.
Funny thing about not wanting to worry you, about wanting to protect you, if they do it too well, you don't know what to do when they're gone. Perhaps you don't even know what to do about them being gone.
I guess that's part of why I know that I don't know how to mourn. I was taught not to worry about them, just take care of myself.
They're dead. You aren't. Keep moving.
But then, I figure I ought to know how to mourn. Surely I'm at least smart enough to figure it out. At the very least, people have been doing it since before people were humans. There's bound to be a book on it or something...
The more I relax. Relax my mind. Relax my definition of what mourning looks like, should be. I realize, so much of human culture ties in to mourning. Indeed, what are rules for living a good life other than rules for dying well?
So I ask, 'How do the people I admire mourn?' But there are too many answers, so I ask a simpler question. 'How do the people I admire treat death?' And then I realize the inverse is the key. 'How do the people I admire treat life?'
With the utmost honor.
I admire those who live and die by their honor. But what even is honor, in a world where the past isn't sacred and the future isn't shared.
Honor, by my reckoning, is thinking long and hard, then deciding what is important to you, the simplest qualities of goodness you couldn't stand to give up and live without. This is your standard. You share it with others, refining it further until it passes muster. And then you live your standard, you do your standard, you be your standard, especially when it is difficult to do so.
And so, in living and dying with honor, those who live within a standard would rather die within it, than live without it.
I figure. If a good life, well-lived, is about honor. And a good death, well-deserved, is about honor. Then mourning must be about honor as well.
Isn't mourning then, the way the living acknowledge the goodness of a death and the honorableness of the one who has died.
It is the duty of the honorable to mourn the passing of a fellow. When one mourns, he acknowledges the honor accrued and meted out by the dead and he gives thanks to have known, and to have grown through the knowing, a one so good.