Sweet Bird Talk

This morning in the Mendocino mountains

I rekindled an old conversation,
picked up just where we left it,
thirty odd years ago –
me and some chatty Wisconsin birds.

They were ready to tell me something
(a secret actually,) though
maybe they mistook me
for someone else,
a young ornithologist perhaps,
and I abruptly cut them off –
mid-sentence in fact.

I was young and hurried,
birds had nothing for me –
a lot of useless noise –
so then I walked away
and then I forgot.

Now we’re back together,
a monastery in the mountains
two thousand miles west of
the Wisconsin North Woods.

I doubt it’s the same birds,
though they know it’s the same me,
they haven’t forgotten,
and so we commence our conversation.

At first their words are gibberish,
like Emily Dickenson on first reading;
is there a point to all the squawking?

Then that magic key is turned.

My 9^th grade teacher’s wife, Mrs. Wetzel,
she told me about that key:

“With Dickenson, there’s a key,” she said.

And so, it is with birds in the woods.

And it is a secret, a real secret
written in the code of bird song.
The birds recite the words –
the same scripture transcribed
from leaves and branches,
all across the forested world;
translated into the language of
crickets and lizards and even
known to domestic animals,
yea even dogs and cats,
who are too polite to tell
though you can see it in their eyes,
in that watery glass reflection
like a stained-glass window.

A bird squawks from a tree,
a second squeals from another,
and I think aloud, “a church choir”
as I sit in rapt communion below.

Birds talk about many things,
sometimes they talk about us.
There’s been a long, lonely
wait for our awakening,
in fact all animals await us,
some are more patient than others,
some will bite and chew and eat us
much like human predators who
prey on the weak and less cunning
though with animals the
right is more deserved –
a natural response to our
fear and our treason.

But the birds, they just wait,
they wait in talkative serenity.
At daybreak, they are joyous
of the new coming sunrise,
and they talk about the coming day
though it may be no different than
any other day, it is the joy
and serenity that is worth
the speaking.

They warn of, yet cherish,
each coming rainstorm and the
wisping winds or voracious gusts
that force them into trees to
sit patiently and simply watch
in perched awe.
The birds of the forest
are our passage out.
They are not trained in begging like the
pigeons who followed us into the city,
who cluck sidewalk to sidewalk
looking for human scraps.
Instead, they are the ones who have
clung to the woods and to the seas
who speak to those who would
come to listen as they relate the vast
mystery of creation.

Deliverance In Missouri

 

Deliverance in Missouri

Springtime before the fall of America

Once upon a time I saw heaven -
Missouri, April 1969.
It lasted an evening’s dusk –
the seeing of it, that is.

Driving south to the town of Jenks,
to visit an Oklahoma oil well,
Dad behind the wheel –
the old Pontiac Wildcat.

The sun set beneath Missouri rolling hills –
God’s springtime arboretum for angels and fairies
dancing in pre-psychedelic images of Fantasia
with wild cartoon animals who grinned
a genuine star-spangled greeting.

Glen Campbell strumming on the radio:

 I clean my gun
and dream of Galveston.

Spring sprang in this pubescent America
west of the Mississippi.
Midwestern hospitality sang out
at a Best Western motel like a
Rogers and Hammerstein musical;
hospitality that was ambushed and
raped by the Vietnam War,
an apocalyptic can of worms
that would kill all that was good in America
by revealing all that had always been bad.

On this day in heaven though,
an orange setting sun
pasted spring-green farmlands gold
as we pulled into the country motel.
I sat in the car quietly with mom,
she, humming softly to herself
while dad procured accommodations.

Whatever it was that was good,
was good there in Missouri in 1969.
The sun was setting upon southern bliss
while young soldiers tromped through swamps
somewhere in Southeast Asia.
They tromped through those swamps
to keep the rolling hills of Missouri safe;
safe for segregated tract homes,
safe for shopping malls
safe for furious, rushed, consumer driven frenzy,
safe for a thousand deluded voices bitching
about how good things were
before unsavory someones stole their jobs
and were allowed to commit crimes
and spread demonic debauchery
right there in that sleepy motel parking lot.

Yes, I knew of End Times even back then,
even as a child,
even before I found LSD
and Dylan and The Dead,
I saw it etched into the fabric of hypocrisy.
But never had I been given a glimpse of deliverance
until that early evening with my mother
in the womb of heaven’s springtime.

The Lady on the Dance Floor

At a Santa Rosa dance hall
through a throng of bodies
she twirls a Cajun melody,
in Zydeco rhythm, spinning,
soaring above the crowd
as if alone on a dark stage
with one single, solo spotlight
shining down upon her graceful beauty.

Tall and slender,
soft white skin,
her dishwater hair
just long enough to flap in the
breeze she makes
twirling across the wooden floor.
Long black dress,
sparkling silver sequins
reflecting off the lights,
she spins and swings in
grand and radiant
circles around the hall.

Her presence in this west coast wooden ballroom
suggests another age – World War II,
its men shipped off to the Pacific theater;
loved ones left behind to find joy
in an empty, forsaken world,
old men sit against the wall,
past the calling of war;
who had their Great War,
 and now are left to wait.

They wait with this slender-legged darling –
queen of the wooden dance floor,
she will dance through the deaths of D-Day,
keep the flickering spirit from dying,
bring grace and sanity to this corner of a
world gone mad.

Tonight, I long to reach out for her
but I don’t dance so well,
I’m my own kind of wounded veteran;
I can only sit on a bench,
awestruck by the glorious light
shining from her tall, slender body,
her simple smile that cuts through the
chaos and destruction of another age.

She will forever be there on that floor
escorting the joy of the world through
troubled times; soft skin, deceptive
innocence; no one can give up hope
while she is still on the stage.

THE KEALIA BIKE PATH

 The Kealia Bike Path

 

I always double knot my shoes and use the
public restroom before I start out walking
the Kealia Bike Path.

I do this because I’m getting older
and no longer have time for the
slips and spills of my younger years.
Urgency is gone as the rope of
time tugs towards its final knot.
Oddly though, “old” never felt so
young as it does today wandering
past crashing waves out in the
middle of the ancient ocean.

The bike path starts in civilization –
a homeless camp near the
seawalls of Moanakai Road.
It’s really not so unsightly as you
might think, just hippie-looking
locals smoking weed on 

faded park benches by their
pup tents in paradise,
hanging out in front of
crashing waves, ready to
run if they see a cop,
or shoot you a dirty look
for being a Haole if you’re a Haole.

It’s not so different than that
park in Deerfield, Illinois where,
after washing dishes at Ravinia,
the chef and I would cruise to and
listen to “Smoke on the Water” and
toke on a bowl, with a park full of
freaks who looked almost homeless,
but from a teenager’s perspective,
were wondrous and breathtaking
like Local Hawaiian potheads
beside a beachside parking lot.

But nowadays, in this congested,

Godforsaken working world, 

I require a massive and remote
ocean expanse to inspire my
awe and hope and wonder.
Today I need the broad blue
brush of nature and the
naturally thatched green weeds that
drape hidden secrets on the
other side of the great divide.

These secrets dance and spin with the
wind and the waves and the roosters
crowing on the lawn. These
 secrets call out from behind the
individuated world of a tropical island’s
shades of green and blue.

The Pono Kai Resort, further along the
path, is also nicer than you’d think,
and not because it comes just after the
iron girder bridge  over the Kapaa Canal
that segregates it from homelessness, but
because it’s really quite modest and
accessible and on a vast stretch of
downtown beach that nobody really
pays attention to – except those in the know,
although, after a storm it gets rather
rank and sketchy with stirred,
sandy brown water and all sorts of
unsightly shit like inexplicable
shopping carts tossed willy-nilly
into the surf until a crew comes to
clean it up.

I want to be on that crew that
cleans up the beach just like I
want to be the husband who brings his
wife tea in bed and comforts her
in all ways possible when she has the flu.

The parks and library and Sam’s
Restaurant and the cute boutique hotel
on the north end of Kapaa Town are a
quant distance past the Pono Kai
until you finally find yourself at the
cliffs just up from Kawaihau Road.
There it becomes a real walk along
beaches and shores of the Pacific Ocean,
and you know you’re out in the
middle of the Pacific, miles and miles
and thousands of miles from a
continent with super highways and
skyscrapers and suburban sprawl that
has eaten up the once beautiful
farmlands and wilderness that
made us feel a part of life – 
at least, that is, in the universal sense,
as in the Universe and the
cosmic sense of the ever-present
consciousness of a loving and nurturing God.

The cliffs last for a while but (in full disclosure,)
the path borders on the Kuhio Highway.
Sometimes you can see it sometimes you can
hear it sometimes you can’t, but it
makes no difference as a highway’s significance
pales in contrast to the infinitude of the busy
ocean that stretches from pole to shining pole
and from China to South America with
indifferent emptiness upon its surface, and
multidimensional doings down below –
down to its very rocky or sandy bottom,
miles deep depending on whether it’s canyons or
cliffs or the muddy ocean floor.

Past the Kealia cliffs there is the
great panoramic vista: Kealia Beach –
my favorite stretch of sand in the world.
And when it’s a little gray and overcast,
the beach can be a half-mile stretch of
ecstatic vacancy save for the life-guards and their
groupies, but usually there are flocks of
surfers and waders and at the far end,
where the water is safe and shallow,
protected by a rock wall. There are
dads with their daughters and sons and
sunbathers in foldout chairs, and a
splattering of colored umbrellas
protecting family outings that include
toddlers and dogs running wild in the
hot Hawaiian sunshine.

The walk along the Kealia parking lot goes
quick (quicker than you’d think for a
half-mile stretch of pavement) and then after the
last stop – another public restroom – the trail
climbs back up along the cliffs, and
empty hillsides of grass and forever
green trees interrupted only by one small
gated community up above, protected by a
chain link fence and threatening signs that say,
“stay out” at the risk of prosecution.

The path goes on for another half-hour
(depending on your pace) with the occasional bike
utilizing its rights and privileges on a
route that was designed for riders.

Paliku (Donkey) Beach is the next broad stretch of sand,
and this one is exclusive to the residents and surfers
who know the secret (or not) quarter mile paved
path off the highway. These beach bather’s presence is as
apt and organic as the sea turtles, monk seals and
flocks of egret who make that stretch of sea their home.

The trail continues on in warm bathing serenity
for one final stretch until you bump into a
dead end of tall grasses that guard a stretch of
Kauai wilderness. My friend Katie told me
there are homeless encampments there on the
other side of the creek – exclusively Hawaiian
locals from outside Anahola who
aren’t as friendly as the potheads in Kapaa –
 
but I sometimes pretend those
tall grasses are kind of like how the
Universe ends at the edge of infinity;
tall grasses of unknown origin with a
couple narrow paths that sneak in but are
designed for those who were there at the
dawn of the lay of the land who
live and breathe with both feet planted
firmly in infinity with no need for
civilization or libraries or boutique
hotels or colored umbrellas
for their family’s protection.

But I wonder if maybe they are missing out,
missing their feet tied to the world of
form, organized into societies while they
now float free out in the world of
consciousness, never knowing the
contrasts that bring the formlessness into
focus and provide a deeper understanding of
within from without.

This is what I think as I stand before the
tall grasses at the edge of the Kealia Bike Path
before I turn back and head into my life that I
believe has a meaning but is really only given definition
by this and other poems.

Annabelle 1975

Annabelle
1975

When I first saw Annabelle at the cemetery
(the one above the woody cliff
overlooking Lake Michigan)
I sat quietly, drinking in her solemn devotion.

I used to visit the cemetery
early summer mornings,
quietly sitting with the dead,
propping myself up
against the cool back
of a concrete slab.

Annabelle didn’t see me,
I was down low, back against a stone
diagonal to the grave where she knelt.

A sad but striking figure in
blue jeans and green silk blouse,
soft brown hair resting below her shoulders.
She had the look of an artist:
deep lonely Van Gough eyes
that looked beyond with melancholy joy
ready to turn to sadness.

She laid flowers against the headstone.
I can’t say what kind;
I don’t know flowers well,
I just know the petals;
blue and white with black pinstripes

Annabelle did the sign of the cross and stood up to leave.
As she walked away, toward the empty woods
of the former McCormick estate –
haunted and undeveloped after thirty years –
I had to go over to the grave and see.
“Cecilia Martin” the headstone said;
Cecilia died a year ago that day.

I stood at the grave imagining young
Annabelle, a child sitting at Cecilia’s side.

The stories Cecilia must have told her:
horse led trolley cars
down the streets of Chicago;
butchers and meat packers;
families sitting on their stoops
those hot summer nights.

I know this because
Annabelle told me
when I followed her into the woods.
I stalked her like a deer –
not to harm her
but to ask questions.

I must say I startled her as she stood silently
by the empty foundation
of the old McCormick mansion.
She turned around with cagey fright.
Loose chunks of concrete
lay on the ground beside her.
Rebar stuck out of the concrete
bent and rusted like
old, crusted bones
in a shallow grave.

“Do you come her often?”
(I swear to God, those were
my first words to Annabelle.)
“I saw you at Cecilia’s grave,”
I added as an introduction.

“You knew my grandmother?”

“No, but I was hoping you’d tell me.”

And believe it or not,
after some convincing,
she did.

Lake Forest was her home –
servant of the rich meat packers
and industrialists of Chicago,
the likes of Armor, Swift,
Pullman and McCormick
who had private railcars
and huge wooded estates with ivy
growing up their marble walls.

Cecilia was a maid and house-
servant to the Paxton family –
tea in the afternoon, tucking
the children in at night.

When the Paxton children were tucked in
she would tuck her own children in.

Her husband passed after the
second daughter was born.
That’s when she found the Paxton’s,
moving into a two-bedroom apartment
above a carriage house adjacent
to the splendored stone mansion.

Cecilia saw the rise of the
industrial revolution through the
most wealthy and majestic recipients
of America’s great and holy harvest.

Powerbrokers congregating at cocktail parties,
trips to the lakeside pool and golf club –
the life of Riley and Riley’s wealthy offspring.
But the Paxtons loved Cecilia like a mother,
and she always had a second mother’s role
in the life of the family.

When Cecilia retired,
she received a nice pension,
and when Mr. Paxton died
she received a generous inheritance
and bought the simple home she’d been
renting after retirement.
Her two children moved out and up long ago –
and now had children of their own.

Annabelle, she was Cecilia’s prize granddaughter.
Cecilia bounced Annabelle on her knee
loving her freely without the burden
of a mansion to clean or family to bed;
Annabelle was her golden years.

Cecilia sent beloved Annabelle
to college (Lake Forest College)
and Annabelle stayed with her
in Cecilia’s humble home on
the east end of the Chicago &
Northwestern railroad tracks.

When Cecilia was sick, Annabelle was
nurse and maid and house servant.

Now Annabelle owns the home

but she’d rather have Cecilia.  

A View From the Borderline

Available in paperback or Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/View-Borderline-Collection-Stories-Charles/dp/0578591693/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1594669753&sr=8-2frofr9

Coming February 5 2020

Available February 5, 2020 on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com and at bookstores across the United States.