And the rooftops are falling apart like the applause
of rough, long-nailed, intimate, roughened-by-kisses, hands.
—Frank O’Hara
There is a snowstorm, there is hail, lightning. There
is wind coming at you at more speed than your body
can possibly outmaneuver. There are the gutless
(soulless) caretakers in whose minds we, those
for whom these demons were called to shelter
from such calamities, do not exist. And there is a
man hunched almost rotten scratching these words
into this unknown and hopefully reliable surface,
who always chose to fight the good fight with no
fists and short-tempered humor. A being mostly
predisposed, let’s say by anti-genetics, let’s say that
if he was led by example, his composure, his posture
and general direction were means to NOT be any who
performed before him, who preached at him such skewed
notions of wrong versus right, who built the houses in which
he slept and ate and the schoolyards and playgrounds in
which he played, who tilled the gardens he helped harvest.
The spooked horses he rode through the brush. The
deceptively thin rivers in which he, as a child, with a rock
the size of his belly tucked and knotted securely within
his t-shirt, dives into that river, its deep swollen current
unbeknownst, threshing through his clothing with his
awkward arms until they bled out with the speed of
the riverbed’s rush of fish and slime-ridden water until
he was free. Without a moment to spare. That ancient
impulse to flap his feet as if they were amphibious, and
he was spewed through the surface, able to float almost
as motionlessly as the water was restless, saving that
last bit of energy for when his head bit into the bank
and he rolled atop its clayey surface, safe from death
by drowning or whatever tragedy that wretched river
might have had in store for him, and he breathed,
looking up at the storm-cleared sky for long enough
to be grateful, and then longer still so that he would
remember to be grateful. And so when he stood as
tall as he could, which he soon did, he’d move in the
directions that grateful and alive would take him,
including those darker places where he’d once again
find himself in danger, but thenceforward each time
he crossed that threshold, he did so with purpose.
unbeknownst, threshing through his clothing with his
awkward arms until they bled out with the speed of
the riverbed’s rush of fish and slime-ridden water until
he was free. Without a moment to spare. That ancient
impulse to flap his feet as if they were amphibious, and
he was spewed through the surface, able to float almost
as motionlessly as the water was restless, saving that
last bit of energy for when his head bit into the bank
and he rolled atop its clayey surface, safe from death
by drowning or whatever tragedy that wretched river
might have had in store for him, and he breathed,
looking up at the storm-cleared sky for long enough
to be grateful, and then longer still so that he would
remember to be grateful. And so when he stood as
tall as he could, which he soon did, he’d move in the
directions that grateful and alive would take him,
including those darker places where he’d once again
find himself in danger, but thenceforward each time
he crossed that threshold, he did so with purpose.
