Now for the Running: Part I (Poem)

Even before the first stone hit,

something inside my mind cracked and splintered.

I could only stare upwards at the cathedral's eyes,

fragmented by my throw,

as myriads of glass shards rained down like lethal rain.

I couldn't tell you what made me do it.

I probably couldn't even tell you where I was,

except that watching the windows shatter

was like seeing a painter's perfect picture slashed with stray paint,

and I sat sadly down on the curb.

----

The moment finally came when I rounded the corner and saw him.

Blood trickled down his eyes where he'd been cut,

and I gazed upwards, 

where dark holes had been punched in the cathedral's face.

Looking down at him,

I suddenly realized he was holding a chunk of rubble,

while passing it back and forth between palms.

My head swiveled left and right,

and saw no one. 

Crumpled newspapers and Sunday mass pamphlets rolled past,

as if I were in an old movie set. 

"I suppose there's nothing left but to sit down and join you, no?"

"Suit yourself." 

He seemed strangely lost, out of place.

His hair rose at strange angles from his face,

and pictures blanketed the skin on both arms,

while the blood on his face caked and dried.

His empty hazel eyes switched between curb and church,

the stone went thunk thunk every time it passed between hands.

"Whyd'ju do that?" I asked, pointing vaguely skyward.

"You're not real," he responded. "I remember you from last time, except you had a hammer with you then."

"Huh, I don't remember you at..." trailing off as his gaze turned on me, baleful, cold eyes silent. 

"You're the architect of these, right? Bastard. I knew you would follow me even here."

----

I hurtled myself from the curb as only dreams can teach.

I had twisted myself and thrown my chunk as heavily as I could

before I could even process his face,

folding in on itself in rage and fury.

It struck him in his chest, 

his snarling face snapping forwards as he stumbled.

"Now for the running," I mouthed to myself,

ecstatic to be slipping through alleyways in a chase for life.

Fold me in a Night of Sunshine (Poem)

I`ve been eaten by the world.

Fish feast on my ocean self,

and wolves cast about hungrily above for a remnant of my shadow,

for once it was strong and sticky,

a stitched companion glued with hazy feelings to my side.

Now free

zaftig shapes whisper in my direction

while I remain couchant amongst friends,

spreading my smile country to country,

wave to watery wave,

former ruin to a sleek concrete jungle.

Still, under a soft blanket of blue

floating lazily and weightless,

I feel sea animals nibble at me,

quietly having their fill of

my thoughts and darkest corners.

...and light as sunshine,

turquoise seaweed like eels coil around my chest

and comfort.

Escape from an ocean-wide space,

breathless watching tundras above me churn hungry wolves into cachinnating wınds.

I`ve been under these waters too long.

Even Poseidon grows weary

and prods me skyward,

needling me towards discomfort

and away from evenings at his side,

where once I soaked in a minimum of pain...

Where else to go but arid tundras,

to face those timber wolves hulking in the corners of spruce groves,

prowling around the wonderland of my mind,

awaiting my fall over the edge of the world after it's had its fill.

And so I stand,

chewed and fantod,

awaiting what? 

Has the feast ended?

Do days have an end?

A bramble of undercast questions

hidden in coral depths...

Give me simple days,

not tasting of sea brine where I have soaked for years,

watching shadow puppets carouse around the stage of my head.

Give me smooth days,

like the sinuous curve of a woman from hip to warmth.

Fold me in a night of sunshine

and I will give you what I know of love.

Chapter 12: The teacher chronicles part II

'Yo, mista Davis are those chocolate milk cows?'

Our school bus, cheddar cheese yellow and three blocks long, bounced and jolted across the Whitestone bridge on our way to another strenuous field trip. Our sixth graders, semi-belted into their seats, wavered between abject fear and awe as we made our way closer to the Queens Meadow Farm. Half of them had never been over water, most had never touched a body of water, and zero of them had been in Queens, NYC. Oh, I nearly forgot. They lived in the Bronx, a ten minute drive from Queens. Nevertheless, passing a pasture of forgotten cows, Terrell's comment about the origin of chocolate milk easily passed into the realm of unforgettable. Now normally I would never smile at these over-aged, pimply, bumbling sixth graders that could simultaneously break my heart and make me see shades of red that don't yet exist. Yet, Terrell got me by surprise, and turning to my good friend Mercedes, I instantly passed along his words of wisdom while attempting not to lose control entirely of my face and its upstart smile.

'Ummm, no Terrell, those are regular cows, which provide regular milk.'

'Yu mean the 2 percent stuff my momma buys to make me bigger?'

'That sounds about right...', turning towards Mercedes to avoid showing my upper lip pressed closely around my mouth in stifled laughter.

The teacher chronicles are jammed with memories such as these, and I'm convinced that if a dozen teachers from a dozen different schools got together and shared their stories, it would be on the bestseller list for years to come. Here are another priceless few moments.

1. A co-worker of mine called me over to her first grade classroom because her student Glymer (pronounced Glimmer: "There's a y in there mista  becuz he a boy, not no girl glimma") had just eaten a small fluorescent bulb. According to what he said, he had just wanted "a snack." Cue ambulance, frenzied assistant principal, mom saying "s'all right, he jus craaazy," and a one-way ticket to Children's Village. Yes, this place exists, and no you do not want to teach there.

2. Mariela, my little kindergarten angel, looking up at me during a math lesson where we were writing numbers with marker on white-boards, and saying, "Senor Davis, I think I just felt the lightbulb you always talk about in my brain turning on."

3. My little Alejandro in 3rd grade - For our living things unit we had been observing the egg-hatching process of chickens, which fascinated all save Alejandro. On the day we finally saw a chicken hatching, my class, normally strictly in line with classroom expectations, went berserk. Rushing over to our incubator, we all peered over the top and watched the tiny little miracle occur. I hadn't realized, in my happiness of seeing the students open-mouthed, thrilled and whispering in frantic voices to each other, that Alejandro was tugging my sleeve from behind, serious eyes turned up at me. I looked down and asked him what was wrong. "Senor Davis, si tu quieres, mi mama se puede quitar las plumas, limpiar y cocinar esas gallinas 'pa una fiesta." (Mr. Davis, my mom can clean, pluck and cook those chickens for our end of the year party if you want)

4. Teaching 4th grade, I had brought some small bones in for fossilization. A few I had purchased at a specialty shop, such as the owl bones I began showing them. It took me a few minutes to realize where some of the wing bones had gone. Raymond, my student with a one-on-one paraprofessional (for some reason she had chosen that lesson to step out), was busy cracking and sucking on them in the corner.

5. Joshua: Height - 4'11''. Weight: App 85 lbs. Occupation: Extreme Tormentor Student, highest order. Angel: Height - 5'8''. Weight: App 150 lbs. Occupation: Quiet female student prone to violent rages.
Joshua to Angel: "Yo, you maaaaaad ugly."
Angel to Joshua: "Quiet, small kid, I'll punch you."
Joshua to Angel: "Did you make that weave yourself? It's maaaaad ugly."
Angel: Calmly walking over to Joshua, picking him up about four inches off the ground and throwing him into the class door. Walking over, holding his shoulder with one hand, and punching him with the other. "I saiiid, shut. the. fuck. up."
At last, a superintendent suspension. :)

6. 4'2'' boy, skinny as a rail, big front teeth, shaved head. In the middle of an English lesson: "Yo mista, I had a dream las night that in another life I wuz a stripper named Candy Cane."

7. Big unit test. Rubin leaned over and looked at his neighbor's test.
Mr. Davis: "Rubin, that's cheating."
Rubin: "Naw Mista, I'm not cheating I'm just reading his paper."
Mr. Davis: "By definition, that's cheating Rubin."

8. Laurent walking into class: "Mr. Davis, can I bring some guns to class?"
Mr. Davis: "Ummm, absolutely not."
Laurent: "Then why did you let me bring these?" (Pointing at his skinny 6th grade arms)

9. Teaching 6th grade literacy one day...Under my breath.."What the??" (dog barking sounds coming from somewhere in the room) Glancing under one of the tables. "Luis, why are barking like a dog and under your table?"
Luis: "I'm practicing being a dog. See, ruff! ruff!"
---
On the second day of teaching 6th grade literacy, I began lining up my class outside in the hallway in order to go to lunch. Lines, or order in general, were very foreign things for my students, yet that day we filed out, 33 strong, and stood in line for a brief moment until I asked out loud to no one in particular, "Where's Arius?"
"Ooooh, I'll go get him Mr. Davis!!!" shrieked Chadia, a short, Jamaican version of a cherry bomb firework. "Uhh, no, don't wor..." my words lost in the heads turning of every student as they watched Chadia sprint down the hallway, all quietly whispering, "oooooooooooh, now he's gunna get it."
"Me too! I'll help" replied Andy, turning out of the line and beginning to unfasten a hitherto hidden fluorescent orange belt. "I'll teach Arius to get in line on time for you Mr. Davis, don't worry."
At this point I felt something akin to a vein of panic, though to be fair, the feeling of panic is rare after 6 years of teaching in the Bronx.
"Hold here please, I'll take care of it," exuding all the confidence I could muster, and marching towards my classroom door. By some miracle the class stayed where they were, and did not witness Chadia hopping on one foot while grabbing her shoe and hurtling it at Arius yelling, "I'm gunna teach you how my momma taught me to listen!" Nor did they see Andy whip his belt from the loops. "You listen to Mr. Davis when he says line up Arius!"
"Oh shiiiiiit!" yelled Arius, (6'2'' in 6th grade) ducking, swerving and jumping from the room in efforts to get away from Chadia's second shoe which missed him by inches.
Laughing, giggling, shaking their heads, Chadia and Andy came over to me and said, "Don't worry, it's all right Mr. Davis, we don't mean no disrespect. He'll be alright now."
I could only say thank you and head the class downwards towards their deep fried mozzarella sticks and dead-lettuce salad.

Jazz Woman (Poem)

No wonder Chicago kicks ass.

Just follow women on Monroe and Michigan,

just watch the sweet swishing of hips and lips –

smooth curved skin through seamless pride. 

At blue room or Clark the jazz woman sings –

At tap town or Halsted she croons to the night– 

Drifting...

cigar smoked bars just following the stars, tripping on curbs 

all for the jazz woman's song.

fun-filled farce (Poem)

fun-filled farce 

Fear forces:

fast frowns,

frantic faces,

fickle fingers. 

Frontiers foster:

frigid feet

fetid fountains

fantastic frenzies. 

Failure forges:

false fascination.

Failure flips, fizzles falls, flounders. 

Forget flags. Forget fights. Forget fun. Find falsehood fitting.

Fulfill founding father's farce.

Untitled (Poem)

one soggy afternoon I saw an old woman –

she beat a small beige dog – it didn’t argue or yelp,

and when she broke down in tears,

asking the dog to forgive her –

all it could do was stand and lick tears off her hand.

An evening with the clouds (Poem for Robert)

My ears cracked and popped,
like an LP skipping its threads.
Clouds soft like my mother's hand when I was sick
rolled endlessly, unerringly towards all points
while I sat behind plastic, rivets and sheet-metal
waiting for that moment,
that break in the ululating pattern,
that hole punched in a tremendous comforter of gray and bone-white hills

like pencil through paper.

I waited two hours, two hours while my stomach, ignored, complained its boredom of my company.
My eyes sparkled with a desire to see the vapor mountains reveal their false peaks in a ten thousand foot smile.
At last, in a moment when the hills and valleys shifted slightly in a moment of atmospheric weakness,
I had my moment.
A vertiginous, dizzying glimpse of my small world 30,000 feet below,
Steady in a snow globe way,
Inviting me to shake it and free-fall into its open arms.

Little monsters in my head (Poem)

Whisper in any direction
And I'll come,
Summoned by the little monsters in my head
I'll race the sunrise to her post
I'll torment the moon into tears
I'll quicken my pace to a setting horizon.

...A horizon which glows a vampire glow
A horizon which starts at my ending,
A horizon that can discern between monster
And kiss
Between hellogoodbye
Between myself, pitcher plants and their waxy lures.

Miles, perhaps inches or feet apart the planets collide,
And everything disappears like a bottle rocket
Or like villages to an inching Sahara.
The planets collide because you're too weak, 

like myself, 

an elephant ear flapping like a bed sheet on a line to an invisible wind's tempo.

Yet perhaps moments and more miles down the road,
This collision will put me back together somehow,
It will whisper a tangled mess of vines into sense,
It will explode debris to astonishing lengths into my four corners,
And then perhaps I'll be free.

Maps and Me (Poem)

There are enormous white spots on the map in my head.

Who will fill them? Who will wander over their shadowy glare,

where strangely enough light and dark combine?

I myself stomp around this topographical oddity,

glancing side to side in amusement

as I hear in my mind a symphony hall in full concert,

where a conductor lost in frenzied action

sizzles his electric energy to his players,

knowing only too well the soundtrack 

accompanying my never-ending map

requires at once a violent and blissfully serene soundtrack

with no skips,

no splices that the jigsaw life brings with it,

and certainly no faltering in the virtuoso`s fingers

dancing across my days like bumblebees.

And so I stomp and strut on my map,

peering into faraway corners,

fleeing others that loom too quickly

dripping with unexpected ocean-water at their edges speckled in starlight.

A honeybee sound (Poem)

I remember telling her:

`You've lost me.'

I remember the soft shape of her lips

when they opened halfway in

curiosity and wonder of knowing me,

the way they reached for me and pulled me inwards.

I remember telling him:

'You've left me'

as he drifted into a woman's arms never to return

leaving me bereft,

knowing I would never have a friend like that again

tiny shards of me littered on the pavement outside my apartment.

I remember the pain of ink being pressed into skin

and the whys of such pain

made me immune to the buzzing needle

like a contented honeybee.

I remember being suffused by memories

at a bus stop bench,

where pine cones littered the landscape around me

like discarded toys

and

how I learned to warm myself to sadness.

Tarçın (Poem)

What if life were cinnamon flavored?
I would probably lie down in the raw dough my mom and I kneaded for cinnamon bread, and roll around in the tiny flecks and grains of cane sugar. Certainly I would not care if I were pressed into the side of the bread, after all, what's left after baking other than melted sugar, butter and cinnamon?
Then again, I just might dip myself into a barrel of cinnamon spiced apple cider. Swim around in there for a few minutes, in hopes I might ferment and create yummy goodness. Don't cut a hole please.
Or even better, baked inside an apple or pumpkin pie, crushed from stick shape, melded together with cloves. Who knows?

What about the dark-chocolate colored powder sprinkled on top of coffee? Would I stoop to mixing myself with the whipped cream, or sink quickly to the bottom in anticipation of that slurping slush swish of a straw grasping at the last remnants of a drink?

Or perhaps the trick to a cinnamon flavored life is to be what I've always wanted to be. A ginger cookie. Just mix me right, and don't forget the cloves.

Brain Blocks (Poem)

Sometimes a page is like a blank wall,
concrete-hard and unyielding,
cocky when you smash into it headlong,
jeering when you stumble backwards from its blank face.

I never know if other people have this problem,
this word challenge,
or if they have given up and lay there after their fall.
I never know why some words become scribbled messes
on the wall's blank slate,
or if it's rain or tears making the ink drip.

Other times,
I see kids playing handball on my wall,
smacking and thwacking its plaster 'till it crumbles.
I stare at them to stop,
malevolence and defeat mixing around their exercise.
Still, the wall empties out its occupants at dusk
and I am again alone with a dusty pen
lifeless from disuse.

Still other moments
I cover this wall with words,
using only a highlighter.
When that same dusk shifts into midnight jet
I flick a black-light on and watch the words jump to life!
Yet, morning brings a blank slate,
concrete-hard, unyielding
chuckling at the red cracks appearing slowly on my palm,
fanning out with ever frustrating slap.

Chapter 11: War Cage

Climbing through the false ceiling of my old boarding school seems a surprisingly grand idea even now. It's a wonder I didn't get kicked out for those moonlit roof capers, and certainly I would not be where I am now if I had.

Yet, there they are; tiny memories that carry a terribly heavy weight, and an even brighter light. If you were to wander through the corridors of my brain (I do not suggest this) you would eventually stumble on a door with locks that appear well used and oiled yet are there merely to fool the passerby. These doors are far more forbidden than one would guess, which I suppose is the reason it has taken me fifteen years to put some of them on paper. Are they sinister? Funny? Dramatic? Spicy? Maybe a mixture of all, like the final moment I finished carving, gluing, sanding and veneering my mom's coat-peg rack, a project which cost me far more than the sweat which dripped down onto the wood shavings pile. Or maybe the memories just stick out of the floor in the room like sharp chipped teeth, and it's too dangerous to walk around. I don't know. But here are a few for you to...chew on.

My sixth grade friend Jeremy was not normal. Nor was I for that matter. My semi-wavy walnut-brown hair was parted on the side, combed over on a normal basis according to the dictated style of our boarding school boy's dorm regulars. I had lanky arms and legs, not quite tall, not quite short. My eyes saw everything, I never stopped moving. Jeremy didn't either.

After all, he was the one that suggested taking the bows and arrows from our Amazonian Yanumami dorm-mates, and attempting to shoot them over a hundred yards into an oncoming lane of traffic. Or, another day, my companion to the live feed store to buy chicken hatch-lings in order to feed our dorm's pet boa constrictor: Alex.

He also came up with the idea of taking rasparaspas, a mini cherry bomb of sorts, filling large aluminum cans (think restaurant-sized drums of sunflower oil) with about ten of these fireworks and then hunting for wood cockroaches. These specific species of cockroach can easily reach 4'' in length, down in the tropics, and move soporifically between molding and wall as if they are too good to be caught. Wrong. Jeremy and I caught a half-dozen of these behemoths, tipped them into the cans and watched excitedly for a few moments while they explored the patiently waiting explosives.

With that fevered look of anticipation so often accompanying two young boys ready to do something stupid, we lit the string connecting all the rasparaspas, capped the can tightly and ran for our lives. The fact that tiny pieces of metal shrapnel impaled themselves into the board we hid behind, or laced a small section of the basketball court wall with shards did nothing to dampen the thrill. My next statement, 'now let's climb that tree over there! I've heard if you get to the top the branches sway back and forth enough that you almost fall,' came a few seconds after examining the charred remains of the can, which held no traces of fireworks or cockroaches.

'Where'dju here that?' Jeremy asked me suspiciously.

'From myself, obviously,' I replied, with that crooked grin which comes after spilling a secret you've held too long. Like lightning, bugs and bombs forgotten, we were shinnying up the tall pine without a thought in the world except who would crown himself height-king first. This was life with Jeremy. Death, danger, fire, poison and sound were our everyday cravings. The day I got lost in The Pines, a lonely forest which served as the location for some of our night-time dorm games, who do you think was my partner? Whose eyes do you think gleamed asking how long I thought it would take for the chaperones to find us? Who do you think agreed wholeheartedly when I suggested leaning out over Mt. Baldy's steepest ledge as far as possible? This, on a mountain where such slow, steady and calm hills meandered to the top only to arrive where deceptively precarious ledges and ridges pocked the top of Baldy's crown. Jeremy of course. And it was there we found the largest, hairiest wolf spider we had ever seen. Think tea saucer size.

On previous 'hunting' excursions around our dormitory grounds, Jeremy and I had found a half-dozen wolf spiders between old chunks of cinder block and rotten pieces of wood. This spider exceeded those by double. Ecstatic at our find, we whipped out the small insect kit we always kept handy, and with little difficulty trapped the insect who appeared to be lazily soaking in some sun on a rock. Peculiar habit, but poor choice of time and place. Hours later, back in our dorm room, we uncapped the 30 gallon terrarium converted aquarium, and gently slid out our find onto the blanket of rotted leaves and earwigs below. Instantly fearful of their newest 'neighbor', the current resident spiders scuttled off into corners of safety. Our eyes, glued now to the side of the glass cage, couldn't help but get bored after a few minutes of inactivity on all fronts.

'What this needs is some competition,' Jeremy stated in a way indicative of trouble around the corner. 'C'mon, let's let them rest, I have an idea.'

The long hallways of our dorm, oddly decorated in whole-wall murals of forest and sky, were lined on the bottom with thick rubber molding. This would be all and good, save the fact that the old glue connecting them securely to the wall had long ago cracked and dried, leaving large sections hanging loosely an inch or so from the wall. An ideal place for an insect to hide. Such as the seven inch long electric orange, black and yellow millipede we found lurking in the corner between kitchen and living room.

'Bonanza...' Jeremy whispered quietly, as we slowly lowered the trap over its curving body. In retrospect, I'm impressed we did not get stung, whipped or crawled upon by this insect with mind-boggling speed. Perhaps actions like this can only be accomplished with the feeling of invulnerability cut off so often by an exit from childhood. Either way, we had him slithering and squirming around our trapped container so fast it was difficult to follow him with our eyes. Moments later, before our dorm dad Uncle Doug (Uncle Bug depending on who you asked) came tramping out to bellow at us through his lumberjack beard, we had escaped to our room and were greedily opening the lid of the aquarium in a state of what can only be called a frenzy. Out slid the millipede and its deadly colors, hiding carefully behind a rock and leaves strewn around the edges. For the most part, the wolf spiders remained calm, though one decided to test the edges of spider territory and quickly succumbed to the millipede's lethal attack.

'Whoaaaaaa' we said in unison, as the millipede receded back into shadows leaving the quivering spider where it lay dying.

'So fast...' I muttered, half fearful half in awe of what we had created. 'I wonder who will be left tomorrow?'

Without hesitation, 'Spider. For sure. It has to be,' replied Jeremy, tapping gently on the side of the tank to aggravate the millipede into another attack. We did not have to wait long. 

I nearly forgot my backpack, didn't shower and left half-dressed to school the following morning as I stood enraptured in front of the war cage, embalmed and dessicated insects strewing the landscape. Our mountain friend stood champion, alone in a corner as if contemplating how such a marvelously fast insect had come to be in his arena. Sticking out of a tightly spun cocoon was the millipede's forked end, food for the wolf's thought.

Simply smiling (Poem)

A smile can split a day,

or sew it back together

like a jigsaw puzzle that has lost its piece.

A smile can be like lightning,

and strike randomly in a dark moment

where soaking rain covers joy.

A smile can be tight

like a jelly jar lid

and hold in crumpled hours

of sadness and confusion

or happiness and affection.

A smile can jump up and down in rain puddles,

like yours, when mine has lost its way.

Road illuminated (Poem)

For years, it seems, I stumbled in a quagmire of knots and twisted alleyways.

For endless moments, it felt, 

I rubbed my eyes viciously with the heels of my palms,

crying for lucidity.

For sprawling sicknesses, coughing up fevered ambition tainted with selflessness,

I sought a cure for my emptiness.

Suddenly, the road I had been walking on became light-flooded.

Every direction, path, twist and turn illuminated.

My eyes dilated in surprise and fear,

horrified, for my future seemed certain to me.

I took three trembling paces into the searing light,

hands out in front of me searching for 

guidance,

a guide,

a seer in my blinding days. Anyone.

On my fourth step I took a turn into a side-street

and my world plunged back into darkness.

Chapter 10: Fishing for frustration

The echoes of my Atari's Space Invaders star-ship in it's death throes had barely died in my head when I was awakened by Lucas' mother at three a.m. I shook and picked the sleepy eye-boogers off my face, staring at my best friend as he quickly put on his "fishing weekend" clothes. "Wide-brimmed hat, check. Mosquito repellent, check. Tent, check. Flashlight, check. My special lures, check. (Uttering this, he cast a fond look at his fishing tackle box, settled neatly beside my plastic bag full of haphazardly placed fishing materials) Sun-lotion, check. He looked up at me with a crazed grin on his freckled face, his mandarin-orange hair in every direction like a firework drifting slowly down from the sky, and whispered: "Let's go." It was 3:05 a.m. and I wasn't even dressed.

... Now, clearly there are a variety of actions I could have done on a muggy August day, far clear and free of any sixth grade responsibilities. I could have watched old man Carlitos down the street ring his bells calling "Tio rico, tio rico!!!" while pushing a cart ancient as him, full of mouth-watering ice-cream. I could have sprinted ten blocks down from Lucas' house in Maracay and played on the rubber tire swing in the park, attached to a gigantic araguaney, which let us swing waaaaaay too far up for our own good. I could even have gone to parque del reposo and watched Senor Caña grind sugar cane stalks through his cart's tool, making the sweetest sugar cane juice you would ever have. Yet, the Hannah's are no fishing amateurs. They have and always will be the ultimate fisher-family to me. Nobody has the endurance, patience, skill, abandon and ludicrous luck to ensure such a catch as that epic frustrating weekend. And to think I joined. Me, a self-pronounced ADD student, non-stop talker and wildly antsy boy to boot. Now that's an amateur...

3:30 a.m. found myself, Lucas, and his parents closing the doors to their four door, wood-paneled Wagoneer station wagon in a rush to be out on the street. Still attempting to get dressed, I looked back into the cargo area, and saw it brimming and bristling with fishing gear, tents, food coolers stuffed with ice packs, flannel shirts hanging, stray mosquito repellent, mini-stoves, butane and every other thing minus the proverbial kitchen sink. Taken aback at the thought of when this must have been packed, I quickly sunk low into the comfortable cloth seat in the back, and began a bet with myself about when the sun would come up. Two hours later found me thwacking my head against the door window as it lolled itself awake, while Uncle Bob spoke in his unhurried, calm voice about how enormous the reservoir was, and how searing hot the sun could get during the 10 hours of fishing. Yet, behind that calm, lay undisguised joy at the upcoming adventure, a preternatural gleam coming out from beneath heavy eyebrows and spilling down over a bushy beard moving up and down slowly to his words. I looked over at Lucas. He had his window rolled down all the way and was leaned out a few inches over into the air, smelling the forest on either side as we bounced, jolted and jounced down a dirt path road big enough for...well, just us. "Oh boy," I murmured to no one in particular, as Uncle Bob relayed another pair of facts about heatstroke and getting there in time to catch the six a.m. crop of bass. I attempted to get a glimpse of their boat bounding down the dirt road behind us, yet couldn't see through the rising dust, Coleman lanterns and fishing rods blocking my view. 

"We're here!" Uncle Bob spoke with sheer excitement, as Lucas let out a whoop, shot out his side of the car and began to disconnect the wires and cables connecting boat to car. Gathering in their infectious excitement, I leapt out behind him, and began distributing gear according to Aunt Sandy's instructions. Again, I noticed how pitiful my bag of fishing supplies stood in the near-dawn darkness next to the Hannah's row of weather-beaten, sun-pounded and well-loved tackle boxes. Sigh, I had lost my own bet. Pitiful. 


"Gently now, gently now..." coaxed Uncle Bob, as we four slid their simple yet prized fiberglass boat for four into waters still as a magician's mirror. My feet slid and stuck in the muck as I gained a footing, and helped nudge the craft out a few feet into the docking area. Standing there silently, listening to Lucas's parents swiftly park and lock up the car, I stared out at what seemed an endless horizon of water cut ruthlessly short by the other side. Seconds later my view was swallowed effortlessly as the sun rose a half-inch above the water. Sunbeams sent the darkness scurrying, and the inky black turned into dark purple, royal blue and what Uncle Bob referred to simply as "fishin' color." Coolers loaded, rods adjusted and cinched down, food stowed carefully under the seats, we clambered aboard and gently nudged our boat out into the now quietly bobbing small waves that moments ago lapped at our feet. Uncle Bob turned on his ultra small, ultra quiet propeller "engine" and even as the mud still lay thick, sludgy and slowly drying around the soles of my feet, I could feel the tiny thrum of our boat heading out into the cool blueberry morning.  

...I am not made for sitting around hour after hour. I know this now after that adventure. Even more so, I am not made for sitting around quietly. The term "quiet" exists for me on a few levels and occasions. 1) Church sermon. 2) A crowded NYC subway car during rush hour. 3) the 13th straight hour awake on a trans-Pacific flight. That's about it.  The 10 hours sitting calmly in the prow of the Hannah's boat, watching them catch fish after fish after fish after fish......after fish, is enough to try even the stillest student. I am not that student. Nor am I a fisherman. Nor did I catch fish...

Five minutes passed at our first fishing hole, before the zzzzzzzzzwwwwwwweeeeeeee of Lucas's fishing rod sprang out into the spooky quiet morning, bringing in a 15 inch striped bass. (12 inches was the minimum in the Hannah family to earn the title "keeper.") "Awesome!" I exclaimed, netting it for him as it flopped against the side of our boat, and bringing it up in order to remove the hooks. 

Cooler: 1 fish. 6:30 a.m.





Moments later, not hours, Uncle Bob's fishing reel zzzzing'ed in tandem, netting a fish nearly clearing the 20'' mark. By 8 a.m., the cooler easily held 10 fish, and my line kept going out and coming in empty. Searing, boiling, empty-feeling-noon rolled around, and flipped lethargically over to evening a handful of hours later. Tents were pitched, fish were filleted and rolled in breading, cool water was poured over my red neck, dinner was eaten, lanterns were snuffed out, good nights were called across the small camping area.

Cooler: 45 fish; full. 9:30 p.m.
Brennan: 0 fish.

Sounding vaguely like another father I knew, Uncle Bob unzipped our lovely cocoon, and bustled Lucas and I out to another day of "fishing." At this point grumpiness was settling in, and Lucas began to comfortingly point out where I should throw my lure, how to fine-tune the twitching and flicking of the line in the water, and how I should alter my stance in the point in case of a catch. Moments after pulling up my lure (dare I say it? Empty), Lucas cast his lure in the same spot, the predictable zzzzzzzingging ending another frustrating moment for me. Close on noon, amidst "you can do this," "your turn will come Brennan," and "it won't be long 'till you get a big one," Uncle Bob caught a monster. His catch was so magnificent that I forgot my lethargy and sun-soaked sleepy feeling and clung to the side of the boat as his forty five minute battle ended with a 26'' flopping bass in the bottom of our boat. Problem: The coolers (plural) were full.

Coolers: Over 100, 4 p.m.
Brennan: 0 fish. 

To say my one fish catch an hour later was anticlimactic is an understatement. There were cheers, hooray's! and slaps on the back, but the mood had settled as deep into me as the fish laughing at me from below the murky waters. Besides, I had caught a piranha, shimmering iridescent purple and pink, amidst a pack on their way to devour prey. I nearly lost a finger to its slippery, biting, twisting and furious indignity at being caught by me of all people. Fact: You can't eat piranha's because they're too bony.

I know now that masters like the Hannah's are few and far between, and to their undying benefit, they helped me as much as possible. Even after handing over a 30 fish bribe to the security guards at the edge of the reservoir, our catch nearly cleared 100 fish, and to their cries of "next month! next month!" to the guards, I simply looked down at my hands. Caked, cracked, smelling of mud, algae and scales, I shook my head and merely smiled, remembering how the piranha pack had shifted and swung to another direction as I pulled mine up. A purple rainbow moving in unison, an elusive art.

Island bicycle (Poem)

My mind raced spun and clicked

through paths flanked in wheat grass,

barley the color of an almond sunset,

trees older than happiness.

My feet spun like planets around their masters.

My smile serenely slid across my face,

nonsense notes from my throat 
joining the unfettered warble of island birds

as they watched me,

curiously turning tiny heads towards my bicycle,

becoming a metal streak in a landscape unscratched by human lines.

Meters forward I encountered her.

For a hiccup-small second

she splashed my sight with a wave.

Hair the color of a summer's dusk

smile three horizons wide

laughter like a wind-chime

loosely buttoned shirt flapping, osprey-white.

Later, in the village tavern I listened.

Muted plates and warm coffee mugs

were a soft music behind lowered voices, and

I asked two men old as oceans

whether they had ever seen my vision.

I got baffled looks in return.

My mind stumbled,

missing a gear

imperceptible failure, 
and when I turned to the empty space beside me,

a glass of ox-blood red wine in hand,

deeper than cliff crags,

and spicier than a Moroccan autumn,

I sighed a thousand longings away

and quietly finished my meal.

Moon into midnight (Poem)

A hurtfully cold night,
raw naked moonshine.
"Come here, baby"
aching smile full of love, tenderness.
Arms encircling her,
pulling flax and honey colored hair my way, tenderly,
feeling her shiver beneath my fingertips.

I feel ages of loneliness drift away
"I missed you" kissing her ear with a whisper
turning my shape to fit into hers, a moon into midnight.

I awaken
holding wispy thoughts in my arms
and watch them leave my bed,
feeling miniature oceans flecked with salt
roll silently in high tide down my cheeks.

A girl's symphony (Poem)

I knew by her shy smile
that she harbored a secret.
A small secret,
that mattered to her only
and trailed her like a happy shadow,
following the click of her raven heels,
soft ripples in the puddles
spilling onto the sidewalk from softly falling rain-notes.

I watched her from across the street,
raincoat, shy smile and hips
fading away from me like the last notes of a symphony
suddenly saddened I hadn't been there for the whole movement.

My hand was only halfway up in the air,
streaks of rain running down my arm
notes full of adagio joy alive on my skin,
her shy smile a jumbled smear on a composer's page,
when she turned the corner and disappeared,
cutting short the concerto of her beauty I was composing in my head.

Words & Flight (Poem)

I have watched as night angels cry

And have felt ink being sewn into my soul on my skin.

I have wandered lost in a maze of whys, donts and neverminds,

And never found my way out…

I have been a vagabond of deserted dreams and

Pinned myself upon short stories craving twisted endings.

I have stared unblinkingly at my infinite smallness,

at blind nightmares that shift sear and scar their way to my bedside…

I have felt love and terrific sadness

Yet never have I felt such joy as when my words take flight into immortality.

Untitled (Poem)

“Over-thinking,” the little boy says,

queer as ever in

a plaid paper costume. 

“I embrace rhythms,” whimpers a dancer dying,

sadly in her graceless world  -

contorting to listless eyes. 

“Too many lonesome men to count,” scribbles the author,

tumbling over his preoccupations in a world of toppled faith.

“I’m reaching for you,” the smooth sailor surrenders.

Oh, she’s nowhere I promise you,

hidden in pieces of her life that don’t fit.

Wistful (Poem)

Storms soak the sky,

carrying me calmly along. 

Mingling in the peace of my moment,

I pack your things and silently wait

for the pelting of drops on packed sand,

watching

love swim in your eyes like

two little gods fighting between eternity & my immorality.

Churning -

and folds of gray horizons approach in my mind

hand-written sentences disappear,

my peaceful moment with a stomp of a thunderclap vanishes…

I’m tired of being in hiding,

haunted by your confusing room –

      where

storms

in the gods’ noiseless anger

collapse skies and futures into a heap of muddled me's,

where cornered on my doorstep

I realize my anger is faceless.
 

Descending,

wistfully pulling my life along,

furrowing dents in soft green grass where cold rain pounds

and bare feet find escape from a girls’ fury.

Diving to sleep (Poem)

For the first time in a film-strip length reel of nights,

I took a deep breath,

intended for comfort, yet setting me into a frenzy,

and opened the door on the third level of my mind, entitled unknown.

Previous doors a year earlier,

had awakened me with blood in my mouth,

and a distinct dizziness akin to stepping out on a caldera's rim

balancing on one foot, and listening to a volcano's haughty chuckle.

Other doors, painted purple and mulberry red,

had once slammed closed on my foot,

breaking toes and challenging me to walk in straight line,

knowing I would stumble.

Not this door.

True to its prophetic title,

I felt myself list forward, surging into robing-egg blue water.

Sinking quickly to another level,

I saw wooden walls come alive with the colors of a frenzied painter's palette.

Swirling, slinking, swishing colors bumped into me,

shimmying me to the side,

where there lay the carcass of a sailor's long-ago home

deathly quiet in its indigo and granite gray grave.

Anemones waved their poisonous hellos

and animals with two sets of eyes flew away,

a warning for a shadow eclipsing the sunlight disc above me,

where my door still stood open flopping contentedly on watery hinges.

A smooth shape the shade of forest and speckled moss

sunk towards me,

momentarily tumbling my world into darkness.

It seemed minutes only,

before my fingers curled around the knob of my door, entitled unknown,

where I heaved my body out of the wet and wondrous world,

and for a moment I glanced backwards,

only to see the sea-life swimming serenely in sunlit circles,

inviting me to loosen my grip and fall backwards into a continuous dream.

Tiny twists, Tiny turns (Poem)

“Yes, I'm here my love.

      Ssssh, you musn't cry...no,

I have not  run away. 

There is only this and that – me too watchful to let

      mercy become chagrined 

No, not at all, you are as soft tired light seeping out of the

                        dusk.

Yes, I'm here to watch you die. 

Quite so.  A final sorry for the road?

Oh, your journey won't be long, a few twists

                        a few turns,

you'll be with me soon enough. 

Drink, my dove,

you are thirsty,

and I am late on the witching hour."

Comfortable knots (Poem)

You sing my tune just right

doll,

down to that meow of yours slipping around me

like morning's dew.

No why, no “explain please”

because that's like hammering something too hard,

or even unwinding a comfortable knot.

Just you in your silly softness leading me -

quirky song that i might be,

towards a piece of harmony.

Chapter 9: Fermented Mare's Milk

Only moments before, the ancient Russian Lada taxi I rode in had been swerving along a mountainside, pocked with trees in their death throes, smelling of musty wool and the driver's stale cologne poured on in a vain attempt at odor cover-up. We had jolted to a stop upon my request for a picture,  and our exhaust caught up to us as I unfolded myself out of the car. I squinted into Uzbekistan's southeastern desert, wind and life together disappearing beyond the horizon in Tajikistan's frontier, and sighed.

It wouldn't be long now, I thought, rounding the car and avoiding tasting the metallic stench of baked sun coming off the hood. Carefully watching for truck drivers intent on running down pedestrians in the baked back hills of Samarqand, I approached a worker's insanity. Cross-leg seated below tables centimeters off rocky soil, clothed in a multitude of cotton patterns flapping weakly in the limp breeze, five ladies and a teenage boy were selling what can only be described as dried yogurt balls. Drizzled and dried over a fine mesh screen, this yogurt was then collected by hand, rolled and glued together with a touch of water to create the world's saltiest snack.

I looked down at the women, whose only portion of skin showing was an eye slit in the turban rolled around their heads, two eyes basking in the only shade for 300 km, then back up at the horizon, where land cracked and crumbled like a lizard two days dead in the sun, and shook my head. "Insane," I muttered, "why this spot? Why now?" Shuffling between tables, my head and shoulders bent awkwardly forwards to accommodate the angle of sale necessary to talk with them, I bought three yogurt balls, a tiny glistening black crystal to lower blood pressure, a bag of withered tea leaves to pacify anger, and a small glass of kumiss, fermented mare's milk. The people of the Asian central steppes do not advise drinking this kumiss later, so I downed as much as my constricted throat would allow without gagging. The locals watched me carefully beneath their scarves and turbans, silent laughter hidden beneath glittering eyes older than sand; laughter whipped away by a rising wind. One of the ladies gestured for me to eat the yogurt ball next, and I dutifully popped the mini golf ball sized treat into my mouth. I teared up instantly as my mouth screamed for water, while the orb happily jolted salt through my body in waves and waves of skin-crinkling grimaces. "Rrrr..ahhma...t," I garbled in an attempt to say thank you, with my cheek popping in and out like a squirrel gone crazy for nuts.

I walked slowly over the edge behind where they sat, a ravine slinking downwards at a crazy grade for at least 250 meters, and gently nudged the ball out of my mouth, into my sweaty palm and over the edge. Its bounce down and out of sight reminded me of when heads were thrown at the feet of the defeated in medieval times. The staggering view held me entranced for a few minutes, and I stood subdued, small and insignificant compared to the reaches of sand cresting and rolling downwards and outwards, halting only a few miles in their march towards the horizon by a small lapis-lazuli shaded lake in the shape of a chopped-up leaf. With the women's small bursts of noise behind me, and the sweat from a piercing overhead sun crawling lazily down my spine, I felt almost at peace. Almost to a content memory coated in sea-brine and drowned salt gods. Almost.

--

The stone and cable suspension bridge linking solid land to the lighthouse perched on a thick chunk of rock sliding 300 meters out of the eastern Atlantic ocean, on Mizen Head's point in Southwestern Ireland, is terrifying.

This does not mean I do not stop in the middle to feel the bridge's slight sway in the face of relentless winds, or close my eyes to the gigantic pieces of rock the color and shape of broken knuckles on a bruised fist, continuously slammed by vicious waves. No. In fact, I stop and stick my head through a gap in the spiderweb of cables and stare straight down, wishing every boy's fantasy of flight, birdsong and sharp fish-catching talons. I could tell the guard's voice at the other end was telling me to stop, but I let the wind whip and whistle his cautions away as I popped my head backwards and continued to the other end. I mused as to why they would caution me on the bridge, when to arrive at this same bridge one had to cling to a cliff-side "path" with a feeble one meter tall "fence" bordering the left side sheer drop into a salty oblivion. I have talked to myself for years, and now was no different, as I stated aloud to nobody in particular that it's the dizzying heights that make everything come into focus for me.

Safely climbing the rocky crag connecting bridge to foundation stone, I continued the story stream in my mind of what it would have been like to build such a lighthouse in 1854, and how many men fell while they worked, screaming or silent into a watery grave. Weaving my way around a few bedraggled tourists trying to keep their hats on in the howling winds, I finally made the lighthouse, squeezed through a few dusty rooms with ancient newspapers describing Fresnel lenses in more depth than I cared to ever know about, and exited onto the final jutting point of Mizen Head's rocky insanity. This outpost, easily 200 meters straight up from the turbulent surf far, far below me, welcomed roaring sea-winds from three directions, producing such a violent gale of noise, sea-salt air, and brine-soaked mist it nearly knocked me over the slim railing connecting the rock to the adjacent lighthouse building.

Holding fast to this same rail with one hand, I attempted to shield my eyes enough in order to actually see the ceaseless blue, the angry blue, the siren blue that pulls you downwards. I imagined a worker's curses thrown furiously from one crude scaffolding to another, the shrieking, pinging, clanging, groaning work of erecting such a lighthouse on the edge of an ocean that deems the importance of your survival nominal at best. I imagined again the false grab, scrabbling, slip and fall of a man's fingers clinging to only air. I wondered if they felt peace as they fell. I wondered how my feet had come to rest back on land, ignoring the ugly glances from security as I crunched on small pebbles back to my rental car. I wondered, before closing the door and barring sound, where the crashing and tumbling of what I had just seen would lodge itself forever in a corner of my mind. I never imagined it could have found partners in deserts and steppes, and how peace can seep into you at the loneliest moments.

--

The Lada protested loudly as it was cranked into third gear, grinding up under the merciless heel of my taxi driver. I looked back through the grimy rear window, just in time to catch a glimpse of one of the women's scarves flap and shake violently in a gust of wind, as I absently thumbed the crystal rock in my hand. It had unrolled itself halfway before it thought better and whipped back, covering her face just as the sharp turn of our car obscured my vision with an unending picture of dark and light browns sliced only with the fading blue of my day.

Ascent (Poem)

The castle itself you couldn't quite make out,

nestled and jutting from the dark spine halfway up the mountain.

Formidable, hidden and looming came to mind

as my feet crunched up the half-hour's walk of beat down snow

and red pines rising a hundred feet straight up,

sentinels to my solitude.

People chattered, pushed, slid and wrenched their ways

incongruously up the path,

anomalies on my landscape,

mistakes from a painter's unsteady hand.

They were headed to this fortress,

hunched on a rock hundreds of meters ahead,

yet seemed to make no progress, while I,

smoothly and almost sanguinely

glided further up to where an entryway stood with its gaping jaw open.

Strangely though,

where once there had been freedom to pass

a guard now protected the blackness behind.

Was this predictable?

Did this now match the protests of a few girls,

who had somehow made it to the top unseen by me?

Who now stepped forward to force a pass

and were punched downwards by the guard,

crumpled to the snow.

He seemed unfazed, powerfully old

and I crunched closer only to realize he had no eyes.

More closely now,

surrounded now by towers soaring into the Bavarian sky.

He still had made no move to block me

and I passed within a panicked inch,

near enough to smell the strength taken from those he had finished.

Suddenly, surprisingly, simply,

I was inside. I was alone.

A stillness descended down upon me like a play's curtain

and I turned to see the guard,

now facing me,

his back to a sunlight that punched its way

around his shoulders yet never reached me,

silhouetting his eyeless face.

I turned quickly,

and began ascending the stairs smothered in silence.

Untitled (Poem)

He leaned quietly into his roan horse's worn saddle,

arched his back with that slow stiffness morning frost brings,

and closed his eyes briefly.

Thoughts rattled around his head like gravel being shoveled,

and assembled themselves one by one,

as his troops gleamed in the dawn,

bayonets glinting off and on like golden chattering teeth.

Never a stiller calm, he thought,

absently finding his fingers entwined in the mare's rough mane,

and raising his hand to his mouth,

tasted days old musket powder,

stained with tobacco, pride and rich trampled dirt.

Never a stiller calm, he thought again,

raising this same scarred saber hand,

sending a tiny ocean forward to death or glory.

The world before T (Poem)

Slapping stifling smoky storms–

serene slumber suffocates sadness

so?

Sandy shores surprise stubby starfish.

slowly stand, slip, slump.

Soar skyward shiny star!

Stomp sexy Sunday sunflowers,

Secretly sifting seeds – sensual slender slippery skin.

Snakes, stars, sneakily slide, slither, sense… 

seers see sudden silky smiles.

Surely Saturdays she sleeps,

surely she sleeps.

Chapter 8: The teacher chronicles

It wouldn't be fair, in fact, it would be a damn shame to say I never saw that rare spark in the back of student's eyes as the synonyms and antonyms, homophones and homonyms, tumbling around, came to a halt with understanding. Then the gears, where moments before they had been whirling around like the sodden clothing in a washing machine's tumbler would click smoothly into place and justify my two-hour one-way commute into a cracked and crumbled community surrendering itself to AIDS and fast food. It also wouldn't be fair to say all teacher beginnings are jaded, short of life and battered by reasons too plentiful to jot down in this stumbling story. Yet, it is fair to say my teaching years began with one person: Ruben Carmenate. It is also fair to say that the words "yellow chicken" have never meant so much to me as they did then, on the first day teaching a veritable army of 35 bilingual, special education kindergarteners in the heart of the Bronx.

 I remember hearing his screaming, or talking (they were the same for him either way) as our pathologically nice school counselor brought him and his "mom" down the lengthy corridor of my sunken school, towards the last door on the right. Mine.

There were moments during that first year, when I sat on my favorite chair. Its back came no higher than my knee, and I would eat my lunch in sheer silence, wondering if they had placed me in that specific room as a cruel twist to the dumping ground my class had become for any kid between four and six and a half years old, each with an even half-dozen psychological and physiological major malfunctions as an added bonus. Aside from what I termed the "angel pack" of half-dozen girls that lit up my day with their smiles, learning-lit eyes and a few "Mr. Davis you are the best teacher in the world!" comments, this comprised my class. Ruben, all silly puns aside, made the already formidable list of students look like child's play.

"A HA HA HA yellow chicken, chicken yellow, juice!? Were approximately the first few words I heard Ruben scream and garble while on his way down the hallway to my classroom. My students, at this point a few months into the year, were petrified of doing anything I did not approve of, like or deem necessary in my quest to turn them into regular functioning individuals of society. This does not mean they didn't engage in some ridiculous shit, like boys opening their pants during rug time to show the girl next to him his "algo especial" or another boy saying he wanted to imitate the sounds his mommy made with all her boyfriends, in the mornings coming back from work. Yet, wide their eyes went when Ruben came to the door, cackling and yelling about yellow chicken from behind his green-filmed teeth. As a lovely addition, were you to suddenly drop acid and stare boggle-eyed at a demented rhinoceros with a shock of hair like a soaked mess of palm leaves mixed with ivy instead of a horn, a voice like pebbles being scraped across obsidian and a lonely cloud of smoke odor rapidly trying to catch up in the hallway, his mother appeared.

"Wher da fuck you takin' me muchacha?" came the melodious voice of Ruben's mother.

And so begin the chronicles of a Bronx teacher.

Chapter 7: Boundaries and Waters

And a family of loons came to me in my dream and spoke in hooded whispers like a quivering wail that floats over shrouded hills. They told me stories of fog that had rolled onto waters still as polished mirrors, and how this fog spilled into my mind, mixing sanity with insanity in a turbid mess of thoughts.  - b.c.d.

Dreams had riddled my night as they always did. I awoke to the comforting campfire smells and sounds of the sizzle and snap of bacon fat, rough coffee grounds swirling in their heated aluminum cups, and an eerie chorus of mallards and loons gliding over glass-smooth Minnesota waters. For a moment I couldn't place the calls in reality or in my dreams, but the impossibly cheerful face of my father poking through the front tent flaps convinced me quickly that I was indeed awake; that another day of endless paddling and dusk flavored hot cocoa was in store. 

"The perfect day!" he said animatedly, grabbing my ankle and shaking it for extra emphasis. "Up and at 'em!"

"Uhhhhgggh," I responded eloquently to no one in particular. My sleeping bag still held me in its warm cocoon embrace, and the way my father's breath still lingered in my tent after his disembodied head disappeared outside told me there was no rush to get up. In fact, getting up seemed pretty overrated at the moment, and I rolled over in an attempt to slip back into my dreams...their cries echoed in ripples of rapture across the lake in my brain and it was not until I felt the curling icy fingers of these waters slip around my ankles and hold firm that I realized it was only a dream, and I heard the sirens smooth laughter as they receded into depths I cannot understand...

Fully awake now, I could see the hard V of my tent's vinyl roof ruffle slightly in the rising morning's wind. I didn't know whether to be more stunned that I had survived the siren's song another night, or that my dad had let me sleep an extra half hour. "Incredible," I muttered to myself, unwillingly unzipping the sleeping bag in a reluctant gesture that let out my snug warmth and dreams simultaneously. A burst of sound, flurry of movement and explosion of energy found my brother in the tent suddenly, yelling,"A bear, a bear! It came to our campsite last night, did you hear it? Did it bump into your tent like it did to ours?!" 

"Uh, something else visited me," I responded, half-awake still and oblivious to the startled mouth of my brother stopped mid-sentence. "Their fingers were freezing and songs warm," I mumbled while I got dressed, ignoring my brother's "whatever" as he back out into the thin morning sunlight, heading eagerly to chop wood for the campfire.Outside, one of my cousins had already begun the careful process of extracting a leech caught from an early morning swim, my brother swung a hatchet happily over hapless pieces of pine-wood, and my father sang hymns softly to himself while turning pieces of crisp bacon and popping morning sausage. The air, notes playing through trees like a soft woodwind symphony, and tinged with moss, thin smoke, and tree-sap came and swirled around my head in a perfect good morning tune. I saw strong sunshine seep and wink through thousands of branches from oak, maple and pine trees, leaping into areas previously covered in darkness. I saw our family's four eight foot long canoes resting upside down against each other a little above the water line like a jumbled group of yellow slices of watermelon. I sensed rather than understood, the tranquility of these waters with their ripples expanding out wider and wider as I dipped my feet in a shallow part clear and slick with river slime. I was not to know until much later how violent peace can be.

It came languidly, the way a depressing day slouches towards you and before you realize it are locked in a firm embrace with sadness. We had been paddling for four hours, hat brim jammed down low to shade the wrinkles formed from squinting into a blazing day reflected in a million dancing stars winking at me from the water. Sunscreen, now baked and old, gave the sweat on my arms a tangy smell, and occasionally I rested the paddle between my legs and dipped my arms up to my elbows into the cool surface of the lake to stay sane. We were strung out like an army line formation gone wrong, crooked and out of place, with my father and I "bringing up the rear" as he would call it. It was because of this position in line that I kept looking backwards or down at the sides, expecting someone or something to be following us. Did sirens attack the lost, sick or old, like lions to a stray wildebeest? Did you hear their songs before or after you're swept downwards into the water? Was their beauty as ravishing under the water as above? I could not answer these questions, and despite an unhealthy amount of imaginative curiosity for someone my age, did not want to find out. Too young for the anchor position, I had been placed in the front of the canoe, and glancing back for the eighth time to reassure myself there were no fins dipping in and out of the now slightly nervous waters, it was then my jaw went slack. My father is a man of extreme wisdom, and I credit him even now with not saying a panicked word to me as he quickly double-checked what had surprised me, and began to untie the strapped down ponchos, tossing mine into trembling hands. Where before the sky had been painted an extreme shade of lapis lazuli, it now frothed and churned itself into the same color I saw when raking out dead ashes from our fireplace at home. A few hundred meters ahead, I saw the rest of our two families pulling in their paddles post-haste as they heeded the warning calls from my dad bellowing above the rising wind. 

"Cinch the straps tight as they go!" he yelled, his paddle making small cyclones in the water as he shot our canoe forwards, strong angles meant for movement and not finesse. I could see my sister's scared eyes, and my mom's hair now clinging to her neck from the fine mist preceding the boiling mess behind us. "Head for that island at two o'clock" he roared to my uncle in the front of our line, miserably holding small ground as the wind began swirling in different directions like the times I watched my mom's spatula spinning and mixing cookie dough. Except this was black dough, and we were in the bowl. My brother's small yet strong frame leaned into the pull of the paddle, making inches of headway even as the wind pushed him a few more back. Our own canoe made small headway, yet we inched forwards even as the winds went still, and it was then I heard the singing. Locked into a rowing positing, fighting the current and feeling raindrops the size of small black beetles hit the back of my neck, I looked down and saw them. Sinuous shapes coiling and uncoiling beneath the surface, flicking and flipping their way around and below our canoes. I thought I had gone crazy, even as the storm broke into its full fury, unleashing walls of rain so thick I could only see ten feet in front of me. The island my father had pointed out moments earlier now seemed a distant dream, while beneath me reality spun and swam its way closer to the surface, melodies intertwining themselves skillfully between the rain, thunder and thunk of my paddle ceaselessly moving to pull us forwards. At least I thought I was paddling, though my dad later on told me, under a pine tree's branches heavy with rain, that he saw me, incredibly calm, reach my hand into the water as if to grab something that had sunk just out reach. My half-hooded eyes belied the maelstrom and panic around me, seduced by something he could not understand. 

The landing jarred me, throwing me and the clump of sea-grass clenched tightly in my hand onto the sand swiftly turning to mud below our canoe. Leaping forwards, over plastic-wrapped canvas bags and tightly rolled tents, my father came down beside me and helped me up from where I had fallen, back on the shore, legs bent over the gunwale in weird angles. I stared intently at the grass I held tightly in my fist, whispering "I almost had them, gorgeous songs, emerald-green hair..." My father half-dragged me and the canoe up the shore, abandoning me and my mutterings to help the others fight their way onto an embankment quickly disappearing.

They came again that night. Later this time, deeper. My sub-conscious slaved itself to their songs, and I sank further into her warmth.

---

Last night  in my dreams my wrinkled palm opened. Slowly 

inching towards loss in a nameless way; I saw her –

absorbed in an ash-gray house –

charcoal and green vines.smoke.stones.

drifting quietly across my blind nightmares...  

she found my nightmares laughable,

crinkled her eyes in mirth

"no matter for the morning queen,” teasing

            - stepping into the midnight house.

swirling into an eternity lasting seconds in my embrace.

Now I'm a widow to this swirling mass, witness to an exquisite universe spiraling in my wrinkled palm.

So vast, so vast my morning storm.