When I found my Dad, he was sitting at the kitchen table,
hands palms up in his lap, with a look of peaceful release on his face.
I’d expected to find him in the living room, enthroned in his easy chair,
a crossword puzzle open in his lap, pencil in hand, his balding head encircled by his ever-present halo of dust.

I actually jumped when I turned the corner and saw him there.
I thought they said he was dead!
No, this can’t be, he’s only resting, he looks too alive!
But no, he’d gone. He’d left us all behind to deal with life without him. What was I to do?
He’s too important, and ****** Dad! We never got to really talk. O Dad!

I dropped to my knees and put my forehead on his knee – stiff with his leaving,
and felt my fear begin to rise from deep down inside.
Where have you gone, my father?  Where?
So many questions – we’re all talking over one another – each demanding my undivided attention, but all I could do
was look at his hands,
up to his face,
and back to his hands.

Suddenly I knew – better than anything worth knowing – that I was alone and had allowed time, apathy, selfishness, and guilt rob me of my chance to have not just a father, but a friend.

God ******! ****** ****** ******!

I was suddenly angry, then despairing, then angry once more.
Angry at him for leaving.
Angry at those who hurt him bad enough for him to hate faith an anything spiritual.
It wasn’t their right. How could they have done this to this wonderful man?
How could someone have the gall and the bile to point sanctimonious fingers at a man so gentle and kind, and rob me of that connection?

I was brought back to reality by the police officer asking me to call the mortuary.
Who calls the mortuary for their father?!
Well, apparently their children do,
so I stood to make the call.

The somber-suited undertakers arrived, and with practiced ease, began their preparations.
First the stretcher, then the thick, heavy plastic of a body bag – silver zipper glistening like an eager snake.

Then they began to divest my father of the things that made him him:
Sneakers
Glasses
Watch and rings,
and finally his pockets: he had two Swiss army knives, his ever-present Chapstick, three nickels, and finally, a penny.

Sixteen cents.
The most generous man I’d ever known, and the one to whom we could always turn,
was being taken away from us forever,
and I was left with some personal effects,
three silver nickels,
and one penny.
Sixteen cents.
Six-teen-cents.
Six-teen¬-cents!
Sixteen-*******-cents.

F­ive years later, and I have them still.


© 2012 Michael Hunter

Brown water, rocks and trees,
habitat of geese and ducks.
Endless ripples blur the water’s surface, and
no cloud is mirrored on its face.

The season of death
robs the color from this vista,
while snow paints majestic peaks
touching clouded skies.

Willows, with fall-rusted leaves stubbornly clinging,
sway like hair in the pre-storm winds, and
pompous grass banners bend northward
shaking in anticipation of winter’s cold touch.

Black-headed geese with white chin straps
bob peacefully on unsettled waters, or
stand one-legged – beaks buried ‘neath their wings
in Zen-like balanced repose.

Why doesn’t the wind knock them over?

A lone green-headed mallard swims amongst the geese
muttering to himself and looking for his kind.
He seems to know he is an interloper.
Finally he spies his clan resting sleepily beneath a spreading pine, and
quickly retreats to a more accepting place.

A sudden disturbance makes the geese run on water –
flapping wildly and finally lifting
into the sullen November sky.


© 2012 Michael Hunter

When I was three, I was a criminal.
I was a shoplifter and a thief.
I would crawl out of a window with broken glass in the pane, and run the streets.

At three.

I was a runaway and a rebel.
I loved car lots and the grease-covered back doors of local cafes and diners.
I would pocket a roll of Necco Wafers faster than you could blink,
Then hide inside used cars to sleep off the sugar coma.

At three.

When I was three, I was a mean little thief in stylish red cowboy boots.


© 2012 Michael Hunter

I am disappointed.

I'd seen a change and had felt
we'd turned a corner, leaving the
hurt and pain behind us. But now
I know.

Your smile, your joking, your
statements tell me we were on
the same wavelength - even finishing
each other’s sentences. All of it was
an act.

I'd felt hope and concern returning
to my heart, and even felt relief
that maybe things had changed
for the better. I'd even dared to
invest myself again. I got a
poor return.

But then, I'm not so surprised you know,
it all seems familiar and just as
uncomfortable. I'd held my breath
through it all, waiting for the other shoe
to fall.

And now it has. So why worry now?

I am disappointed.

I am not surprised.


© 2008 Michael Hunter

Morning peace and self-reflection
– an apathetic joy –
not caring for gain or worldly wealth,
but feeling joyful in the single moment.
This peace is new,
and welcome.

Strange that I would find this peace
apart from God (as I have known him)
and apart from religion
(the staple fare of most of my life.)

Yet, set adrift from these restraints,
I have found a simple peace and an easy joy
in finding good and kindness in all men,
in all moments,
in this time,
here.
Now.

When I feel fear and anxiety and
find myself in unfruitful rumination,
I have scrambled for the fruitless
pabulum of prayer and self-justification,
when all the while the ease of simple acceptance
and acknowledgement were waiting patiently for my use.

“That they are what they are,”
will quickly ease my heart faster now
than any heartfelt cry for peace or justice
from a god who is removed from the world, and
who seems wholly disinterested and uncaring.


© 2012 Michael Hunter

Grant me peace today,
that I may convey calm compassion and understanding.

Grant me joy today,
that I may be one less troubled soul amidst a sea of fear and pain.

Grant me a generous heart today,
that I may be the source of sustenance and supply.

Grant me courage today,
that I can lend strength to those who may be failing.

Grant me serenity today,
that I might hold and anxious hand and speak words of comfort.

Grant me strength today,
that I might shoulder someone’s burden who is faint and failing.

Grant me clarity today,
that I might give wise and acceptable counsel.

Grant me patience today,
that I may endure the less-enlightened and those who harm.

Grant me endurance today,
to keep the bigger goal in mind and avoid the distractions of pettiness.

Grant me love today,
that I can see others without judgment, and with compassion – whoever they are.


© 2012 Michael Hunter

18 days left until the end of the world!

We’re down to the wire folks – so get your living in now because in 18 days, all this chaos, selfishness, hate, bigotry, joy, happiness, and beauty will come screeching to a halt.

I wonder if the WORLD – the PLANET knows its end is near? I wonder if it knows that a puny, insignificant species on its face has declared its end and death? I wonder how many times before it’s heard about its end and has kept on rollin’ merrily along?

To think that one species can – and has – imposed its superstitions and god-myths on such an immovable and ancient cosmic body. If you need a definition of arrogance my friend, look no further!

For billions of years this wonderful water-ball has spun its way through the cosmos and has nurtured, raised, and even destroyed countless forms of life upon its face, and yet only one species – amongst the millions that have come and gone, presume to declare its end.

While spiritual and metaphysical voodoo can make grand pronouncements about our doom, we are unique in one other aspect, and that is we are the most intelligent species on earth, and we use our accumulated brilliance to figure out better ways to **** each other, foul the very air we breathe, poison the water which sustains us, and contaminate the soil from which we spring.

So foolish.

So near-sighted.

So ignorant in practice.

So cruel to our mother.

I wonder what makes us – the most intelligent of them all – so incredibly stupid that we spend enough on war every day to eradicate world hunger ten times over, and yet, expect us to believe that in 18 days our world is going to end just because a culture composed of humans ran out a room on a circle of stone?

Pathetic.

Oh silly misguided human animal.

The only thing that’s going to destroy this world – this beautiful, self-protecting, self-correcting, self-balancing world – are the pitiful human animals who don’t even have the humanity to love each other – let alone the earth – enough to lift us higher than a stone-age culture looking at the stars and seeing only themselves.

18 days left before the world ends? I don’t think so. Maybe we’ll do the earth and all its wonderful life-forms a favor and stop the madness we’ve created, and in 18 days finally learn to love again.

  
© 2012 Michael Hunter