Existential Diner

I once had a meal at a diner
where a botched order became a reminder:
For what you ask, you may not get--
In meals and in life. Still,
treat that server a little kinder.

Late December

Solstice passed,
a turning toward the light,
yes, surely, despite the heavy,
frozen air this morning--
exhaust gases ghost dance as
traffic on Route 9 slows for the bus.

I look east, at the slight sliver of
warm light edging the clouds
over the Taconics and Berkshires.
The low hills are a sleeping woman,
on her side, soft curves
under rumpled blankets.
That supine form, her landscape of curves
rising from the plain of her warm bed.
“Spoonful” plays, and Jack sings
Some of them cries about it…
some of them dies about it…
and Eric’s woman tone answers,
the electric shaman channeling his siren
through wood and steel, maybe the oldest
moan of all.

Somewhere, she sleeps,
hills low on the horizon,
telescoped to me through the low morning
light leaping, magnified, like last night’s
three-quarter moon—
waxing or waning, can’t be sure.

Apple trees, closer, just off the road, in neat rows,
evenly spaced by a careful eye.
Fruit, leaves gone, their bare trunks
and branches in tortuous, serpentine shapes
in the cold, dry air—waiting out the winter
and the sun’s low arc.

And what of shifting seasons?
Utterly fruitless or simply fallow?
I can still taste the summer, that
Honeycrisp in my gloved hand.
Is that enough?

The Sprint

the last 1000 meters
a right turn, a rider in front of me
I’m on his wheel like eight inches behind
blurry eyes and I
hold that wheel and hold that draft
fences along the road and a crowd
people yelling and cowbells ringing
and three hours of sweat in my eyes
tunnel vision--hold that wheel
just a bit more time one more gear
okay straightaway
he’s tired--I can get around him
swing out to the left and stand on the pedals
grip the bars not too tight
legs on fire burning lactic acid
the crowd sounds underwater
whoosh
ow and more flames
the finish looks a long way off
and can I hold him off
he must be tired and he’s
gaining on my right side
dang it and half a wheel
whole wheel ahead
overhead timer more cowbells
and yelling there’s the line
and he’s half a bike length ahead
I push one last time and throw forward the bars
not enough
62 miles is long
but the finish is measured in inches
coast up the road on momentum and
stop next to him and gasp
“good sprint.”

Not the Bomb

Ten years ago, kids would have said, “It’s the bomb!” That’s fallen out of the vernacular, and it’s not quite accurate. Stay tuned, though.

A little background information first: Friday was field-trip day for the majority of the tenth grade, leaving me with two blocks and very few students—mostly those who forgot to hand in their permission slips. Not much teaching would happen, but it would be a chance to catch up with whatever work the stragglers were missing, and it would give me a chance to make a dent in my stack of papers.

That’s not exactly what happened.

I was out of the room, chatting with a colleague. My co-teacher, a special ed teacher with years of experience and copious grace, was in our room with our three students: a quiet kid seated at the front, and two class-clown types in the back.

I walked back in, and saw Mrs. G sitting in the back with the two cut-ups. Her body language—legs crossed, hands folded—put me at ease instantly, thus helping me not freak out when I said, “That’s a grenade.”

Told you it wasn’t the bomb, or even a bomb. Still, pretty close. And close counts with hand grenades.

Jester number one, a kid prone to wearing his hoodie backwards with the hood up, a kid whose parents receive regular email missives from me, had brought in a grenade, which now rested, upright, on the desk to Mrs. G’s right. A quick glance and I could tell it was just a shell, but still. A grenade. In the classroom. Just sayin.’

“Mr. W!” she began, in that animated voice teachers use when they are talking to other teachers but want students to hear. (It’s an old trick, but it still works fairly often.) “We’re just trying to figure out what to do with Stan’s grenade!” (NOTE: His name isn’t Stan. There’s nobody in my school named Stan.)

“Oh. Yes. That.” For some reason, I saw the absurdity in this situation right away. “Stan, why did you bring that in today?” I asked the urchin.

His face lit up into a big, goofy grin. “Show and tell?” he said sheepishly.

“Okay…” I said. “Where did you get it?”

“My grandfather was in the army. He gave it to me.”

“And you thought it would be a good idea to bring it in to school?”

“Uh…”

“Well, I think I should take it from you. I doubt you’ll need it before the end of the day.”

“Um.”

I picked it up. Despite its neutered state, it was still an impressively dangerous-feeling hunk of metal.

“Wow,” said Mrs. G. “That would send a lot of hunks of metal flying if it blew up!”

“That’s the idea,” I offered, at which point the other kid—an occasional hot-head whose bluster had melted into conviviality this morning—cracked up. “Hahaha, Mr. W! ‘That’s the idea’!”

“You know, Mr. A [our vice principal] is right next door,” I said, at which point Stan lost his smile.

Mrs. G exited with the grenade. She returned empty-handed. Mr. A soon appeared in the doorway, and motioned for Stan. The kid departed, and came back a few minutes later with a handful of pink referral papers. Turns out he had a few priors. To his credit, he still had his sheepishness about him. He’s not the type of kid I’d worry about. He probably just wanted some attention. We all had a good laugh, spurred on mostly by Mr. Convivial, who was probably relieved to not be the one in trouble this time.

The stars must have aligned that day. Would you believe there is more? Footnotes, really, after the grenade. But they have their own charm.

A teacher found an empty gin bottle in the boys’ bathroom. This, of course, led to all sorts of comments about said teacher’s imbibing. Someone suggested sending a message home asking parents to check their liquor cabinets, thus finding the guilty party. I told everyone that some kid had knocked on the faculty room door, looking for tonic and lime, but that I hadn’t put one and one together fast enough.

Last one. The tide of humanity outside my classroom door slowed, then did that weird forward-backward thing. My teacher senses tingled. Fight. Yup. Two girls, lots of yelling, everyone else spectating. Adults arrived before fisticuffs even started. Off each one marched, in separate directions, clutching their cell-phone talismans, trailing profanity and hangers-on.

I can say many things about my job. Most days, I can honestly say that it’s never dull. The preceding words are a work of fiction, somewhat. Names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. Oh, and this all happened long ago and far away. Maybe.

Haiku

Morning, and I sip
from my cup, wishing you'd taste
the tea on my tongue.

Wishing on stars as
they burn to dust--how much fuel
does a hope require?

Winter hearts freeze in
January's heavy air,
catching at my throat.

Exam time: students
lean and write, as I sit and
ponder my own tests.

I shake my pen--out
of ink and out of time, with
much more left to say.

Burnt Hills, Round Lake

A flash of light, a sudden quake
none sensed the signs—
burnt hills, round lake

A piece of the sky fell at daybreak
spelling the dinosaurs’ decline
a flash of light, a sudden quake

Day turned to night at a fearsome rate
beasts, rocks and mud entwined
under burnt hills, by a round lake

Now, all is calm at this namesake
watchful trees along the faint crater’s side
no flash of light or sudden quake

Somewhere in my bones, a Jurassic ache
Northbound lights shine
driving home to Burnt Hills or Round Lake

Pearls on a string, traffic stretches from Exit 8
Silver on green, I suddenly see the sign
a flash of light, a tiny quake
as I exit at Burnt Hills-Round Lake.

Tea haiku

Be like rooibos: steep
as long as needed, as it
won't become bitter.

Down to the water

A. and I went to Wales. I was curious to see the country of my ancestors, maybe more so than some people, due to my adoption. I’ve never seen a blood relative. Would I spot a resemblance? Maybe I was after something even more subtle, like a feeling, a sentiment, a vibe. It was my first trip to another continent, and I was happy to be doing it with someone I loved.

We camped in St. David’s, a small, old city on the coast. It rained quite a bit, but that added to the enchanted quality. We met an ancient man in a pub, who indulged us and spoke Welsh. It sounded incredibly foreign, elfin, something straight out of Middle Earth.

On our last night in St. David’s, we walked down toward the water. There’s a scene there that hangs in my mind’s museum, a random moment that fits a frame, a strong composition, dark, with painterly points of light. The last rays of the sunset are coming over the water, a thin, magenta line merging into the blue-black above. Stars hang overhead, familiar shapes from home. The road slopes downward toward the water. There is a sense of openness, with the land slanting away, the stars drawing our eyes upward. I don’t know why my mind’s shutter opened and closed around this moment, but there it is. We were probably holding hands. I hope so.

We never walked all the way down to the water. I remember wanting to. We probably had an early bus to catch the next morning. Something practical like that. We turned around and walked back to our campsite, which was nothing more than a soggy field, really.

A. and I came close—became close--in many ways. Lots of verbal riffing, cooking shared meals in our bright kitchen. Poetry readings. Tending our small yard. Travel. We had an ease with each other: two language mavens with pretty good comic timing. From the outside, our relationship looked idyllic, carefree. It felt that way to me, for quite a while, too.

There was, however, some reluctance, some insurmountable wall, some steps too far. I remember her declaring, in a matter-of-fact way, that she never wanted to be married. "Okay," I replied. She followed up with, "I don't want to have kids." "Okay," I repeated. Looking back, I'm not sure if I was scared or relieved. I remember just checking off those question on a mental list. Never mind that I didn't really consider my feelings on either of those subjects. If I had, I would have found fear and curiosity, I'm sure. I didn't have the words at the time. I've learned that issues of magnitude demand questions, not statements and acquiescence. Furthermore, statements may have varying half-lives: I found out a couple of years later that she did marry. Someone else, of course.

Carefree becomes an insidious trap. What is not an advance, a step forward, becomes a retreat. Without plumbing of emotional depths, there is backward movement, even when one appears to be still.

I'm thinking now of that visual illusion that happens when running through an advancing or retreating tide. I want to remind myself to go to the water, all the way down, to look up and out, to find the words in these moments and not years later, as in this blog I humbly send out, a scrawl in a wax-sealed bottle, bobbing in a cyber surf.

Happy Birthday, Dad

Dad would have turned 82 today. He almost made it to 79. There’s something in the light and the air at this late-autumn time that makes me think of him. I wish he’d made it farther into his own winter, in good health and clear mind. Still, I am thankful for what was. Those peaks that rise, still visible over my childhood dropping below the horizon.

Dad rescued me more than once, after a cycling misadventure. These days, I carry tools while cycling: spare tubes, wrenches, a CO2 inflator. I have a phone, too. Back in the years when my silver Fuji ten-speed first made my world bigger, I’d call Dad—those were pay-phone days. Whether it was a flat tire, the bent crank on City Line Avenue, or the cracked frame in Manayunk, Dad would come, his large Lincoln a welcome sight. The trunk would swallow the bike. Not even Lance has a team car like that. We’d ride home, his arm draped over the seat, the car rocking softly over curves, the radio playing classical music, Dad humming along.

Dad had a piano. He got it while living in Center City in Philly, and he’d have friends over who would sing and play. Dad never tried to play until his later years, and he did his best to keep it a secret from Mom and me. Still, he taught me to love music. An only child, I’d spend a lot of time in my room, with my little plastic folding record player. I had picked out an eclectic selection from Dad’s record collection: Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, My Fair Lady, Never on Sunday, Rossini’s William Tell Overture, Lord Buckley. (Google that last one. Really.) He bought me my first instrument, a plastic clarinet, and later financed a couple of my guitars. The guitar, naturally louder, fulfilled my need to be seen and heard, but I always felt a bit sheepish about my taste in rock music. Dad was never critical. I hope he was proud.

I owe whatever handiness I have to Dad. I’d accompany him to our rental property in the city. I never minded being the assistant, since I knew there would be a cheesesteak in the deal. I started out as the man with the broom and the mop, but eventually graduated to painting. There were always tools around the house, and I guess I just followed Dad’s lead of simply fixing whatever needed it.

Dad always provided, even after I moved out of the house. I’d be back in town to visit, and, inevitably, leaving became quite an ordeal as Dad lined the kitchen counter with grocery bags full of food. Perishable items were surrounded by frozen things. Everything was double-bagged. I’d lift the hatch of my rusty Honda and fill the back. Once I said, jokingly, “You know, Dad, we have grocery stores in Albany.” I was a bit embarrassed by it all. It makes more sense to me now: Dad’s Depression-era upbringing, his reserved nature, his sweetness and love shown by what he did rather than simply what he said.

Thanks, Dad, for all of that, and these things too: Lionel trains that taught me about electricity and geography; music playing constantly in the house; your laughs coming up from the living room; your ways with words, whether in conversation or on a Christmas present tag; your healthy contempt for stupid advertisements; putting up with band practice in the basement; your voracious reading; your knowledge that ran broad and deep; your kindness and generosity that ran that way, too.

Happy birthday, Dad. I love you and I miss you.

Mid-life ramblings

I’m back in the town where I grew up, and I’ve spent a couple of days driving and biking through the landscapes of my past. A time to be reflective. Here’s some of what’s been tooling around in my mind.

A while back, I saw the future, and it almost ran into me. A texting teenager, ambling down the hall of my school, arms bent, eyes on a tiny screen. She kept an even gait, but didn’t see our collision course. I stepped aside, and she passed, oblivious to me.

Frank McCourt said that it’s up to the younger people to push their elders off the earth. It’s turning into their world, not the world of my generation. Naturally, this makes me feel old. O-l-d. Teachers in my school are bemoaning what’s happening to kids, in terms of behavior, manners, attention span, and so on. We might not achieve super-texting thumbs, but we won’t go quietly. That’s for damn sure.

That’s nothing new, I’m sure. What’s new is that I’m part of that curve, that demographic. Trying my darndest to avoid sentences that start with “When I was your age…”

As a teacher, I’m around teenagers. I’ve been teaching for twelve years, and I’ve seen things change. I’m not a new teacher anymore. Not sure when that happened, but here I am, mid-career. Today’s teens are, of course, the texting generation. I admire their dexterous thumbs and their determination to stay in touch, despite school rules to the contrary. Along with that, I’m worried about the havoc being wrought on already short attention spans. They can multitask, but how well can they do any one of those things? When and how will they learn the value of single-mindedness, and the rewards that come with applying oneself completely to one thing--be it enjoyable, arduous, or something in between.

I’m 40. It’s been an interesting, difficult year. Some days I feel every one of those years. Sometimes that’s a good thing, maybe not approaching wisdom, but some kind of understanding. Other times, I just feel disillusioned. (Sure, that word means “free of illusions,” but I think we need some of those illusions. Truth is slippery anyhow.) I’m trying to keep that openness and curiosity that I’ve carried with me. I’m trying to avoid that hardness, that resignation that I hear in some of my colleagues--the kinds of rants that place the blame on the kids, which I hear as an excuse for not meeting our learners where they are. They are in their world. We are in ours. They occasionally overlap in fabulous ways, like when a student discovers that a mythical parent like Atticus Finch still has something to teach everyone who meets him. The worlds also overlap in less graceful ways, as well. Facebook comes to mind: I posted a picture of me at my high-school graduation in 1987, and a former student of mine commented simply, “Weird.”

Also this year, my path has crossed with an old friend, my first girlfriend ever, who’s become an amazing mirror, window, confidante and--truly--a source of equal measures of inspiration and confusion. She met me when I was 17, on New Year’s Eve. How appropriate: a night on the cusp of a fresh year. She’s 39 now, in the midst of a life that’s thrown her much more than a kind, sweet soul should have to endure. We wander together through fragments of things, puzzling over what it all means, searching for that evasive truth, slipping on frozen hearts and frayed minds. She’s a mensch and a wordsmith, but as Rumi says, words can only take any of us so far.

I feel like I’m on the cusp of something once again. Not sure what. I remember being a kid, maybe grade-school age, and thinking of my life as a grown-up. I was looking at the adults around--parents, teachers--and thinking, “Wow, they’ve got everything figured out. I’ll be there someday.” Well, kid, just because I can pay the bills, make simple repairs around the house, hold a job, even have relationships, that doesn’t mean I’ve got it all figured out. I’m trying to meet things openly, see them as they are, do that soul work, be present, and accept what comes. I can still ramble in my writing, so I guess that counts for something.

And, hey, Mr. McCourt, rest in peace. I’d like to think you weren’t pushed off the world, but rather did an elegant Irish jig into your own sunset.

Early Dusk

What does the wind know?
Memories of the humid kisses of a summer night.
Tell me, how do those darling buds know to grow?
What is that stirring in the soil, ever slight?
A life beneath the dead leaves, still where they fell.
There's a rich fall feast of sweet decay.
It’s merely a season’s end, not a final knell.
Listen—even bare branches have something to say.
Summer has passed, the colors drained out.
We go in, turn inward at an early dusk
to find a light we can’t go without.
Frozen ground, frozen hearts—in those I trust.
What’s in that weary smile I just saw?
Hold steady, wait for the thaw.