She stood up against the wooden bar lit by a stale football field that shined florescent green and highlighted polyester blue like a muse of Van Gogh or Galileo. Her hair ran down the nape of her neck like a ****** waterfall and the light of the bar highlighted her sphinx like eyes as she turned and caught his eye. He stood at a small table away from the main bar with a couple of friends who were telling stories of their old college days and he, half-listening, quickly looked away, faking to scratch his eye, for he knew he had been caught looking at the back of her and she, with her women's intuition of being observed and knowing this, kept looking and he knowing the only way not to show he had been caught was to look away quickly and very obviously; like a bad actor caught dumb and silent, clueless of their next line. They blushed and shared the heat of embarrassment in their cheeks with the sounds of worn dollar bills slapping hard against the smooth wood of the bar, the bar man eyeing it angrily as cigarette smoke surrounded them and slowly drifted up like a lost soul toward the ceiling and the piano man, eyes tight shut played for everyone there when no-one cared to listen, all underneath the dim light of the bar as they strained to look away from one another, trying to find something they could put their focus upon, but, at the same time, wanting very much to look back and have their eyes meet by mistake all over again.

He focused on the design of the bathroom placards that were in the right corner of the tiny bar where you had to turn sideways and touch shoulder's with every soul inside just to get a drink. He feigned interest in the bronze design of the men's bathroom: a tiny boy looking down at his pecker as he ****** a 1/2 inch thick stream into what the man gathered to be a sunflower ***. The boy was thrusting his hips forward, both of his hands on his side, and he showed no smile, no grin of satisfaction or victory, just a stark, blank face, as if he were thinking "I am peeing in this ***. That is all." The women's bathroom sign was of a young girl with the same kind of *** the boy had been ******* in, but it was missing the sunflower and was replaced by the *** of the girl. She stared up into the sky and into the ceiling lights and was dramatically reaching for a butterfly or bird - he couldn't make out which - something with wings and made him think of a basic metaphor that this poor little girl just wants to get off the *** and be free like the birds and butterflies and clouds in the wide blue sky.

She focused on the man's shoes. She looked at the black shine and the pristine black shoe laces, all looking like everything had just been purchased that day. "There is not a single scuff on them and the way this man cuffs his pants only a single turn," she thought to herself, "Tells me he has something of a style on him". Not so run of the mill. Something special. Something of interest.* But then, she was annoyed by the cuff of the pants because she remembered that was what all the schoolboys in her prep school would do when the day was rainy or the boys rode their bikes home from school or they were nerds. The memory immediately turned her off of the man all together, but luckily, she put her gaze back on the jet-black, seemingly un-touched leather that told her success, class, and security.

The man heard a loud Cheer's!" from his table, abruptly bringing him out of his distraction. He was forced to turn and as he did, he made sure not to look up. He kept his eyes on the table and looked for the half-full beer with the worn Budweiser coaster underneath it. He could see from the his top periphery that she was still facing him but she was looking down at something toward the floor. He fumbled with his large hands for his glass and panned his eyes up slightly. The woman, seeing the movement at the table, looked up. She stared back to where she had first caught him looking at her and waited. The man felt her looking at him and in the same instant, saw the faded Budweiser coaster and reached for his beer. He picked the glass up and as the second Cheer! was yelled, he clashed his glass against all the others, all the while keeping his head not toward his friend's faces, but turned in the direction of the bar toward the girl. He smiled at her as he lowered his glass, not taking a drink. His friend slapped him on the back and told him," You gotta' drink after the cheers or its bad luck," and so he did, still staring dumbly at her as he did. She nodded at him with a self-conscious and embarrassed grin, raised her nearly gone low-ball glass of gin and tonic and tipped it toward him and turned around to face the bar.

"I"ll stand here and wait for him to come up to me," she thought, "And if he doesn't the man is a coward and a louse and not worth my time. I have looked twice now and there is some rule in some magazine that I read somewhere, that if you look twice at a man that it is sign, not a coincidence. No, it has a purpose and though I barely know what reason I want this man to look at me other then to get a drink out of him and maybe some conversation, I am certain I have looked twice, maybe even three times. Yes. I have looked at him and I have made my interest known and now I must wait for him to either come or stay with his drunken friends. They look like frat boys cheering like that. They look like drunken, silly frat boys that wouldn't know the first thing about chivalry. Hell, they probably couldn't even spell the ****** word." She laughed under her breath and smiled maliciously to herself and caught her own reflection in the mirror and, for an moment, wanted to quickly look away. Her face did not frighten her, for she was a beautiful woman, not her skin, which was milky white with the faintest and gentlest dash of rouge on each cheek, nor her chocolate colored curls that bounded like boulder's down a hillside. She turned away from a look upon her eye she had not seen or had recognized in a very long time. Her eyes were frightened.

"Frightened?" she wondered.

The man put his beer glass on the table on top of the coaster. The foam rested at the bottom of the cup like the thin layer of ice that blows over a frozen lake, barely there at all passing with the wind. He stared at her back and liked how she leaned on her right hip and put the toe of her left high-heel to the ground, rocking the nose of the shoe back and forth like she was thinking about something playfully frivolous. Behind him, the noise of his friends became a hollow echo, drowned out by the draw of this woman. She swung her left heel back and forth like a pendulum trying to hypnotize him. Someone touched his shoulder but he shrugged the hand away as in this echo chamber he could only hear the music change tracks on the juke box. The song had changed to an old Ottis Redding song and there was nothing else in the world that he wanted to listen to in that moment. As he watched her, leaning into the bar seemingly all alone, no boyfriend or girlfriend in sight, he saw her raise her glass to the barman and knew she had something by the gentle nod of the back of her head. He then saw her point with her left finger and tap the rim of the glass. Her drink was empty. She wanted another drink. He would buy her another drink.

"There is nothing in this world that a man is more responsible for than getting a woman like this a drink," he nodded, thinking to himself and trying to pick up his courage,"One that plays with my heart like a kitten would a spool of yarn, and yet also like a vulture who would peck out the eyes of a dead man in the desert. This is nothing more then that obligation. A rule passed down from man to man, from age to age, where chivalry was not for the base reason to lay with the woman, but to honor them, praise them lightly as the rain from a heavy mist and show them to the pedestal every woman, whether they wish to admit it or not, do wish for, sincerely do at least once in there life." He readjusted his belt and realigned his shirt that had gotten crooked after the celebratory cheer and thought some more,"I'm not going to do that here, this pedestal stuff. This is more like a step toward that pedestal. Yes. A step toward the shrine she wants to trust she deserves and will one day end up on. And this shrine is all cast and painted in the blurry french film noir of dream, is it not? Aren't dreams the only thing we hope to one day come true? How often - when and if they do come true - they can sometimes disappoint and eventually turn sour like a bad orange. I hope she is drinking and that wasn't just a tonic water. If this woman doesn't drink I don't think any of this will be worth anything at all."

She stood there serene and angelic, the hand that held her drink now resting on the base of the bar. Behind the man, he heard the chatter of his friends and the drone of football scores and player updates coming from the ten or more televisions that hung from the ceiling. Someone reached out to touch his shoulder but missed him as he left the table. His name then echoed behind him but soon the sound evaporated as dew does that rests on blades of grass in a summer morning to a summer afternoon. There was only her and her smell that had drifted to his table and shrouded him with the scent of white chocolate and smoke and her delicate, porcelain hand that had held up the drink shyly but not weakly, in passing demand without that demanding quality drunk people can get like at bars sometimes. He approached her, hovered behind her, but she did not turn, and then came up to the bar to lean into. He did not turn to look at her, though he wanted to very badly, but looked down at her low-ball glass with two half-melted ice cubes and a used lime. The smell of gin came from the glass and the man smiled to himself and put his hand up to signal the bartender.

"If this man orders his drink first and walks back to that table with all of his drunken friends, I am giving up men all together," the woman thought to herself," * Tonight and forever! If he can put his hand up and not even turn to look at me, as I was doing, I thought, to be very flirtatious but gentle, then I see no reason at all to keep going with men. They are barbarians that only want to eat, drink, sleep, and fornicate with women that are easy and provide no real challenge at all in their life. If he wants it easy, he can have it as easy as he wants, but not with me. No sir. Not with me ever. Not with me for a night, an hour, a minute, or even a second."

The bartender, a stout slightly overweight man that was a little over forty with streaks of grey in his thin, short-cut hair, looking very much like he should be home reading with a nice cup of tea by his side rather than in the bar serving drinks to stranger's, approached the man and asked him what he would like.

"Two gin and tonics please," the man said, "With a slice of lime and four ice-cubes in each."

"And what kind of gin, sir?"

The man turned to the woman, "What label do you drink?" he asked.

"Pardon me?" she stuttered startled, her eyebrows raised.

"Your drinking gin, aren't you?" He nodded his head toward the woman's empty glass. The tiny lines of transparent lime skin floated on top of the water that had gathered from the melting ice-cubes.

"Yes, I am. I was just about to order."

"I'll get this round and you'll get the next one."

"Any gin is fine."

The man turned to the bartender," Tanqueray, please bartender."

He nodded and went to make the drinks.

"Your very perceptive," the woman said as she turned to face him.

"I try."

"I saw you from across the bar, but was afraid to walk up to your table for fear of getting ambushed by all of your friends. Those are your friends, right?"

"Yes," he nodded as he looked over his shoulder at them, "Old college friends all with old stories of college that, truthfully, bring me little or no joy to even hear."

"Then why come at all?" she asked, "You seem smart enough to know that if you meet up with old anything, you'll be hearing about the old times all night."

"I was forced to come."

"Someone getting divorced?"

"No," he laughed, "The opposite. Married."

"Well, I hope it's not you or this would look very bad if your fiance walked in."

"And why's that?"

She clicked her tongue and turned to look at the shelves stocked with every kind of liquor. The bottles reflected the soft orange glow of the lights that circled the bar and the colors of the television screens. The man continued to look at the woman who had turned her back on him and caught their reflection in a bottle of Jack Daniel's. He waited for a response, but she stood there silent, knowing she was playing with him. Behind him, his friends were growing louder and a tray of shots had found its way to their table. The waitress who had brought the drinks, polite and with a smile, asked them to try and keep it down. They shouted "YES'S and screamed "YEAH'S" with moronic smiles on their faces, their heads nodding up and down like a dog playing fetch. The waitress giggled a thank and walked away shaking her head with disgust when she was out of sight.

"Well," she said,"You did just order two gin and tonics and I think if your fiance walked in with you chatting with me with the same drink in both of our hands, I think she would be a little upset. I know I would be."

"Perhaps we could act like we are old grammar school friends and just happened to run into one another?"

"Well, that would be a lie."

"Yes, that would be a lie."

"Which would mean we were hiding something from said wife."

"And what would that be?"

"That you approached me after I looked at you, perhaps the look from me wasn't flirtatious, maybe I thought you looked familiar, like I had seen you somewhere, and you came up to me and ordered me a drink and started a conversation with me, much like we are doing right now."

"What's wrong with conversation?" The bartender approached them and placed the two drinks in front of the man. The man took out his wallet without losing his gaze on the woman, took out a twenty and slid it toward the bartender. The bartender took the twenty, paused for a moment to see if the man wanted any change, but left when he saw he didn't want any by not moving.

"Conversation can lead to very dangerous things," the woman said playfully and wise.

"Your here by yourself and your not stupid; someone is going to come up to talk to you."

"And your that somebody?"

"I'm sure I'm not the first one tonight."

"Your sweet."

"I try," he said as he slid the drink over to here,"Your drink."

"What should we drink too?" She asked and raised her glass, the light above them reflecting in the ice-cubes and thick glass of the high-ball.

"Conversation," he said proudly and with a smile, "And the danger that it brings."

They clinked their glasses together, their eyes never leaving one another, and they both took a long drink.

"I'm not here with anybody and I'm not expecting anybody tonight either," the woman said.

"What's your name?"

"Why?"

"I want to be able to tell my friends I met a very interesting woman, but they won't believe me if I don't give them a name."

"I'm standing right here, silly. Go and tell them you met the most interesting woman in your entire life, look over at me when they ask you what my name is, then point over to me and I'll wave."

"You'll be here?"

"I'll be here."

"Promise?"

"Go, go, go," she repeated, pushing him back toward his table, "You bought me a drink, didn't you? The least I can do is wave to your drunken college friends."

The man walked back to his table, glancing quickly over his shoulder, trying to hide it, before he reached the table. He arrived to all of them drunk, beer spilt on the table and an ashtray full of punched out cigarettes and ground up cigars. Every one of them were rocking back and forth with each other, their arms sloppily hung around their neighbor's shoulders, their eyes blood shot with their mouth half-cracked open barely breathing in the smoky, beer smelling air. The man struggled to wedge his way into the circle, and when he did, he tried to get the groups attention by screaming an

disclaimer: unedited rambling and overly long and frankly, Scarlet, don't give a **** anymore...

Thus spake and quested
another, younger poet to me,
a far better one than I,
but obligations thus provided,
are serious business,
to those who understand
poetic responsibilities, and
under his own Rules of Order,
an answer,
though long in coming, AR,
must be provided.

Well well well
all is not well,
the faucets offers choices....
chrome hot
chrome cold

there is no such thing as
lukewarm truth in
clear waters that
run run,
yet never
run stilled,
birthed at turned-on conception,
to drain death removal,
another daily poetic miracle,
unappreciated by most,
overly consumed by their
own passage on this Earth

peddler wayfarer,
passing through with truth
poem pots and rattling pans
(nowadays, mostly panned),
a historic factoid,
and not what Amazon delivers...
truth is a genetically modified
bitcoin currency, misunderstood,
prone to sometimes useful,
but never ever, to stick or stain,
for I got excuses and who gives a ****,
yesterday is forgotten instantly

The coldest truths,
the confirmation of same
by mirrored image text sent,
(immediacy a necessity,
for though poor, it is 'real')
the twitter that methodically
A-lists your major crimes
B-lists your petty,
hope-you-didn't miss my
exposé of latest misdemeanors

the hot truths,
only whispered,
merely mint hinted
in a hot cuppa,
the heat itself
a cover up,
for what you do not
wish me to plainly speak
or plainly sell,
is accursed truths,
won't sell, even if free

Can't write about moon and June,
alabaster is a fine word,
but white suits me fine,
don't know the diff
tween dragon flys and lullabies

The way I write is
just the way I think, believe,
from my eyes to paper
there is no misdirection,
just silent labor conception

Poor poor real truth
is out of favor these days,
because there is nothing
no one won't cease or hesitate
to expose himself,
flaunt the anguish,
copy other's jive,
but that is real,
but it is not truth

Had a bad day,
You need to know about it
Right away!

Though I meander and excuse,
there is one state of truth,
I need yet to annotate

Too oft when tapped turned on,
it is rusty water and rusted truths
expelled and this, my stuff, my days,
not in vogue, or a top seller

I love the color rust,
overused in my poems,
but compulsion is not a
conditional, but a must

This then is the form
they spill in these,
my final days here

You might think that rust implies
lack of use,
a non-caring
for his voice,
his well practiced instrument

Au contrarie, amigo!

My rust is from overuse,
my eyes don't see
what the popular want nor
could I provide it
even if
it was demanded,
which it is not....

Rusted but unvarnished,
undisguised by fancy words
or silent cries, what you read
is what you get
until I find
a more "authentic" voice,
one that satisfies the world
not just me...he sneers....

Feel for me in the summer breeze,
from whence my best stuff
has always been plucked
sent on its way, to you,
in self-same wind,
to kiss your cheeks,
slap you alert

I used to write
on both feet
upstanding,
then Hillel was asked for
the whole truth
while standing
on just one leg

His reply:
"Love they neighbor as you love thyself"

So I switched
and now compose,
in quiet ignorance,
a wrong footed poet,
left only with his what's left,
and to put his left foot truths
first, forward and foremost,
is what he got, and
what I got, you'll get....

But a cautionary note,
drinking riposte rustys,
bad for the body,
but kindly
for your mental
wealth,
if your have the
only other element
most needed,
in your pocket posses,

courage

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Thus spake and quested
another, younger poet to me,
a far better one than I,
but obligations thus provided,
are serious business,
to those who understand
poetic responsibilities, and
under his own Rules of Order,
an answer,
though long in coming, AR,
must be provided.*

Well well well
all is not well,
the faucets offers choices....
chrome hot
chrome cold

there is no such thing as
lukewarm truth in
clear waters that
run run,
yet never
run stilled,
birthed at turned-on conception,
to drain death removal,
another daily poetic miracle,
unappreciated by most,
overly consumed by their
own passage on this Earth

peddler wayfarer,
passing through with truth
poem pots and rattling pans
(nowadays, mostly panned),
a historic factoid,
and not what Amazon delivers...
truth is a genetically modified
bitcoin currency, misunderstood,
prone to sometimes useful,
but never ever, to stick or stain,
for I got excuses and who gives a ****,
yesterday is forgotten instantly

The coldest truths,
the confirmation of same
by mirrored image text sent,
(immediacy a necessity,
for though poor, it is 'real')
the twitter that methodically
A-lists your major crimes
B-lists your petty,
hope-you-didn't miss my
exposé of latest misdemeanors

the hot truths,
only whispered,
merely mint hinted
in a hot cuppa,
the heat itself
a cover up,
for what you do not
wish me to plainly speak
or plainly sell,
is accursed truths,
won't sell, even if free

Can't write about moon and June,
alabaster is a fine word,
but white suits me fine,
don't know the diff
tween dragon flys and lullabies

The way I write is
just the way I think, believe,
from my eyes to paper
there is no misdirection,
just silent labor conception

Poor poor real truth
is out of favor these days,
because there is nothing
no one won't cease or hesitate
to expose himself,
flaunt the anguish,
copy other's jive,
but that is real,
but it is not truth

Had a bad day,
You need to know about it
Right away!

Though I meander and excuse,
there is one state of truth,
I need yet to annotate

Too oft when tapped turned on,
it is rusty water and rusted truths
expelled and this, my stuff, my days,
not in vogue, or a top seller

I love the color rust,
overused in my poems,
but compulsion is not a
conditional, but a must

This then is the form
they spill in these,
my final days here

You might think that rust implies
lack of use,
a non-caring
for his voice,
his well practiced instrument

Au contrarie, amigo!

My rust is from overuse,
my eyes don't see
what the popular want nor
could I provide it
even if
it was demanded,
which it is not....

Rusted but unvarnished,
undisguised by fancy words
or silent cries, what you read
is what you get
until I find
a more "authentic" voice,
one that satisfies the world
not just me...he sneers....

Feel for me in the summer breeze,
from whence my best stuff
has always been plucked
sent on its way, to you,
in self-same wind,
to kiss your cheeks,
slap you alert

I used to write
on both feet
upstanding,
then Hillel was asked for
the whole truth
while standing
on just one leg

His reply:
"Love they neighbor as you love thyself"*

So I switched
and now compose,
in quiet ignorance,
a wrong footed poet,
left only with his what's left,
and to put his left foot truths
first, forward and foremost,
is what he got, and
what I got, you'll get....

But a cautionary note,
drinking riposte rustys,
bad for the body,
but kindly
for your mental
wealth,
if your have the
only other element
most needed,
in your pocket posses,

courage

Across the road
A J-K girl,
Skipped and laughed
On her way to school.
She was strapped
To a big back-pack,
Looking like
A pink pack mule.
Behind her strove
Her drover,
Directing her to quarry
All the stones of learning.

By three o'clock
My minature mule,
A little slower
Trudged from school.
The pack was filled
With rules and tools.
She had panned
The ores of knowledge;
She'll assay them
In days to follow.

Each day my mule
Will turn the grindstone,
Crunching numbers,
Sifting fine poems.
She's mining all the hidden gems
To fill her back-pack
Once again.

One life by flames a Hero made

This just became a lot harder by its very nature I must cloak one identity shine all the light I can on the
Other harder because I was just reminded people find my writing hard to understand brothers at church
Out home can you be more simple use smaller words I could be stupid I’m a high school dropout I don’t
Know any big words well I did use imbecile in the seventh grade that was cool and got a reaction this
Started to be a tribute to a person who was rare although you can surely see glimpses of your dad
Brother or other male members of your family as I said to write you must follow truth strictly no
Deviation but before I could pay and honor the visible one another comes into view from the past with
This twist then he was the dark kight now he is a knight in shining armor the dark knight have him on
The Cross bar of a bicycle both of you have swimming trunks on you pass some tuffs with extra powerful
BB guns while your body shields him he lets off a litany of sailor inspired words directed at them they
Don’t return insults they open fire I have welts and his mother picks three B Bees out of my back did he
Feel any pain he was too busy laughing that was just one time not enough room here to give you the run
Down let’s just say as the only identifier he was a short racer came in first braver than the others but I
saw him in a class picture there is the strange part it touched my heart and then speaking to him on the
Phone my feelings were correct he is a great wonderful person then the stranger yet he so embodies by
Appearance and voice of the one I choose to honor here Stevie Rucker was about eleven that summer I
Met him his mother went to my wife’s church he was bright kind and melted people with his soft and
loving nature quite a contrast to his father a six foot four hard nose FFA inspector we were out at a
Restaurant in the city a foursome in the next room with a booth were using foul language I don’t know
The dim lighting could have been a factor but when this giant shadow fell on them and asks them to stop I
Don’t think they even talked loud after that. But this sweet little boy harbored a dream one day he was
Going to be a fire fighter then as dreams go it was shattered bad eye sight disqualified it was a dream
Worth fighting for so he took action a risky costly eye operation was the answer victory he moved to
Patoka California by now a wife and two toddlers a boy and a girl three boy five they lived in the foot
Hills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range ever where you were in great growth forest of course the
Red Woods get all the glory but take a stroll red clay earth and some of the most gorgeous nature you
Will ever find although the Great Smoky Mountains will give it a run for the money in a later story I will
Tell about them and the gnome mobile and the huge boar black bear that I thought I was going to have
To run to the car pull out my thirty thirty Winchester and start working the lever action to save seventy
Five tourists I put in Jeopardy by getting him out of a deep gully. Well life was good for Steve and his
Family he was living his dream our paths would intersect we stopped at Paso to break the trip in half to
Southern C and Disney land were heard about the fire in Dego it was bad enough that the whole LA
Basin was fogged in for two days the Santa Anna winds finally pushed it out to sea and up the coast I hit
It on the other side of San Louis Obisable in a gorge it was banked in and because of youthful lucky strikes and
Later sleep apnea I couldn’t breathe in the car until I hit the air conditioner well by the time we got
Home to check in at the hotel it was clear home is what Anaheim means in German then there was that
USA Today News paper again I looked and a face was staring at me older and thicker heavey set but I knew the face and then at
The bottom of the picture emotional train wreck a child so giving now as a man had given his life for
Strangers five to six hundred miles south from his home he died trying to save their homes he joined
Many others but these were fresh in my mind the folks who died in the fire storm in Oakland from the
Conflagration that took lives and homes and four lane highways on both sides couldn’t slow it down and
You have as much chance as out running a bullet as you do a fire as twenty five Idaho smoke jumpers
Found out they were racing out of a gorge scrambling to get over the top this natural configuration had
Become a chimney of living flame thirteen died instantly those others rolled over and away on flat
Ground at the top was spared. What could I do I wrapped myself in the only protection I could find he
Died a hero that kept the pain at bay how many times I invoked that statement it worked so well until at
The community center in Patoka where they honored Steve’s sacrifice it was televised Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger and other state dignitaries his fire house buddies and other fireman from everywhere
Was there and then they panned down to his mother and father his father wasn’t so large anymore and
It was the last time I could use my shield as I looked and watched Pat weeping Uncontrollably over her
Lost son I thought you would like to know of this wonderful person I will close with a thank you in the
Language of the Lakota Sioux as his service had part of it in the native language of his tribe Pilamaya means thank you
Steve you are an inspiration we bow to greatness beyond our understanding

To my dear son, Boaz in distant Idaho,

Saturday nite, the whole of New Zealand waited in apprehension for the All Blacks rugy team to play the resurgent Wallabys @ Fortress Eden Park.

The previous week at Suncorp Stadium in Sydney, in driving rain, the All Blacks muddled through a painfull draw with the Wallabys, 12 points each with no tries.
The Wallabys had fancied their chances and had wanted an emphatic win on home soil.
Both teams took that score as a loss and the gauntlet was thrown for the second match…..

A brilliant evening, clear and fine , 50,000 people crushed in to Eden Park and you could feel the apprehension, the rest of the country sat in front of their TV willing the team on.
The Haka was given a brutal rendition, you could feel the determination, the passion emanating….the Ozzies glared their defiance back…it was all on!

10 minutes into a titanic struggle with the score three all Captain Ritchie McCaw had a brain fade and was yellow carded off for ten minutes by the French referee.
The crowd roared…then murmured their worry  like you’ve never heard before.

The Ozzies mustered a huge scrum which the All Blacks countered with one man down…. The counter ****** pushed the Australian scrum back 15 ft.
Every man in New Zealand was on his feet roaring, you could feel the spirit of nationalism soaring….the moment was a watershed.
The All Blacks counterattacked showing a brilliance in attack and defence we have not seen for years… and from that moment on the game was won.

Final score 51:20 The Bledisloe Cup was ours.

As the match finished the TV camera panned across the solidly black clad crowd…. I have never, ever in my life, seen so many, simultaneous, sets of white teeth grinning!

The trip home to Australia would have been… a very subdued affair.

Thought I should share this marvellous moment with you Boaz.

Luv Dad.

"io sol uno."
-Dante, Purgatorio

There I was,
the comic-tragic star of my own motion-picture,
bold beneath the springtime Italian sun hung high
--a heavenly fixture,
illuminating the gold-leaf enframed frescoes in
kaleidoscopes of colours,
baking dry the pigeon droppings upon the flagstones
they smothered,
where I, in all my self-serving recreation,
posed proudly in a costume of my own creation,
an operatic villain clad in a billowy blouse of black,
the Campanile Tower like a sentinel behind my back,
as movie cameras panned and zoomed,
paparazzi photographers capturing me
and freezing me,
in all my wicked, medieval glory,
floating and gloating in the dank aroma of the Venetian seas,
"I'm the shining star!
--Look at me, look at me!"*
-the super-special star I always knew I'd be,
a painted parody,
a harlequin of displaced passions
for all to laugh at and see,
before slipping silently
into the ornate basilica,
dim and dark as night,
thanking Mother Mary (for nothing) as I sparked
a votive candle's light,
not really sure or caring
where my life would lead,
just as long as the Azure Queen
shed Her Grace on me,
     me,
             me,

...until I fell
and fell
to the mockery of a home
I made in Hell,
hard and forever and fast,
the only fool left alone in my solo cast,
adrift with no direction,
****** and lost,
me and my frivolous theatre,
squandered an an extravagant cost.

___
"io sol uno" means, "I, myself, alone."

This poem is a true-life story.

__
See the Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy:
http://www.carfree.com/design/pix/sqlg110venice_piazza-san-marco.jpg

I am in a bad state, physically and emotionally (mostly emotionally) and this is mostly a self healing type of thing. Bear with me. A lot of swearing and some mild crying were involved.

1. For starters, I'd like to say that I am sorry for the current state that we're in. Our friendship has slipped through my fingers faster than any liquid could and left me numb and confused and sort of hung over. I never meant to cause you anger towards me in any way but I guess sometimes these things are meant to happen and there isn't anything we can do about it.
2. I kind of miss your small hands and the way they were always outstretched, ready to catch every drop of disappointment and wonder the world had to give. They were always cold too; maybe from all the icy truths they held. I liked the way you moved them when you couldn't figure out the exact words to say, as if they were your cue cards you couldn't quite read.
3. I don't know if we'll ever speak again or if you will look me in the eye when you walk past me, if you even think of me when you see me. I don't know if you still consider me a mistake or the nights we spent together a mistake the way chopping off my hair with Crayola scissors when I was four was a mistake.
5. When this is over, remember that you are not any less loved: you are still the girl who has looked fear in the face every day and fated, “I do not belong to you.”
6. You taught me that everyone leaves. This is no longer something I can romanticize, I’m not capable of turning this pain into poetry anymore. It’s just sadness. It’s just hurt. It’s just hard.
7. In fifty years when I sit down to write a poem about us, (and I will), I will word the way this situation
panned out, pinpoint perfectly why you are letting go, I will have just enough knowledge to write a funny sarcastic quip about how sorry you should be for losing me, but today I am desperate for some explanations, and the present does not seem comical or ironic— it is Cinderella’s lost slipper sad, a future slipping away because you are scared of the clock chiming midnight, and although in hindsight I will laugh at myself, at you, at this, I will tell my children things like, “Wasn’t I silly?” and they will nod, and tuck my cautionary tales under their skin as little life reminders. Although in 50 years I will call you 5 decades too late, say I'm sorry that I never seemed to say “I love you” at the right time, ask how the years have been, and wonder of all the things that could have been if I'd had the right words. I cannot see the future, and all I am is filled with uncertainty rusting my heart and tainting my hope the way rain rusts metal in the spring, wishing that if nothing else, at least someday I will be able to understand.
8. The past three days have been a rollercoaster of emotions, from the highest elation, to the lowest depression. I hope you're happy, I really do. If nothing else, I hope you think of me and the times we shared and smile a little bit. I hope your wildest dreams come true and I hope you realize you are full of bountiful potential spilling out from every bit of you, even your aura. I hope I'm on your *List of Things That Keep Me Up at Night but in a good way. I hope you actually read Things Fall Apart and make literary connections between the characters in that book and our friendship. I don't even know what I'm saying. I hope you find the words I never could. I hope you wake up one morning and say "I'm going to change the world," because you can. I hope you dance in the rain and not care if your hair gets wet. I hope you get yourself figured out.

If sleep is the cousin of death then all of your dreams must reside on your breath
But death is as constant as the rain
So Like a lions mane wear your dead dreams sewn together proudly like a grass skirt in a luau in Maui

I see, and i know that no one is perfect but was jeopardizing our entire way of life worth it? I know i just discussed dreams earlier on in this piece but please allow me to indulge and talk about this elephant in the room.

Why is it that you thought that a man who is of African descent and a woman would lead us to our doom?
See, like Kennedy a lot of us had dreams of going to the moon and making a difference in the world more impactful than taking off the rest of the day at high noon,
Soon he'll be in office and i can't change that but let's face facts
We stood by and allowed your ignorance an audience we built your hate filled echo chamber that is certain parts of the information superhighway internet

O-******? Classless? Slime? January 20th the end of an error?

We all saw the comments on all the news pages and while those despicable words enraged us we know free speech is a part of what made this country
We have to take the good with the bad but, i do have one request.

Don't expect me to give him a chance as he panned and pranced all over the people who built this country off of our ancestors backs...
Don't expect me to not take him to task lyrically because maybe it'll be all that i have.

He. Is not. A president.

So like i said, sleep is the cousin of death.
But wake up friends...wake up for the mistakes we have to correct...

Dear Newborn,

Hi, hello.
Welcome.

I hope you’re enjoying your stay here on planet Earth.

I’m sure the drive in was a little difficult, a little painful,
perhaps a little ****** (or a lot ******),
like moving from the darkest cavern to the brightest….
well, place. Area. Location.

I can’t think of anything superbly bright right now.
Oh, oh, I know.

It’s like living your whole life floating
at the far reaches of outer space and then
catapulting directly into the sun.

Great analogy.

Regardless, welcome.

I said I hope you enjoy your stay,
the key word being hope, because, well,
you may not enjoy it.

In fact, it’s guaranteed that there are parts of life
that will be near-torturous,
that will make you wish you had never been brought
into this world.

But with that also comes moments of happiness
unlike anything you will ever experience, 
intense joy that makes you feel as though
you’re weightless once again,
floating out in space with no restraints,
no boundaries, just peace.

The good will be great,
and the bad will be horrible,
and sometimes the good will be good
and the bad will be just bad,
it all depends on the day.

A word of advice: treasure the time you have.

You won’t understand why this is important until you're older,
but do it anyway.

Life fades just as quickly as it is brought to fruition,
and there are people on this Earth you will want to treasure
like they are the finest gold ever to be panned out of any river.

There will be moments like this, too,
moments you wish would never fade,
and they will fade,
but never let them escape your memory,
and seek to make more of those moments every day,
even when happiness seems like an impossible dream.

Life is the most difficult journey you will ever go on,
but has the possibility of being the most rewarding, as well.

Allow the pain to be felt just as vibrantly as the happiness.

Never stifle your emotions.
Never limit others.
Never forget where you came from.
Never stop dreaming,
But never allow yourself to be tied down by those dreams, either.

Be free,
do what makes you happy,
be compassionate,
travel,
drink and make merry
(once you're legally allowed to, mind you),
and just be.

Exist to the great capacity you possibly can,
and die knowing you lived

Wishing you the greatest of luck,
A young dreamer

Dead crocs and rabbits
being worn and stepped on
as rugs and carpets
and furry trench coats

Panned, sluiced, and
now shiny gold toilets
All thanks, to your
10-year old laborer

Fancy Ferrari cars
Lavishing clothes
and mind-blowing ***
What else could you wish for

with that stone heart of yours?

We rang in the new year
On a mattress thrown on your
Living room floor
With the ball drop
On a desktop computer screen

The sound was lagging
Behind the images
And we were laughing
At how we always end up
Stuck in the past

You threw your arms around me
And let your kisses land
Carelessly wherever
They fell

And I outlined your jaw bone
With my pointer finger,
Threading it through
Your beard
And looking into your
Lazy eyes

You counted the times I said
"Like okay" at the beginning of a story
And by 5 AM , you announced
We'd reached a healthy twenty

You kept apologizing
For the way your dog
Was relentlessly
Licking my neck
But honestly
Even with her slobber
And yours
Dripping over my collar bones

And even with the night air
Tingling on my thighs,
Just a little too thick,
Just a little too warm,

Even with my straightened hair
Curling at its ends

And your brother's girlfriend's
Faint moaning sounds from behind
A locked door

There was nothing I'd rather be doing
Than watching your eyes expand and contract
To the rhythm of your stories
Before the blue light of television
Overlapping moon lit window sills
And dark spaces

You are the yellow light love,
Symbolism with a pulse,
Saying "it's officially 2017"
With a begging grin
And an undercurrent of
Gentle laughter,
Standing for change
And growth
And warmth
And simplicity

You are transparent
And in the palms of your hands
I see the year panned out
In blue veins
And freckles

And it is kind hearted
And it is forgiving
And it is kissing my forehead
And letting me breathe

I know this is going to
Be a good one

On yonder strand
In bridled land
A motley band
With vigor fanned
Across hill, lowland
With self righteous brand
Seeking brigand contraband
From each licentious hand
To forthrightly remand
Every highway spanned
Tolls, tribute to demand
Each pilfering cleric did reprimand
Then every bloated collection was panned
Every royal vestige scanned
Gratuitous coffers to expand

Attrition

It's a cold, raining day in February. My name is Henri Arbour. The year is 1916, and I wake to find myself drowning in my trench along Western France. I escape my damp dwellings with a soaked, freezing coat and a pack of cigarettes. I pray they were on a high enough shelf that they're dry enough to escape my tremors. Counting on my luck, they weren't. But you could look at my luck either way; I was lucky enough to not catch a bullet yet during my year in Hell, but luck would probably have me catch trench foot. To me, that would be worse than getting shot to death. But today, luck was more or less on my side, as I found but one smoke that would light. Lucky me. Beliveau, my only friend left of the group of old pals that accompanied me to this horrid swamp of mud, blood, and decay, soon came to greet me with his dead expression. He was the only person who wanted to be here less than me, ******* was he scared. Whenever some'd go over the top, he'd be in the corner ******* himself. Can't  blame him. The roar of those machine guns goes quite appropriately well the harrowing slaughter they cause. Jesus, listen to me, that must've been the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard, and yet, I can't help but laugh a little. A bit psychotic, huh? But that's what this ******* war'll do to ya, make ya cynical as Hell. With all this digression, I missed what Beliveau had just said. Funny how the mind tends to wander more out here. “What?”, I asked, slightly uninterested. “I said a new shipment of rations just came in.” Instantly a glow came to my face. Heh, so deprived that I get this excited at the mere thought of not having to **** some disgusting rodent just to get some food in my stomach tonight. Pretty sad, huh? I wouldn't know, not anymore. I was especially happy because the last shipment that was supposed to come a month ago had been fire bombed on the way. Tonight, we'll rejoice on this small personal victory. If only we could drink away our sorrows as well, but that'll be another day. One when this ****** strife is just a distant memory that we're all trying to suppress...

- - -

It's now late March. I've been slowly losing sanity this past month, partially due to sleep deprivation, partially due to the things I've seen, the two being closely related. All month long our trench has been getting bombed, just shell upon never-ending shelling that just seems to go on and on through the never. Two weeks ago, I saved Beliveau, but at a mental cost. I noticed him talking with some other guys and saw him laugh. I called him over and asked how he seemed so relaxed. “I really don't know, I just-”, before he could finish there came a burst of light from where the others were standing. The blast hit us pretty bad. The images, though, those were visions of pure Hell on earth. What I saw in that seemingly insignificant instance in time, I can't-I-I won't ever-. For all this time my body had been raw, but now my mind was following in suit. My body is slowly becoming a shell, housing dark, black emptiness.

- - -

It's mid April now and sleep has become a distant dream. The shelling stopped, but my mind has been becoming consistently unhinged. I can't stop thinking about the incident from a month and a half ago. It's now quite evident that I'm quickly losing control of my psyche. I can't escape these images no matter how hard I try and I'm losing my grip on reality. I can't even remember my own name. What was it? Henri Ar-Ar, or was it- no, no, I have no idea now. Exhaustion is taking over full force now. I can't tell if I'm just falling asleep or dying, can't tell the difference anymore, but all I know is that it's comforting. If I just close my eyes maybe I'll wake up in the morning, or maybe I'll let go and just slip away. In the morning I woke to a loud bang and then nothing. My eyes were to blurry to see anything and scent seemed to be my only sense still in able use. It was hotter than usual, which caused everything to have an even worse rotting smell. Suddenly my hearing returned. I began to hear voices in German. A soldier started to poke me with the **** of his gun to see if I was still alive. In a panic, I grabbed my rifle and began stabbing wildly with my bayonet, still unable to see quite clearly. I was still alive, so I-”H-Henri...” Oh God, b-but, no! It had all been a dream. When I opened my eyes, I saw blood dripping down the barrel of my gun, and as I panned up, I realized what I'd just done. Beliveau was dead.

- - -

It's been three days. Beliveau was still dead. Last night my comrades decided to exile me over just shooting me in my twisted head, on account of being a traitor. It was worse than death, cause now I'd live with the guilt for the short five minutes left in my life. It was something I never imagined happening when I came into this war, but was quickly turning into a horrifying nightmare. In the morning, they sent me packing into No Man's Land with just a revolver and six rounds. I leave now, lost to this dying world around me. “Beliveau... I'm sorry. Sorry all of our friends died, sorry you witnessed so much before-before... sorry.” This ******* war has taken everything from me. My body's battered, my name is gone, my mind is obliterated, and I'm in oblivion. I can't-I can't-I, “ping”, gone. “Ahh!...”, Heavy Breathing. I wake to the sound of a train running over tracks. I'm unrelieved. It's mid April, 1916. My name is Henri Arbour. My personal Hell begins.

This movie was panned
The critics all spat
Each write-up was canned
(It shows where we’re at)

They trash all that’s good
To bolster their cred
They fancy their food
Which they have been fed

But here’s food for thought
Go ask a true fan
Did it skip as it ought
The heart of a man

For mine felt a thrill
As I took it in
Yet poured from their quill
The critics’ great sin

An illness, it plagues me
It causes great misery
My screams go unheard
I hope Death comes to claim me

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

The Demon came one night
And to me, it spoke;
"Come make a pact with me,
And your pain I'll turn to smoke"

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

You walked into my house
So generous and kind
Of how innocent you were,
So innocently blind

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

The transformation completes
Oh how good it feels
To be free of pain and suffering
The bell of liberty peals

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

A day is not long,
I must start acting
If I want to stay,
You must be dying.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

Alas, you have struggled,
Valiantly played.
But you cannot win me,
The pact gives me aid.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

Give it back?
This body, I will keep
They say "finders keepers"
Leaving the losers to weep.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

For a day, I said.
For a day, you'll stay.
But not if you die,
Not if you, I slay.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

This is the final leg,
Your power abates.
For all the love I've missed,
Ahead, it awaits.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

Goodbye, my dear friend
You've helped me a bunch
Your body stays with me
And with mine you leave

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

The Demon behind
He waved his hand
Laughed, and left
When the camera panned.

ready?

do you wanna go together? come, lets hold hands.

no?

alright.

all that matters is that you do it, okay?

.. are you sure you don’t wanna do it together?

alright..  !

each of your feet slapped flat and hard against the white dusty cliff until your skinny frame shot itself into the sky. we were half naked and suspended above an unfamiliar lake somewhere in texas. well, now it was just me. night was rolling in slow as all hell. the habitual hit from the one hitter didn’t soothe my nervousness. to be straightforward, tossing my body into the abyss is not my thing. i like the ground. i like the stability. planes make me cry. roller-coasters make me cringe. i like to just sit and watch the sky roll over the lake, not risk being harmed by one of its unseen watery perils..

an oval of water burst upward from where you carved into the lake- the explosive hiss of unhappy water yanking me from my brain. sheepishly i gazed over the edge to see what became of you. it appeared you had survived- treading water with one eye locked in an accidental wink, peering up at me. you smiled big and echoed gentle encouragements into the cove below in a soft-spoken southern accent. the hair on your head matted itself to your forehead in strangely stylish curls. “1,2,3, **** it! ”. you kept spitting out deliveries of lake water between wide toothy grins.

minutes were passing and i had hardly moved. talking to myself anxiously, trying still to remain some degree of coolcalmandcomposed while facing these subconscious shadows publicly. i felt sickened by the symbolism of my inner demons confronting me with such an unoriginal yet classic scene. your smile was fading gradually due to your legs growing tired, even though you didn’t let on.

fear, my constant constriction. my choke up. my backout. my way out. but this time i knew the only way out was through. my feet betrayed my brain and ****** me forward and up and off.

i had toyed with some ideas about what form i’d take prior to jumping, but none of them panned out. i claimed an awkward and ungraceful pencil dive and held my nose prematurely. the fall was eternal. the seconds were looping. i could hear everything for a long time. your holler bounced off the walls of the cave. my body heaved into the oblivion of the luke warm lake.

when i emerged i was concerned with my makeup. a tell tale sign i need to work on my priorities.  you were there with me, once i smeared the uninvited water from my eyes, grinning and congratulating me. i felt silly getting praise for something so seemingly simple as letting go..

you held me near in the dark choppy water as we clung to the cove walls of the cliff. color flood my face. maybe adrenaline feels a lot like love.

i finally felt close to you.

i wanted to stay down there a little longer. where there were no distractions. no phones no cigarettes no coughing no traffic talk no sleep no *** no drugs no radio. we couldn’t hide from each other. i wanted to stay and swim and look into you, unabashedly wet and ****** and well-intentioned. graze pale loving bodies beneath the green hue of the lake. but you grinned, cleared your throat and talked to yourself about your footing as we sought a way to scale the rocks back up.

i’m sure i could have said something.
told you how i felt.

but that fear thing..

Tinkerbell fell
from the Christmas tree
opened her wings to
flutter
femininely and touched
down very close to me.

I was surprised as surprised as could be to find Tinkerbell swearing and not just at me

Christmas and trees while pleasing to me
had the opposite effect on the fallen faerie.

On our bikes, day after day
Wheeling along the West Country Way
From Georgian Bath, that Jane Austen knew
To Glastonbury Tor, our challenge still new

Where are we now, is it this way or that?
Another cool stretch on a railway track
No one fell off, no one got hurt
Except now and then by a few cross words

And so over Exmoor, our longest day yet
It was football, not cider in our Somerset
Sea views and fresh air in Westward **!
We could have stayed longer but on we go

The hills are getting longer, tall hedges either side
Our legs are getting stronger now we've found our stride

The Eden project was on our route
So we had to stop and see
The scene was complete in a bio-dome
With David Attenborough filming for tv

Past holes in the ground where they dug the clay
Along old canals our journey panned out
Then over a beer at the end of the day
Out came the map for the mileage count

On through the ancient landscape we go
Past the odd castle or stately home
Past sheltered coves and beaches of sand
And on to the end  -Lands End-
Where we ran out of land

I feel as though life is like a levetating elevator
You're trapped in a confined space unable to control the direction
You can only use the control panel provided
Without the panned you have nothing
Just a confined space
A space in which you are trapped in
unable to stop it's levitation
It'll take you up as far as it can
To a world you may not measure up to
To a place where only kings can rule and where the empty will fall

Full cart
Forgotten wallet
Poetic justice
Minimal profit

Nothing purchased
Nothing gained
Small wonder
I remain sane

I’ve grown up in grocery stores
Admiring their hearty stock
In my story, the constant lore
Is stable silence followed by rock

So loud, and yet so quiet
Mind spinning, logic ignored
Emotions twirling, guiding, lying,
What is my hungry heart for?

Amongst shoppers, I am a dreamer
Amongst haves, I am have not.
The silent soldiers fighting a war
Against the accumulating ***

Obsessive comes close to scratching
What my mind is like when nervous
I want what I want, so I’m asking
And asking has thus far, been worthless

If only love that eludes my grasp
Were but a loaded shopping cart
I’d run to my apartment and run back
My happiness, some cold pop tarts.

Alas, the vitality I seek,
The stimulant that’s most stimulating
It makes me dumb, it makes me weak,
And requires calculated manipulating

Of which I am not capable,
Or at least, strongly averted from.
To myself, I remaiin faithful
Even though I am so dumb.

Muster up a little patience,
Muscle up, shut up, be a man.
Mysterious mature, that’s the cadence
That’s the gold standard panned.

I glimpse it, from time to time
Across the colored movie screen.
These men succeed and I often fail,
But what does my own failure mean?

Is it me? Or is it them?
Or am I close, but not quite there?
Will my fatigue be what makes me
Depressed enough to seem like I don’t care

So my annoyingness, gone, in thin air?
So my emotional longings will be bare?
So into eyes I could finally stare
And not always ask, what’s in there?

What do you see, looking at me?
I never know, until I’ve chosen
To let my selfish heart unleash
Until it’s finally cracked wide open

Until you see me as I’ve chosen
To see myself, full of erosion
Wasted space, a dreadful ocean
Of empty thoughts and rugged lotion.

Talking so much, never saying.
Giving so much, never reaping.
Sleeping so much, never dreaming.
Running so much, never leaving.

Chasing so much, only finding
What I’ve found is not astounding
My horrible mind, abandoning reality
Leaving everyone once they’ve found me.

Refusing life rafts while I’m drowning,
Breathing in water, heart is pounding,
Self inflicted, always counting,
Choosing pain, refusing mouthpiece.

Loving so much, never caring.
Caring so much, never sharing.
Sharing so much, never connecting.
Making connections, shortly empty.

Meditating so much, never praying.
Laying so much, making me lazy.
Letting my emotions control me so much,
I’m selfish, never learning, never changing, crazy.

I firmly believe that everything happens for an implicit and explicit reason.

For example, I am attending community college because I decided to.

I am also attending community college because I was meant to begin my collegiate endeavors there. It wasn't my first choice, but since deciding to do so it has panned out to be the best choice for me in so many different ways.

So, everything occurs for implicit and explicit reasons. Events occur, decisions are made because we made them so, but it was also supposed to be that way. I suppose this is my confirmation in my faith of fate, a preordained future of sorts. I believe that everything happens for a reason, good or bad, so we can grown and learn; if things were different though, everything else would be too. The smallest of details alter the larger picture.

With that said, I've realized the course of events sometimes ****. A lot. Sometimes you lose people, you lose faith, you lose your footing, you just lose in total and it hurts a lot. But you have to lose sometimes, no matter how much it *****. The hard times are as important as the good; both have integral lessons in them, and only experience will unlock the knowledge you need to move on and tread new paths cautiously, with more knowledge, bravery and with more ease.

Losing is inevitable; we are like trees in that year in, year out, we grow a little more and let go of the heavy leaves stopping us from doing just that.

Sometimes you're the tree, in need of losing some of those weighty leaves. Sometimes you're the leaves, the weight upon someone else's tree. I'm sad to say I was a leaf, but I'm not sad that I went through being a leaf. I've learned, through being a leaf, that I can hurt people with my words and actions. I learned that I can be really selfish, usually at the expense of others. I learned I'm condescending, I say one thing but do another. I don't always practice what I preach, I talk about love then demonstrate indifference.

I was meant to be a leaf and it's because my actions made me so; I took advantage of him until he realized that I was doing so. I was meant to be a leaf because it taught me and him a vast lesson that people will let you down, people will leave, people will ruin you, people will love you in the most twisted ways, people will confuse you, people will use you, people will not keep promises, people won't always explain, people will **** up and make you lose faith in everyone else.

I was meant to be a leaf, as horrible as that is, to teach all of that to him and I was a terrific teacher to a horrible lesson. Everything happens for a reason; explicitly, I don't have the privilege of being in his life because I was horrible. Implicitly, I wasn't meant to be there for long anyway, because I was toxic and confusing. The small spurts of happiness and enjoyment I provided never fully compensated for the pain, anger, heart break and damage I'd leave behind.

So, I cope with that everything happens for a reason. Someday there will be someone to repair him and fix his faith and help him realize why we didn't work. Someone else out there will be a 180 from me and she'll actually do a good job in loving him. Everything happens for a reason, and that's about the only way I can somehow come to terms with what I've done.

Chapter One

He sat there looking over the edge alone and couldn’t remember how long he had been there. He thought it had been a very long time.

The drive from Oakland had taken the best part of a day, and although having traveled across some of the most scenic parts of the western United States, his mind was blank, he couldn’t remember anything.  He only knew what he had come here to do, and before the sun would set over his left shoulder, he strengthened his resolve to do it.

He thought about leaving a note, but then who would read it.  He was sure whoever did find it wouldn’t care. He couldn’t remember why he had picked the ‘Canyon’ as the place to end it all. He just knew he was drawn to the place, and in some strange way the Canyon understood.  He wasn’t sure what most men thought about knowing it was their last day on earth.  At this point he was having trouble thinking about anything at all.

He forced himself to try and think about his three failed marriages and his two sons from his first marriage.  One, his oldest son Robert, had recently died of a drug overdose. His younger son Hank was an Army Ranger who had recently been killed while serving a second deployment in Afghanistan.  Neither boy had spoken to him since he had deserted their mother when they were both very young (5 & 7).

He had been discharged from the Army in 1969 at Fort ***** New Jersey after serving 14 months in Vietnam.  He then spent three months hitchhiking across the country, from New Jersey to California, trying to get his head back on straight as he worked his way back home.

He would like to blame all of his bad luck on something that had happened to him over there, but he knew in his heart that he couldn’t.  He had been a supply sergeant at a large depot in downtown Saigon. His only experience with combat was listening to the stories from the grunts recently returned from the bush as they self-medicated themselves inside the many bars and clubs that overran the downtown streets and alleyways.  He often basked in the aftermath of their stories secretly wishing he were one of them. He had had a chance to volunteer for combat artillery but had turned it down.

He took his sunglasses off because it was almost time. He had forgotten to check-out of the Yavapi Motor Lodge before walking the half-mile to the rim where he now sat. The sun was dropping low in the Western sky as he stood up to move closer to the edge. It was just then that he heard a rustling sound coming from the bushes to his left that he had not heard before.  

Chapter Two

The motorcycle ride across the plains and high desert through the Dakota’s and Wyoming had been as idyllic as he ever imagined. He had spent almost a week in Yellowstone, having to force himself to leave on the seventh day. He was headed South, but he had one more great sight to see before working his way back East toward New Mexico.

He had promised himself before dedicating the rest of his life to the Dominicans that he would go and visit the Grand Canyon this one last time.  In many ways his life had been like the Canyon, overwhelming in its purpose and majestic in its beauty. His life had taken on a timeless quality that always left him feeling like everything he had done would somehow last forever.

He had lost his beloved wife Sarah last April after a long and debilitating illness.  They had been married for forty-one years and had traveled the world together. After all of the travel, Sarah’s two favorite spots on earth were Yellowstone and The Grand Canyon.  He always felt that she loved the Canyon the most, and he was saving it for last.  She had been his best friend and partner and had supported him in everything he had done, both at his work, but even more important to him, at his leisure.

He had been born with a restless adventurous spirit inside of him, and it was one of the things Sarah loved most about him and had always given him plenty of rope to roam.  He loved her all the more for it.  He now felt that the only way he could go on without her was to devote himself to a cause she had always been passionate about, the Dominican Mission in Pastura New Mexico.  The mission had been founded almost two hundred years ago to help and educate the many Native Tribes that lived in the area.

He needed to dedicate the remainder of his life to something bigger that just himself.  Because of all the good work his wife had done on their behalf, the Dominicans had accepted him into their order, and they were expecting him before the week was out.

He had recently sold his business for over 100 million dollars, and after securing his grandchildren’s education was going to use the bulk of the money to build a hospital in rural New Mexico to treat the poor and disenfranchised.  He wanted the hospital to specialize in treating diabetes and juvenile diabetes since so many of the Native Americans in the Southwest (and all over the U.S.) were suffering from this terrible disease.  It had been the disease that had finally claimed his beloved wife Sarah.

He was riding a vintage/antique BMW motorcycle that he had spent the last 20 years restoring.  Although it was over 50 years old, there was no part of this bike that you couldn’t eat off of.  Like everything else in his life, it was a reflection of him and the ‘midas’ effect he seemed to have on everything he touched. Everything in his life just seemed to ‘WORK’ !

After checking into his motel at the South Rim of the Canyon, he decided there was still time to get to his wife’s favorite spot along the rim to Watch the sun go completely down.  As he walked through the Pinyon Trees toward the rim, he thought he saw a figure standing close to the edge.  Whoever it was had heard him coming through the brush and was now looking his way.

“Hello,” he called out.  “Aren’t you standing a little too close to the rim?”  “What do you want,” he heard back in response, “I thought I was here alone.” “Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude, but like you, I just wanted to take one look over before the day ended. It’s nice to find someone else here to be able to share this magnificent view with.”
  
“I didn’t come here to share anything with anybody,” he heard back again, “And like I said before, I thought I was alone.”  As the man spoke, he walked slowly backwards and seated himself on the large rock where he had laid his sunglasses before. He put his sunglasses back on before speaking again.

“You know it’s unbelievable, no matter how many times I’ve seen the view from this rim, it’s always like seeing it for the first time again.  This was my wife’s favorite spot on earth.  It’s almost impossible to describe, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know, it’s my first time here, he heard the seated man say.  “Wow, first time huh.  I can still remember my first time, but then every time is like that first time to me, and that was over 35 years ago.”  “It may be special to you,” the man sitting down said, now without looking his way, “To me it’s just a big hole in the ground.”
As he emerged from the Pinyon Pines and approached the rim, he noticed something strange and out of place.  There was a large black handgun sitting with its barrel pointed out toward the canyon, in between the seated man’s two legs.  

He slowly walked off to his left and moved very cautiously toward the rim, being careful not to make any sudden moves.  He tried to act nonchalant and make it seem like he hadn’t noticed the gun.  The man on the rock knew that he had seen it as he tried to close both legs over the gun and hide it from further sight.

“Have you been here long,” he asked the seated man? “I don’t know --- I don’t know, it seems like long.”  ‘Well, it’s a great place to sit and reflect about life and think about where life’s journey goes next.”
“I know all about where my life has been and where it‘s going,”  

At this point the man stopped speaking and there was a very uncomfortable moment of silence — a silence that seemed to fill the surrounding canyon with a new emptiness that rivaled even its great depths.  “You look like you’re upset sitting there all alone, might I ask the reasons why.”  The seated man then finally turned his head his way and said, ‘Why would you care if I’m upset or not.”

“I can’t explain why I care, but I do, and if you’d like to tell me about it, I’d like to listen.”  “Why in the world would you want to listen to someone else’s problems when you seem not to have a care in the world.  Especially coming from someone that you don’t know and who you’ve just met at a spot like this that you so obviously love and have great affection for?” 
 
“Maybe for that very reason, because it is a beautiful day today and this is one of the world’s most magical spots.  I am having a hard time accepting how someone could seem so depressed and dejected in a place like this.  You may not believe me, but that’s exactly how I feel.  Why did you come to the Grand Canyon in a state like this. Were you hoping that the majesty of the canyon would lift your spirits and cheer you up?”

“I know that some like you have said that this is the most powerful place on earth.  I thought it would be a most appropriate place, or certainly as good as any,” as his voice trailed off again and silence intervened.

“As good as any to do what,” the standing man asked as he moved slightly closer.  The seated man didn’t answer as he stared out over the rim into the huge expanse of rock and sky.  Finally, he said, “Really, why would you even care, I’m nothing to you, and it’s really none of your business.”  “About that, you’re right, and if I’m intruding then I apologize, but I’m getting the strongest feeling that meeting you here today in this spot was no accident.  Do you think about things like that?”

The man stood up but did not answer.  ‘What are your plans today after the sun sets? I just checked into the motel a short ways down the road, the Yavapai Motor Lodge, ever heard of it.”  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it, maybe you should be heading back there before it starts to get dark.”  “Why don’t we walk back together, I’d enjoy the company.”
“Look, I don’t have any plans that go beyond this evening, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave, as I’d like to be alone to finish what I started.”  “I’d really like to hear all about that if you’d be willing to tell me. I’ve got nothing but time.”

The man now standing with his sunglasses back on in the approaching darkness was frozen by the words –'Nothing but time.’  He had made the decision earlier that for him, time was up and today would be the end.  Now he had some do-gooding stranger who had invaded his privacy unannounced and wouldn’t seem to back off.  

“Look, for the last time, you don’t want to hear my sad story, no one ever has, and no-one ever will.”  “Well, why don’t you just try me.  If I turn out to be like everyone else in your life after you’ve told me, you can always just get up and walk away --- end of story!”
“You look like someone whose life has turned out very well and never had a bad day in your life.”  

“Honestly, you’re making me feel guilty because when I look at my life in total, you’re pretty much correct.  I have had that kind of a life and feel very blessed because of it.  I’m going to assume that you have not.”

His honesty at admitting to having had a charmed life seemed to make an impression on the man as he answered back, “Nothing, absolutely nothing in my life has worked out, from my failed marriages, to my children who are now gone, and to all the nothing job’s. Everything has been a failure.  My life has been one great disappointment after another, and I can’t see the point in going on.”
The reality of the situation now became crystal clear.

“So, you were going to end it all here today at the South Rim of this Canyon?  It seems too beautiful a place for something so drastic.”
“I was, and I am going to end it all today in spite of everything you’ve said.”  “What is the gun for, if I might ask?”  The gun is just in case I don’t have guts enough to jump.  Guts is something I’ve always struggled with too.”

“Is there anything I can say, anything at all, that might make you change your mind, at least for a little while?”

“Nothing,” the man said.  “You don’t know me, and I’m sure there’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already said to myself.”  “If I could come up with one reason, just one, for you not to jump, would that make any difference at all?”  “Why would you even care to try when my mind is made up?”

“I’m glad you used the word ‘care’ when asking me that question.  Who is the last person in your life that you thought truly ‘cared’ for you?’  “I can’t remember, and I’m not sure anyone ever did.  My Parents split up when I was three and I was raised in one foster home after another before joining the army because I didn’t have guts enough to run away.  I’m not sure that word has any real meaning for me.”

“What if I was to tell you that I care about you, --- very much, and I don’t want to see you do what you’re getting ready to do in this most sacred of spots or anywhere for that matter.”“You just stumbled upon me by chance in my sorry state, and now feel pity for me and your conscience won’t let you leave well enough alone.”  

In a very strange way, he didn’t feel sorry for the man but felt guilty for the blessed life he had lived.  It all needed to make sense, or he couldn’t go back.  Why tonight, and why at this spot that he was looking so forward to.

He struggled for his next words before speaking again to the troubled man who had now gotten precariously close to the edge. The scene started to remind him of the movies he had seen where a man would be standing out on a building’s ledge, high above the street.  In the movies there was always a heroic detective or passerby who was able to talk the man down.  He knew he was running out of time, and he also knew this man he had just met could smell insincerity from a 100-miles away.

“I’d like to help you get through this in any way that I can.”  “There’s no getting through it. If you really want to do me a favor, just walk back to where you came from and let me finish what I came here to do.”

“I can’t explain this to you, but I know now that I was brought here today for a reason — a reason beyond a one last goodbye to this place.  I could have, and actually thought about, stopping at many of the rims my wife and I loved, but I picked this one because this was her favorite.  I know now that it had a higher purpose.  You may not want to hear this, but you came to this place today to end it all because of what has always been missing in your life only to find exactly that when I came walking through the trees.  In fact, to prove what I’m saying, I’d like to make you an offer.

“Suppose someone, in this case me, were to say that they would trade positions with you and that they would do what you are thinking about doing if you would do something very important for them.”  What do you mean,” the man said looking back from the edge.

‘What if I were to tell you that I would be willing to step off the edge of this canyon to show you how much I really care.  Would you be willing to fulfill a dream of mine in turn for my doing that.  You will then see that a total stranger is willing to give it all up for you if you will be willing to commit to something that is equally important to them.”

“You’re either crazy or you think that I am.  Nobody’s going to give up their life to prove to me that they care about saving my worthless life.  Your life seems to have a value beyond what I can describe.”
“You’re right about that, and my life has had a value beyond what even I can describe, but what I am telling you is that the deal I am making you is real. After hearing my terms and agreeing to what you will have to do, I will jump off this Canyon wall so you can find the happiness, peace, and contentment you deserve.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, all of this is crazy, sheer lunacy.  I think I’ve been joined on this cliff by a man who’s completely lost his own mind.”“All right then, let’s do this.  Would you agree to sleep on it overnight.  If you feel the same way in the morning, then I will carry out your plan if you will fulfill mine.  Are you staying at that same motel as I am.”  “Yeah, I checked in yesterday and forgot to check out, so I guess I still have a room.”  Maybe it was for a reason he thought to himself, as he stood there shaking his head in the darkness.

“Don’t shake your head, just tell me you’ll think about it.
If I don’t hear from you, and I’m in room #888, I’ll assume that our deal is set, and I’ll fulfill my part of our agreement.”  “OK, one more night,” the man said as he picked up his gun and tucked it into the small of his back.  “One more night, but I don’t really think anything is going to change.”

They walked back to the Yavapai Motor Lodge in silence together.  Both men felt at this point that they had known each other for a very long time — maybe an eternity.  Nighttime in the Canyon echoes a silence louder than anything that can be made with sound.
As they entered the lobby, they both went in different directions without saying goodnight.

The man who had come by motorcycle wondered: ‘Was I challenged by God before ever reaching the Dominicans? Will I ever see those peaceful hallways and gardens that my wife loved so much ever again?”


Chapter Three

Jack hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in over fifteen years.  His tortured mind and soul just seemed to never rest.  He woke to the sounds of birds and bright sunshine outside his window.  Last night he had truly slept for the first time in his adult life. He never needed an alarm, but it had sounded to him like one had been going off.  

All at once he realized what it was --- it was a siren.  Multiple sirens were going off and he wondered if the Motel was on fire.  Still slightly disoriented from the past two days, and the effects of so much sleep, he threw his pants and shoes on and headed down the hall toward the lobby.

He then remembered the strange conversation he had had with that man in the Canyon last night.  Cold sweat started to flow as he then remembered their agreement. “If I don’t hear differently by first thing tomorrow morning, I will go ahead with my part of our agreement.”  Jack tried to compose himself as he thought, “No way, no way anyone would be crazy enough to do what he said he would do last night.  If this place isn’t on fire, maybe he’s having breakfast in the coffee shop off the lobby.”

As he hustled through the lobby, the desk clerk shouted to him but he didn’t stop.  He saw fire engines and ambulances outside, and he wanted to see what was going on.  He was immediately relieved when he saw Fred’s motorcycle parked in the same spot as last night.
Something else didn’t look right though.  There were at least three fire engines and two ambulances outside but nothing was on fire and there was no car accident to be seen.  Obviously, something was afoot, but everyone seemed too busy to talk to him. He walked back into the Motel and through the lobby…

This time the desk clerk came out from behind the desk and said, “Hey, I was shouting to you as you ran out the door.  There’s an envelope for you here from the guy who jumped.  The police are looking to talk to you as they have no clues as to why or what drove him to step off the edge.  We get a couple of jumpers every year, but this guy seemed totally different.  He was one of the most upbeat people to come in here in a long time.”

JUMP!  It seemed impossible.  Jack couldn’t wrap his mind around it as he opened the envelope.  In a very neat handwriting, it said --- ‘I’ve left something for you under the seat of my motorcycle.” As he started back outside the desk clerk asked, “Did you know him very well?”  “No, not really, I just met him late yesterday afternoon for the first time.” 
 
Jack's knees weakened as the desk clerk went on.  “It’s really weird.  He was actually whistling when he walked through the lobby this morning at about 7:15.”  “Who, Jack asked.”  “Why the Jumper, the guy who jumped.  He was smiling and commenting on what a beautiful day it was, and how he hoped we all were going to have a great day.  I guess it just goes to show --- you never know.
At 7:42, the police got a call from the Havasupai Indians that live along the bottom saying that a full set of clothes had fallen to the floor of the canyon, shirt, shoes, socks, underwear, the whole deal.  Everything, but a body.  The police are having the hardest time making any sense of it at all.”

The words ‘you never know’ kept repeating in Jack’s ears as he walked outside. As he unlatched the seat and lifted it up on the old BMW, he found a two-page note folded over and neatly placed between the frame. It went on to say …

Dear Jack
I don’t know and can hardly imagine what your life must have been like up until now.  I wish I had the power to go back and change the bad things that happened to you, but I don’t.

The only power that I have, the one that all of us have, is to change what happens now.  I hope you will believe me now when I say I really do care about you more than you know, and I am happy and willing to live up to my promise.  I am now counting on you to live up to yours.

The only thing extra I ask, and I’ve put this in writing to the head Abbott, is for you to be allowed to ride the motorcycle back to this spot once every year.  Once here, I would like you to say a Rosary for the souls of my family and for all the faithful departed.  If you put in a good word for me that would be all the better. If you do this, I know your new life will be joyous and take on a deeper meaning, and more than make up for any troubles that you’ve experienced up until now.
If you choose not to keep your promise and go through with ending your life, then I forgive you and still love you, but I don’t think you’re going to do that.

May God Bless and keep you.

Fred

Underneath the note there was a folded-up roadmap with a line drawn in magic marker pointing the way to the monastery in New Mexico. Jack sat down on the curb in front of the motorcycle in disbelief.  There was one more slip of paper folded up in the map.  It was the title to the old BMW.  It had been signed over to Jack.

“He couldn’t have, he couldn’t have, he just wouldn’t have,” Jack kept saying over and over to himself.  Just then a large Park Policeman tapped Jack on the shoulder and asked him if he would mind answering a few questions.  Jack agreed but then told the officer that after speaking with him he just might be even more confused.  The officer went on to tell Jack that none of their suspicions panned out.  This man hadn’t jumped for insurance money (he was very wealthy), or out of a history of depression, he just jumped.
And none of the usual reasons seemed to apply.

After thirty-five minutes of polite questioning the police officer walked away scratching his head.  On the margin of the map was a scribbled note, “Don’t delay out of any concern for me, get to the monastery as quickly as you can.”  Jack had told the police officer about Fred wanting him to have the bike and showed him the title that had been left for him.  He did not show the police officer the letter Fred had left and was in fact surprised that they hadn’t checked the bike.  Then it all started to make sense.  If Jack hadn’t read the note Fred left with the desk clerk, he would never have known the seat to the motorcycle opened up.  He was sure the police didn’t know that either.  He was glad no-one was looking when he opened up the seat and took out the letter.  In all the commotion, everyone else was just looking the other way.

Jack wanted to go back to the spot where Fred jumped and where they first had met, but the police had it roped off. He decided to leave for New Mexico right away because that’s what Fred would have wanted.  The news stations were now calling it a ‘Mystery In The Canyon’ because only clothes, and no body was found.

Jack had never ridden a motorcycle before but had often fantasized about it.  Like most things in his life he had always come up with excuses as to why he couldn’t ride, while secretly envying those who did.  He took to the old bike immediately, and with every hour that passed on Rt #40 he enjoyed the ride more and more. A new type of guilt started to set in because he was actually enjoying his new life with every new twist of the throttle and turn of the handlebars.

Chapter Four

Jack pulled up in front of the Old Dominican Monastery with its Spanish Adobe Walls at 2:30 the following afternoon.  He had spent the previous night in Gallup and had actually been able to volunteer at the Dominican Soup Kitchen that was housed in the old Post Office in the center of downtown.  

Gallup was very depressed and except for a flourishing Indian Jewelry Industry had very little in the way of jobs and opportunity.  The Friar who ran the soup kitchen listened to Jacks story and then put his arm around him and led him inside.  Jack was astonished that the story seemed to make perfect sense to this selfless Padre.

Jack spent the night on a cot behind the soup kitchen and after having an early breakfast with Padre Nick, headed on his way east toward the Monastery in the New Mexico desert.   It reminded Jack of the pictures he had seen of an oasis in the middle of the Arabian desert.  There were palm trees and many varieties of flowers surrounded by what looked like an eternity of sand.  Jack loved the sparseness of his new surroundings, but he still didn’t know why.
The Monastery sat atop a sandy hill at the end of a long unpaved road.  He parked the bike outside the two large, padlocked, doors and began to knock.  

Before he could make contact with the old wooden door on the right a smaller door within it began to open. He stepped through the door as a monk whose hood was completely covering his head lead him inside.  The monastery had a quiet about it that would rival that of the Canyon.  There were three old Spanish Buildings side by side, and the main door to the one in the middle was already open.

He asked the monk where they were going and heard back nothing in return. The hooded monk led Jack down a long hallway to another open door on the left.  He knocked on the door three times as he led jack through and motioned for him to sit down on one of the two chairs in front of the large stone fireplace.  I wonder where they get stone in a desert like this Jack wondered to himself.

Jack looked up slightly and saw the image of two large and heavily tanned feet in sandals walking toward him at a lively pace.  As he looked even higher, he saw a stocky and athletically built man who looked to be in his mid-sixties with a smile that could have come from an angelic two-year old child.

My name is Abbott Estefan, and I have been expecting you all day.  Early this morning I got a letter from our beloved Fred, telling the details of your meeting.  Before we do anything else, we must pray together to him that your mission here will be successful.  I am certain in my heart that Fred now sits with the Saints in heaven and is at this very moment looking down on us both --- with love !

I read Fred’s words, and I am still in partial disbelief.  Would you like to tell me in your words what happened yesterday, Jack?  Soon Abbott, but not right now, I hope you can understand.”  “I do totally my son. Let’s get you settled and then you can start to feel like one of us.  I know that is what Fred would have wanted.

“When’s the last time you’ve eaten,” Abbott Estefan asked.  “This morning, in Gallup with Padre Nick,” Jack answered.  “Ah, Padre Nick, one of our very finest.  Half Pueblo and half Navajo but all Dominican.  Once you walk through those front doors, all ‘divisions’ of ethnicity and nationality fade away like the shifting sands.”
“First the body, then the mind.  It’s time to get something into your stomach.  We are only humble servants of the poor around here Jack, but we eat like Roman Emperors.  It’s one of the perks of our particular order.”  “Sounds great to me Abbot, when it comes to food, I’m not picky.”

They laughed together at Jacks comment as they walked down another long hallway around a corner and into the biggest kitchen Jack had even seen.  Padre Francisco was the head cook, and he started to ladle out an array of Mexican food onto a plate the likes of which Jack had never seen.  He decided to eat every drop so as not to disappoint the good Padre.  Once finished ,Abbott Estefan led Jack to his new room on the second floor.

It was very well lit and like all of the Monk’s rooms it faced East to meet the rising sun.  “Get some rest now Jack, morning prayers are at 5a.m. and breakfast is at 6.  I’ll have someone put your motorcycle in one of the stables. You do intend to keep your promise, don’t you Jack, Abbott Estefan asked as he closed the door.”  YES, Jack said to himself as he sat down in the bed.  But then he knew the Abbott already knew his answer.

Jack had never heard anyone laugh with the gusto of Abbott Estefan.  He liked it here already as he could feel his old life peeling away like layers coming off an old onion. Two days later, Jack and Abbott Estefan took a walk around the grounds as Jack told the Abbott the whole story about Fred and their chance meeting at the Grand Canyon.  “Ah yes, the police have contacted us because they found out through Fred’s family that he was coming to be one of us.  I pray that they will someday know more about his passing than they do today. In his letter, Fred asked us not to say anything.  

Two Havasupai elders who were meditating at dawn that morning high among the rocks said they both saw an eagle swoop through the bottom of the canyon just before Fred’s clothing hit the ground.  They then looked up and saw two hands reaching out of the clouds which grabbed the eagle right out of the sky.

WE ARE BUILDING A GROTTO TO FRED IN THIS VERY SPOT WHERE YOU ARE STANDING NOW!

The Monastery was almost totally cloistered, and voices were only used when absolutely necessary.  Over the next several months Jack would come to find out how overrated ‘talking’ really is.

Chapter Five

The next few months were an adjustment for Jack as he settled into a life of contemplation and prayer.  Slowly, yet surely, a fundamental change was taking place inside of him.  It was a change unlike anything he had ever felt before.  The empty places inside of him, some of them over fifty years old, he could feel being filled.  Things that he couldn’t explain and things that he had never felt before were rapidly becoming things he could no longer live without.

Almost a year had gone by when Abbott Estefan knocked on his door one quiet afternoon.  Jack was deep in contemplative prayer, having just finished his daily Rosary and he didn’t hear the first knocks, so the good Abbott knocked harder.  He always prayed to Fred at the end of every Rosary, who the Monks were now referring to with extreme reverence as Patron.  Fred was pronounced the same in Spanish as it was in English, only with a slightly different inflection.  The Grotto in Fred’s honor had only recently been finished.

Jack had a direct view of the Grotto from the window in his room.
Jack opened the door to that wide-eyed smile he had come to love.  ‘May I come in Gato,” the Abbott asked. “Absolutely,” Jack said.  He always loved it when any of the Monks referred to the Spanish pronunciation of his name.  “How can I be of service Father Estefan? It is always an honor when you choose to visit my humble room.”

“In one week’s time it will be the one year anniversary since you decided to become one of us.  It will also be the one-year anniversary of our dear Fred’s passing and his ascension into heaven.  No one else dared refer to Fred’s passing in that way, but the Abbott was heard on more than one occasion to say that Fred had been welcomed into heaven by none other than Jesus, the Son of God Himself.  It was his hands that the two Havasupai Elders saw reaching out of the clouds that day. 
 
Abbott Estefan was sure of that in his heart. He told Jack that it was much easier to live with what you knew in your heart, rather than what you could prove.  The Church still required proof for Sainthood, but the Abbott told Jack that he was living proof and the only proof his order would ever need that Fred was sitting next to Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

“Are you planning on keeping your promise Gato?” the Abbott asked him no longer smiling.  “I hope that you are, and if so, I would like you to start making plans right away.  I will have my personal secretary call that Motel and make you a reservation for two nights.  You need to spend the first night at the canyon isolated and by yourself in prayer.  The second day and night are a celebration to Fred, and you need to keep an open mind, and open heart, to anything that might happen.”

The Abbott thought he saw a small tinge of uncertainty in Jack’s eyes.  “You must not hesitate or be doubtful my son.  Remember only that the man who gave his life up for you, a stranger, will be with you in the canyon.  Our Native American Brothers like to refer to this experience as a Vision Quest.  You should fast and sleep little while you are there. And with enough time, the Patrons message will take over you and show you the way.”

After speaking, Abbott Estefan turned and quietly started to walk down the hall.  After only three steps, he turned, looked at Jack one more time and said:  “My dear Gato, please ask the Patron to smile down on this poor Dominican Monk who thinks of him daily.  Ask him to watch over our Mission and all of the poor and suffering souls that we try and help.

Jack hadn’t looked at the BMW for almost a year.  In fact, he had thought about it very little.  The Monk who acted as head groundskeeper had stored it in a stable near the very back of the mission.  He had it wheeled up to the front of the Main Building on the day Jack was getting ready to leave.  It started on the very first kick.

Jack was taking very little with him as he headed to Arizona.  Just the old civilian clothes he had been wearing when arriving a year ago, a road map of the Southwest, and the Rosary Beads he had found draped across the handlebars when he went to get on the bike.
The bikes gas tank was full, and Jack marveled at how clean and well maintained it looked.  ‘Unbelievable, he thought to himself.  “I know if I was to ask, the Monks would tell me it was all a result of the power of prayer — prayer, and a siphon to remove fuel from the Abbots old School Bus.” 

 Jack wondered if anyone not directly connected to all that had happened would ever believe him if he told them his story.  The Abbott had told him it was of no consequence, --- as the truth needed no audience!

Jack rode all day and arrived at the South Rim of the Canyon just after six in the evening.  He checked into the same Motel —The Yavapai Motor Lodge — and parked the Motorcycle in exactly the same spot that it had been in on exactly this day a year ago.  The same desk clerk was working in the lobby who had been there last year.  
“How are you doing?  I NEVER expected to see you back here again.  That was really something that happened last year.  None of us can believe an entire year has gone by already.

“Yes, it was really something,” said Jack.  I made a promise to come back and honor his memory, so I’ll be staying with you for the next two days.  It would mean a lot to me, and to him, if you keep my being here quiet.  I don’t want any publicity, especially from the press.  This is a very private matter and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“No problem, mums the word as far as I’m concerned.  It’s good to see you and that you’re doing well.  Just one thing though before I go home for the evening.”  “What’s that,” Jack said.  “Did they ever figure out why he did it? I never read anything in the papers about why he jumped.”

“No, I don’t think they ever did.  Some things, maybe the most important things in life, tend to remain a mystery from all but the few who are directly involved.  I think in Fred’s case, that mystery will remain intact.”  “That’s right his name was Fred, I haven’t heard anyone use his name in almost a year.  Around here he’s just referred to as the ‘Naked Jumper.”’ Jack smiled to himself at the terminology.  He knew that somewhere high above, Fred was looking down and smiling too.

‘One more thing though,” the desk clerk said as Jack was turning to go to his room.  “What’s that, I’m kind of in a hurry, I want to get into the restaurant before it closes and then over to the canyon before the sun is completely down.”  “Well, it’s like this.  Every morning at exactly 7:00 a.m. the phone rings at the front desk and it’s someone asking for the number of Jack’s room.  When we tell the caller that we are not allowed to give out any information regarding our guests, they immediately hang up and the call ends.  The very next morning they call back again and ask once more for the number of Jack’s room. This has happened now every day for a year.  Your name’s Jack, isn’t it?”

‘Yep, must be a co-incidence. Didn’t they ask for Jack by his last name.”  “No, only Jack, just plain old Jack every time they called.”
Jack knew that Fred had never asked him about his last name, and he was sure that he had never offered the information.  “It’s really funny,” the desk clerk went on, “the caller never stays on long enough for the police to trace the call.  After the tenth or eleventh time we were called we forwarded the information about the calls to the Park Police who tapped into our line and tried to put a trace on the calls.  

Our receptionist, Daphne, who almost always takes the call, has tried to keep the caller on the line, but when she doesn’t give the caller the information they request, the line always goes dead.” Jack said goodnight to the desk clerk, whose name he now knew was Roy, and checked into his room.  It was the same room, #888, that he had been in a year ago.  He picked up the phone and dialed 0 for the Front Desk.

“Roy, this is Jack in Room #888.  Did someone request this specific room for me when making the reservation?”  “Let me check …. Nope, just says Non-Smoking King, on the reservation slip.  Why is something wrong with Room #888?”  “No, everything’s fine, good night, Roy.”

Jack quickly said a Rosary before ordering takeout from the restaurant. He then hurried across and down the road to the Rim where he had met Fred on that fateful day a year ago.  As he sat there quietly eating and staring out over the rim, he felt a peacefulness descend and overtake him both in body and spirit.  As the sun went completely down, he prayed for over three hours for the saving deliverance of Fred’s soul.

Suicide, a word no-one except the police and newspapers had used in his presence, was still a grievous sin in the Catholic Church.  Publicly, the church would admit to no justification that would allow one to take their own life. Jack thought silently about Jesus, --- and wasn’t that exactly what he had done by offering himself up as a sacrifice so all could be saved.  Jesus knew what was going to happen on Calvary that afternoon, just as Fred knew what was going to happen if he didn’t receive a phone call from Jack that morning saying that he had changed his mind.

When the stars had finally filled the sky, Jack got up and walked back to the Motel. As he walked past the front desk he asked Roy, “What time does that call come in in the morning asking for a Jack?”  “At exactly 7:00 a.m. every morning.”

Jack thanked Roy and walked back to his room.  He set his alarm for 6:00 a.m. the next morning. He was in the lobby standing at the front desk at ten minutes before seven waiting, waiting to see if the caller would call again.


Chapter Six

“Nothing,” said Daphne.  “Every morning for a year a call has come in at exactly 7:00 a.m. asking for Jack.  Are you sure it hasn’t been you that’s been making those phone calls?”  “What, call and ask for myself,” Jack said. “What would be the reasoning behind that?”
‘It’s really unbelievable. We’re open 365 days a year and the only property inside the park that is.  This caller has called every day for a solid year and hasn’t missed a holiday, weekend, nothing.  Every morning, and I mean EVERY morning that phone rings --- but not today!”

Jack spent the next day in quiet contemplation on the edge of the rim.  He thought about Sarah and how she had loved this place and said a prayer to Fred to please watch over his beloved wife until he could be with her again.  That night he slept like he had never slept before.

There was a night owl just outside his window and it spoke to him in a language he felt but could not understand.  He could feel it saying to him, --- UNTIL NEXT YEAR, UNTIL NEXT YEAR !!!

Jack got up early the next morning and was in the lobby again before seven.  Once again, no phone call asking for Jack.  After having breakfast and visiting the rim one more time, he rode non-stop back to the monastery, carrying a new part of the Great Mystery.
The Abbott had always been very respectful, and not in a condescending way, of the terms the Indians used to refer to God and Revelation. Jack had heard the Abbott use the term ‘The Great Mystery’ when referring to their religious beliefs many times.  He couldn’t come up with a better term for what he felt had happened back at the Canyon.

For twenty-four more years Jack repeated this same yearly ritual to the South Rim.  The Motel was eventually sold and torn down, and a new Holiday Inn express was built where the old Yavapai Motor Lodge used to stand.  Jack always stayed at the Holiday Inn Express with a room facing East like the one he had at the old Motel.  He was now in his early seventies and each year the trip took longer to get to the Canyon.  

The bike was still properly maintained and running well, but the effort it took to ride it all the way tired Jack out, and every year it seemed like the Canyon got further and further away. Abbott Estefan had died several years ago and Father Jack, or Abbott Gato, as he was now called, was in charge of the Monastery.  Jack had been ordained in a very private ceremony almost fifteen years before. Fred’s children and grandchildren had proudly attended the event in their Father’s honor, each of them placing a wreath at the base of their fathers statue, the Patron, in the garden around back.

As he promised he would every year, Jack checked into the hotel at the South Rim.  It had recently changed its name again to a Best Western.  Including the first time he had stayed here, the time he met Fred, this was the 25th Anniversary of his visiting the Canyon in Fred’s honor. He said “Hi Tammy,” to the pretty young girl working at the front desk.  “So, you’re still riding that old motorcycle all the way from New Mexico?”  “I am, and God willing, I’ll get back there to resume my duties in a couple of days.’  “Well, my dad said to remind you again that you have a standing offer for the Motorcycle if ever, and whenever you decide to sell.”

“Sorry Tammy, but like I told your Dad last year, this motorcycle is going to take me all the way thru the pearly gates.” “Oh Father, you’re such a kidder, but if you do change your mind, my Dad will drive over to the Monastery and pick it up.”  “Thanks Tammy, and thank your Dad again for the kind offer. Are those phone calls still coming in every morning?”

“Every morning at seven a.m. like clockwork Father, except on the mornings you’re here.  It’s old hat around here now and part of the DNA of this place.  I don’t know what we’d do if they ever stopped.”  “I don’t think you need to worry about that Tammy, tell that caller that I said Hi every time he calls.”  “I will Father, he seems to get a real kick out of that.  Two days ago, we weren’t sure what was going on because at exactly seven a.m the phone rang and in the same voice as always, the caller asked for Gato.  When we acted confused, he immediately corrected himself and said ‘Jack,’ could you please tell me the room number of ‘Jack.’

“We’ve got you in #888 as always Father, and it always amuses me that we don’t have any other rooms that start with the number eight.  Do you know why we have one room in this hotel out of sequence with all the others, that is numbered #888, when all the other rooms start with a letter followed by three numbers.
The rooms on this floor go from A100 to A165.”

“No, I really don’t know why that is Tammy, I just know that I’ve always been in Room #888 and I like it that way.  Nothing like tradition right …”

Jack went back to his room and as was his habit said the Rosary before getting into bed.  The next morning, he was outside the restaurant when it opened for breakfast at six.  He liked talking to all the vacationers coming to the Grand Canyon, especially those visiting for the first time.  “God’s greatest creation on earth he would tell all those he met.  He had also become something of a local celebrity, and several local orders of both priests and nuns would come by the south rim during his yearly visit and ask for his blessing.

No-one ever asked him specifically why he was there, but everyone knew, and it was now local legend, that it had something to do with that ‘Jumper’ that had gone over the edge so many years ago. Today was the actual 25th Anniversary of Fred’s taking his place and stepping off into the Canyon.

After breakfast Jack walked the short distance down the canyon road to the rim behind the Pinyon Trees that he had visited so many times before.  He sat on the same rock that he was sitting on twenty-five years before when Fred came walking through the trees.  He began to pray.

He looked down into the loose dirt at the base of the rock and thought that he could still see the impression that his handgun had made in the soft canyon silt. He wondered at his advanced age if his mind not be starting to play tricks on him.  Two of his closest friends at the monastery had been stricken with Alzheimers this year and as he watched them slowly drift away, he prayed more than anything, that it would never happen to him. 
 
Every memory he had had of and in this place seemed to come rushing back at once.  Everything seemed so real.  Not surreal, but really real! He closed his eyes again and prayed.  He wasn’t sure how long he had been praying but when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was now dark.  “Could an entire day have slipped away that fast he wondered, or maybe I really am losing my mind.”

He looked into the sky for any trace of the sun. It was all the way back over his left shoulder, in the direction of California, the land he had come from, the place where everything that happened to him had been so bad.

As he got up to leave, he heard a rustling in the bushes.  He thought maybe it was a black bear, or perhaps a couple of honeymooners coming to the rim to profess undying love.  He called out to the noise in the bushes, but nothing answered back.  He walked deeper in the direction that the sound had come from but it was now so dark that his aging eyes were failing him. 

 It was then that he remembered that he had forgotten his Rosary Beads and had left them back on the rock. As Jack turned around to go back and get his Rosary his eyes went completely blind.  There was a light that he had never seen before coming from the Canyon’s edge and it seemed to be shining only on him.  To the right and the left he could still see darkness, but the brilliant beam of light that he couldn’t understand was following him as he walked blindly back toward the rock.

As bright as the light was it did not hurt his eyes, and it seemed to be drawing him closer and into its light.  As he got near the edge, he could feel the light totally envelop him, both body and soul.  As he got to the Canyon’s edge, he could see the light take shape as it drifted level with his view.  In the middle of the flashing brilliance was the face of Fred who was now smiling at him in the way he had remembered from so long ago.  Fred’s arms were now opening wide as he said through the light …

“Father Jack, you have kept your promise when all I had to give you that day was love.  You have returned that love to me twenty-five fold.  I now release you from your promise so you may go back and live peacefully the rest of your days.  What we did here together will forever be understood, by those willing to give freely and totally of themselves.”

With that the light was gone, and Jack’s body was filled with a new warmth of understanding and love.  It was if someone or something had climbed inside him, someone who needed to reassure him one last time that he would never, ever, be alone again.

On the very next day a message appeared heavily inscribed on the rock.  It read — "He who sacrifices himself in my name shall never die, and my name is love"

Kurt Philip Behm
April, 2012

"In Modern Drama we turn a critical eye
   into the conditions of real life and morality." --- Arlen Rambush


           Modern Drama 101

Her life had become an Ibsen scenario,
cloaked, as it was, in furtive AOL chat rooms,
seeking the romance no longer orbed in marriage,
rather to be panned from the internet wellspring.

It wasn't so much inconstancy, as it was whimsy;
more a channeling of Deneuve, than profiling Gabler.
And she found they flocked to her,
pigeons to be shooed away, should they get too close.

Soul of the house, everything to husband and family,
yet, it was in cyber tryst where she flourished,
that informed the powerful intellect at intervals
with mother and a carte blanche ingénue.

It's possible she sought to reform them,
tear them down --- or no --- it was conquest.
It was not she that needed men,
it was she that absorbed them in hedonistic pleasure.

There’s something about the post-punk silence of nighttime that makes me doubt my soul. That makes me define things in terms of what they follow instead of what they are. Someday, I hope my life will be as interesting as a rock-and-roll portrayal of history. Something to be envied. Something to be admired for its brilliant art direction and cinematography, but panned for its lackluster script. In simpler terms, something boring but pretty. But I’ll only be in it for the costumes. And the one critic who will understand and say, “Her story is strange. At night she levitates above her bed. She’s over the age of sixteen, but she’s still not a witch yet. Kudos for not succumbing to clichés.”

We peeled back the faces of clocks to find the gears were still like the evening, and time crept in so quaintly through our pores like a southern gentleman joining us for dinner. Sporting a shabby suit stitched together from the sheets of our youth and some questionable fabric that lay in our futures, he approached us with a sneer hung upon his obsidian face. He was well versed in the ancient rhetoric of fear and regret. A musician of sorts, he plucked at our veins with fingers that were twisted and stiff like branches of decaying oak. He rattled our bones in time with the clock, the pendulum, of which, still rocked steadily too and fro despite its stationary innards. The sound swelled within us, pounding against the eardrums as to drown out the quiet of the world beyond ourselves. In the next measures the scenes of existence, which we had strung together and thrown upon the screen, panned out, leaving nothing but we fools and time. He sat there strumming in the dark, as he certainly would have for ages, never aging and playing out his tunes until we all permanently became a work within his composition of sheet music. Surely we would be the songs that history would never touch again, the scores and old hymns that fell so short of being timeless, and sat superior a row of white keys, anxious to be played. We sat listening to the soundtrack of ourselves passing, the maestro -our old friend time- never tiring. And we would have remained, had it not been for the arrival of our next guest. He was a stranger, well, rather someone we had not met before, for he was not particularly strange. He came to each of us differently, so i cannot convey his features in a sentence, nor a thousand words, nor a volume of works, but he was beautiful. From his lips resonated such a sweet sound that, for a few moments , stifled the discord. We seized this small window and made for the mirrors, thanking the visitor in our haste. We gazed on ourselves within the deep pools of self realization that lay before us for both a lifetime and only a moment. We peeled back our faces to find that the contours of our flesh were absent beneath. The lines fell around our feet, and we danced atop them like children, for, in truth, we were. We were young and old, fact and fiction. With eyes like glass, reflecting promise and fortune, we looked to our old friend time, whose tattered garments had fallen around him. In his place, was a rustic, wooden record player spitting out the same tune we listened to for ,what seemed, a century. We gave the noise an audience, and it rested softly now on our ears.

Tap tap tap and ye shall find.
I sieved and panned for nuggets that shine,
Searching for those elusive lines
That transgress space and transgress time
Or soothe and calm like favourite wine
Or send a shiver down the spine

I chanced upon a wealthy seam
I tapped and from it gushed and teemed

A geyser of emotion
A tide of wisdom
A planet of experience

Hello Poetry, how do you do?
I'm very pleased to meet with you.

so soon, so far
where are we going?
so good, so far
always leave me hanging

so sure, so soon
why are we leaving?
so far, so soon
always end up laughing

so you just laugh away
catch up with you another day.

Addendum to title:
Boyhood Digs in Collegeville, Pennsylvania 19426

Oft times forced exposure therapy spelled rustling quiet
Pyrrhic punitive onslaughts noisome moody linkedin kicks
jarring inxs harbored grievances foo fighting essence
denoting cannibalized august boy aghast to confront reality
returning home meant compromising autonomy
acceptable collateral casting leftist strides rite
constituting timid steps circumscribing childhoods’ end,
comprising reluctant trudge treading toward adolescence
where wold wide webbed magic ride
rode ruff shod o’er carped hooked
synthetic threads re: fibrous veld
whence extolled impressive footprints
measured triangular wedges rung duff feet
expediently dragged churlish badinage afoot
stretching across Scottish tartan
Harris Tweed unwelcome matt despite frustrated parents
whose vitriol unleashed tough-love,
smacked regularly quasi planned
threatened ultimatums venomous viz witches
yawping against my brand
falling out of good graces,
though hatching escape merely fanned
actions hightail me to bedroom, a secure space,
not exceptionally grand
yet despite rapacious and relentless rage
against the sole son, who hand
did lee managed inciting wrath
of me papa and late mama,
this parcel of land, now entombs nostalgia
namely 324 level road, Collegeville,
Penna, 19426 make believe pal Joey and this creator
passively succumbed to withstand
invisible jetblue lobbing onslaught of slingshot barbs,
wharf fear to rely on self way past primetime,
which solo endeavor didst demand
absent belief, confidence and faith in innate survival skills,
hence countless admonitions recurred
razed quest qua pursed lips
those who begat their only male heir,
provoking predictable panned
da moan he hum in tandem
with concomitant wickedness akin to eland
caught in cross hairs getting pistol-whipped
with many barking explicit derogatory gerund formed
expletives, that did not dislodge this immobile body electric
defying logic, now in retrospect clueless why I suffered to withstand
incessant verbal, venal, and n’er vampire weakened blows
inexplicable, how this soulful, ruminating,
and tortured walking wounded blithely weathered turpitude  
though devoid of sense and sensibility, how no man iz an island
though at times incontinent, where jocund this bard for’er opened
Pandora’s box, but hindsight softened cleft pride and prejudice
whereat bulldozed site of once grand “Glen Elm” tears me up inside
fading memories refreshed, via priceless gift
from beloved younger sister
unwittingly mitigated hammer blows of pain to confront the void,
whence away from obliterated complex edifice grief felt ******!

As he sat the trash can back down gingerly
He sighed Well, it’s a long story.
We were drinking beer in my backyard at four in the morning
On one of those sticky September nights
Where sleep was more rumor than reality,
And, as I noted the time on the clock for the umpteenth time,
I heard a song outside my window;
Not some drunken caterwauling of “Danny Boy”
As rendered by some stray tabby in a Dublin alley;
This was…singing, like you’d hear on a CD
Or, perhaps, Live From The Met,
And at first I thought some poor sot with an artistic streak
Had pulled off the main road to sleep it off,
But the singing was punctuated
With the clatter of can-lids and the occasional grunt,
Until I understood that baritone and trash barrel
Were part and parcel of the same man.  

As I handed him a second bottle,
He recounted how his lifelong dream of riches, glory,
And a glorious career on the world’s great stages
Came to a sudden halt after a Manhattan debut
(I sang my *** off that night, he recounted)
Was met with mild praise, the odd bit of outright scorn
And a healthy dose of apathy.  
I ‘spose, he said between sips, I could have done all right
Givin’ lessons, singin’ bit parts here and there.
You’re on the road a lot, but the money ain’t bad,
But one day, just before an audition for a supporting role
In a regional production of Carmen
Up in Binghamton ******* New York,
He simply left the theatre, got into his car,
And drove some sixteen hours
Until he hit town here, and then he stayed.
But, I countered, why not go back?
The years of lessons and Julliard,
All for celebrating our refuse and squalor
With roadkill requiems, arias for rats?  
Well, some days it’s a hard way to make a living,
He said, stroking his chin thoughtfully,
But it does give me a venue to sing,
And, to date, I ain’t been panned by no **** cat.

Once the depression becomes routine,
Happiness never really feels comfortable again.
It comes around
now and then,
like an old friend.
You laugh and drink
and reminisce about all the plans you had that never panned out.
All the hope you invested,
in the jobs, the relationships, the dreams and goals.
And you laugh at how foolish you once were for ever having such ideas.
But the laughter dies out
And your smile fades
And you know in the back of your mind
that soon, your happiness will be gone again,
and you can never quite forgive it for leaving.
You cant blame it,
All you ever did was hold it back.
Maybe somebody else could make better use of it.
And the depression,
Well the depression is no Stranger.

Spooked
Driving along on my scooter seeing the familiar
landscape there was a time disturbance
the landscape was the same but the trees small
and there were fewer ploughed fields.
mystical shadows and a murmur of voices sounded
as an echo and I felt spooked.

I stopped and waited perhaps I had a funny turn
slowly the warp panned out and I was back at
my own time, yet I sensed an unease I should not
come back to this place that had layers of old time
that had yet to melt into the clarity of a white water
that has no story to tell.