I can still so easily remember a time when he would wake me up in the middle of the night, crying to be fed and given a diaper-change. Together, we would pad down to the kitchen, I'd warm a bottle of breast milk, settle into a chair in the living room, and try not to fall back asleep while feeding him. Seems he's woken me again. It's just after two in the morning as I write these words. 
    Today is the 38th anniversary of the birth of my son Keith. I don't use the term birthday any more. That word expired when he did in October, 2010 (I noted that occasion with a poem in this journal - I'll re-post it below).
His birth, life, and death take up a sizable footprint in my forthcoming book Into the Thin, a work currently in the later stages of its own birth. In those pages, one will find a lovely account of his entrance into this world. I'd entertained the idea of lifting an excerpt to note the day, but the copyright goes into effect in 2020 and I don't know if it's okay to do that yet. Just as well, I suppose. I wasn't rattled from sleep to post old words. New words reflect newer understandings.
       I don't mourn as I once did. Grief, like most things, is fluid. These days it's more about wondering.  Mourning tends to be preoccupied with why. Wondering leans toward how. I was 25 years old when he was born. It's odd to recall this now at 63. I'm not that 25 year old any more, not even close. How I'd have loved to tell my 38 year old son what it was like then, how scared shitless I was, but also the understanding his birth gave me about how life appears (and disappears)...about how we don't come into this world as much as we materialize out of it. And then dissolve back into it.
       I'm cursed and blessed with the noble stage of grief that is acceptance. There is no 38 year old son. He dissolved - and forever I might add. Back into the All. The Everything. The Only.  An exercise in memory, but more lovely as years pass.
        Here are a couple of poems, the first one a mystical recounting of an actual canoe trip we took many years ago on the Delaware River, and the second its more recent companion piece. 

                                               All In A Dream (A Remembrance)
We beached our beautiful canoe
on a sandy shore beside the river
just past a fine rapid-run
and made a good camp
at the edge of the flood plain forest
with a proud fire we made from friction
and dry things
no cheating.
We ate well and drank cleanly
as dusk fell-in
and all around was good quiet and blue light
and our voices which never rose above a whisper.
Never had to…so quiet.
Sleep came right there
beside the proud fire
and in the morning the light was golden amber
and the mist was rising thick from the river
and he was missing.
I made my way to the river’s edge
to where the beautiful canoe had been.
And looking down river I saw him fading,
dissolving
into the mist
rounding a forever bend.
I called but no sound came.
No sound could.
All in a dream.
 
                                                                     Always Water
The water flows
along its course
a flat current through stream or river.
Always water.
Until a whirlpool forms,
who knows why or how?
Maybe the water just wants to spin and dance a while.
But from the always-water
comes a swirling for a time,
and then something changes
who knows why or how?
Maybe the water wishes some rest.
And the whirlpool dissolves
back to the flat current
of the always water.
Around the bends
and over the rocks
and under the keels
of beautiful canoes.
 

 
 

​     It was a lazy summer this year. Though I love the warmth of it more as I age, the humidity tends to drain me. At least it makes for a good excuse to not get much done. With the exception of one trip south, I hovered pretty close to home. It just made sense to be here.
     The interior landscape was subdued as well, marked by the passing of my dearest one’s son to a heroin overdose on July 1st. Walking through this with her has proven to be a calling of sorts; one to which we seem to have been rather perfectly drawn. Few are the couples I know of who share the loss of their first-born sons. She had always wondered what that was like for me. Now she knows. She also knows she is not alone (see This Is The Day, 7/9/19). Since then, I’ve witnessed her profound and authentic grief, infused with a transcendent grace that announces its blessing with the simple truth…only Love matters. It set a reflective tone for the season.
     I walked daily of course, but pretty much stayed out of the woods. The last big walk I did was over the Memorial Day weekend which I discussed here (Walking Home, 5/29/19). A big walk for me is in the 10 to 15 mile range, compared to the usual five to seven mile variety. When this past Saturday (10/19) dawned sunny and cool with a gentle breeze, it left me little choice. Although I’d previously attempted to arrange a ramble with a fellow writer / hiker, it was not to be. I set off alone for a big walk.
     Unable to find a loop of sufficient length, I chose an out-and-back route on the northern end of the Mattatuck Trail, an old favorite of mine. In addition to being visually stunning, I also knew it was generously blazed; an important consideration when the trail can be completely hidden beneath fallen leaves. This is especially true on the southern end of the route where it is quite technical and narrow.
There was something wonderful about standing before the trail head at the outset of a long walk on a perfect autumn day…a sense of promise, a sense of being able to walk forever. After a few miles shushing through leaves with a good solid trail underfoot, the interior life awakened and a theme emerged.
     Today’s was forgiveness. Forgiveness of self. The hardest forgiveness there is. A life of 63 years can’t be lived without error, without acts of commission or omission that cause harm. So for many miles of this walk through this beautiful place, I ruminated on things not so beautiful, and I wondered about them in strictly earthly terms of cause and effect and human relationships. I became mesmerized by all of it, surprised that even after previous searching inventories, it still held sway over me.
     I found a place at the edge of a perfect, still pond and took a break for lunch. The rumination continued until I was suddenly reminded of some words that came to me while writing a few weeks ago. I wondered at the time if they even fit the rest of the piece (see A Few Things, 10/1/19). Art is not linear. Here it is again…makes more sense to me now.
     The vail falls across my eyes
     A lifetime passes and then
     The vail lifts and once more
     The dreamed remembers he is the dreamer.
     One.
     Not two.
  From a beautiful place along the Mattatuck Trail, offered with prayers of our forgiveness…

​Launching from the wooded hills east of the lake
on the heels of a heartache sunset,
a sanguine, ruddy Hunter’s Moon rises
into an unencumbered sky freckled with early stars
the air, autumn-fresh and chilled.
The glassy black water of the lake so perfectly still,
still as if on a thick August night,
and frail.
So I wonder if the splash of light from the moon reflected
could cause ripples on the perfect, still water.
The deer should wonder too
about this ruddy Hunter’s Moon.
But like me
they will likely only stare.
 

We beached our beautiful canoe
on a sandy shore beside the river
just past a fine rapid run
and made a good camp
at the edge of the flood plain forest
with a proud fire we made from friction
and dry things
no cheating.
We ate well and drank cleanly
as dusk fell-in
and all around was good quiet and blue light
and our voices never rose above a whisper.
Never had to…so quiet.
Sleep came right there
beside the proud fire
and in the morning, the light was golden amber
and the mist was rising thick from the river
and he was missing.
I made my way to the river’s edge
to where the beautiful canoe had been.
And looking down river I saw him fading
dissolving
into the mist
rounding a forever bend.
I called but no sound came.
No sound could.
All in a dream.
 
 
 

Fall is settling-in here in Connecticut in its usual way, with a few summer-like days here and there just to make it interesting. But the cooler temperatures and shortening days have served to signal me back to the writing desk. It has been awhile, so there are a few things to share.

The book Into The Thin, A Pilgrimage Walk Across Northern Spain continues its birthing process. The cover design is completed, and I'm looking forward to sharing it (though I can't just yet). For now, I can only say it has exceeded any reasonable expectation I could have had, and captures the spirit of the book beautifully. I'm told the cover matter, book description, and author information are circulating among the sales folks prior to the release of advance reader copies of the book in November (publication date remains September 15, 2020). I'm awaiting the typescript proofs any time now, and there are some last minute design matters to address. In short, it's getting real.

I've been working on some new non-fiction material lately - something in the way of a long form essay. We'll see where it goes. Sometimes I wish I could work from an outline like a grownup, but this is how it comes for me. I'm grateful for that...serves to remind me that the source of the words lies somewhere beyond the synapses. Good thing too.

Poetry has made itself more present in my work lately, as the last few posts here would indicate. This seems to have been inspired by the passing of a couple of people close to me during the summer - very different circumstances indeed, but both quite significant. The following short verse came about as I was working with the aforementioned essay...

The vail falls across my eyes
A lifetime passes and then
The vail lifts and once more.
The dreamed remembers he is the dreamer.
One.
Not two.

Something to ponder perhaps. More to follow.







       
     

           I first noticed it this past Saturday morning with still another full week of August remaining.  Late on Friday, the humidity had lifted. Stepping out of my house into an early gray light, there was a chill riding on a breeze coming from the north, just enough to lay a fair surface ripple on the nearby lake. Nothing dramatic—maybe a little catch of something in the way of autumn—the first, if only brief, exhale of summer. The sugar maples have been showing some color at the fringes for a short time, the summer-greens of everything else just beginning to pale a bit. I reason the maples are busier trees, and so get an early rest.
                This is not to imply summer is over.  The clotted, humid air will return, albeit for briefer spells, the water still warm enough for a swim. The lake will stay busy a while more even as the camps close with school on the way, and I’ll continue to indulge in a few-too-many ice cream cones. Late afternoon light will still linger into evening. 
            I live in a place of four seasons…deep ones at that. I’m grateful for gentle transitions and the fair warning they allow. Soon enough we’ll be adding some layers, sipping on warm drinks, gathering wood, and lighting our fires as we draw closer to the next solstice. Then the world will draw down into winter and rest. Late afternoons, the light will dim and soften and break our hearts just before it leaves us to the moon-lit snow, the icy lake, the warm glow from kitchen lights. This is the real beginning of things, and the violence of early spring will remind us of that too.
                 So now, in late August as summer fades toward its ending, I’ll stand reminded that all of it is perfect, all of it belongs—the things that bring warmth and joy and light, and that which brings all else. Grateful for it all. Grateful for it all.

​Dearly departed we are gathered here
Always and forever
Under all the moons and stars
there ever were or will be,
in air and breath
in water and thirst
beyond time and place and matter.
Beyond what matters
and what does not.
There can never be a way
of no you
or me.
God help me,
you are
I am
there just is... us.
Gathered always
Here.

​My dearest one’s voice said…
This is the day
the day I knew would come.
The day I would join you
in the fellowship of the wrecked and devastated.
The day I’d know
the fear
the rage
the regret
the wondering that will not end.
Some days will begin with blackened thick and clotted skies
until suddenly a gentle breeze blows.
And in the holy instant it lifts,
the dawn will become a wispy pink and lovely affair
fresh and new
as I join you and say,
this is the day
the day I knew would come.
The day I would join you
in the fellowship of the healed and blessed.
When I’d know
the love
the peace
the forgiveness
the wonder that will not end.
You said it would come along in waves like this
so sloppy and tangled and twisted.
You said it all belongs
and promised me all will be well
along the Way we now go.
Promised.
We will recognize the others,
see it in their eyes
always in their eyes,
the only place left to look.
Our fellows of the
wrecked and devastated and healed and blessed,
along the Way we all now go
our hands joined always.
 
 
 
 
 

On a dusty ancient far-away road
We met
Two travelers
And marveled at the biggest sky we'd ever seen
rimmed by mountains north, open plains south.
We walked
toward a distant unknown coast.
We dreamed 
of what we'd find along our Way.
We spoke
of being called to this
and wondered, why?
We promised
to return forever and again.
One would summon the other
and the answer would be 
Yes.
Forever and again and always
Yes.

​     This past Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, I found myself in the mood for a walk – a long one. I could have gone anywhere, but given the nature of traffic on a holiday, decided to leave the car parked and remain in town. The resulting meander included some road walking beside Bantam Lake, along trails that led to a hilltop meadow with distant views of a cloud-mottled landscape, then deep into woods fully dressed in summer green. I rounded lush, deep wetlands, and passed through cool, shaded pine groves.

​     Mostly, I was able to be alone and in good quiet. The prayer of walking on this day was a listening prayer. That kind always seems best because its source really doesn’t need much in the way of input from me. It knows. More importantly, I don’t. In silence I can realize this at depth, chastened and humbled by what surrounds me as I move through it. Sometimes, actual answers will come from these attempted flights into stillness.  At other times, there is but a vague sense that something has shifted around, and what remains is to rest in knowing all is well. Such was the case on Saturday.  Rest then.

​     Reflecting on this as I walked, I began to consider this place in which I live; a place that allows for such wanderings on any day in any season.  I first came to the northwest corner of Connecticut as a 12 year-old on a vacation, next as I ran errands for an employer the summer before leaving for service in the Navy.  I remember thinking back then how much I longed to live here, but couldn’t say why. Knowing comes from the underneath of things - must have been an early lesson in that. But perhaps there was some conditioning, some softening and opening of the heart required first.   
     I’ve lived here for eight years now.  My ninth spring is nearly behind me, the solstice coming soon.  Of all the places I’ve lived, never have I loved one more.  I had finally arrived here seeking refuge from a savage emotional storm of loss and change I could not yet even fully comprehend.  It may, in hindsight, have been an unreasonable expectation of something so fleeting as place. The fact that it didn’t let me down has made it, at last, home. I travel from here.  I return. I stray and then re-center, always here. I center in the quiet of the forest in the still air of summer, and lakeside when the ice is thick and sunrise makes it moan and rattle and echo against the hills all around.  I center in the resting autumn chill when everything exhales and the colors make my heart hurt. I center in the great commotion of the wind and rain that brings on the springtime.  And it was just down the road from my place that the calling to the Camino de Santiago came to me in mid-step while walking.
     To be so inextricably linked to a place seems odd to me in one sense, yet in another I think I’m being shown that I am inseparable from everything. Everything.