Go With Love

Young one take a look. What do you see? A world rich with gifts or misery? Walking through woods now, roots cross your way. Canopy of green. Bough branches sway. Sun may be shining. Clouds bring the rain. Stay on the good path through ease or strain. Ride to the city. Towers are tall. Many temptations before you fall. Keep your heart open. All you can do. Make the good choices. Have faith in you. May your roads be long. Troubles be few. With havens plenty silver as dew. Should you cross oceans or steeply climb, may what you’re seeking be there to find. Hold on to purity. Don’t fret the stain. There will be clarity despite the pain. Where we are going, what we all do, is learn to give love. Receive love too. Love is not easy. Love’s sometimes cruel. But love is the answer. The golden rule. So go with intention. Soar like the dove. Go with conviction. And Go With Love.

May Calm Prevail

Clear and cold

Sun warms the World

Yet men old and gray

Rattle their swords...

Measuring hoards

So thusly Peace

Runs away

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Happy New Year.

So sorry for the long silence. This platform is no longer writer friendly. I am in the process of transitioning to word press.com here is why:

I can't make a paragraph or a space without putting a photo. Any formatting from a cut and paste is lost.

January 18, 2022 Someday, it’ll all be different but will I be around? The pessimism of my fathers is a hard thing to live down. But in your blue eyes, under these blue skies is the only peace I’ve found. Someday, it’ll all be different. Then we’ll go to town. Someday we’ll have a big house with a couple of cats and a dog. A garden for a front yard, in the backyard we’ll keep hogs. We’ll sing songs at the fire side by Bob Dylan and Jackson Browne. Someday it’ll all be different an’ we’ll go out on the town. Someday there’ll be no bigots. No racism, no more war! Someday we’ll have a plenty that’s better worth living for. The lion and lamb will both shake hands with silence the only sound. Some day everything will be different. Then we’ll go to town. Someday, the stars will line up and the moon will light the way. When waters of the oceans along the shoreline stay. Then honey bees, and butterflies come back to save the day. An’ everything will be different That’s all I have to say.

But I still love you all. Thanks for checking in on me. Talk soon.

Understanding

Clear mountain stream

under a warm sun

I settle into a rocky bed

as cold water, like language flows,

from crown to toes

Rinsing impurity and

teaching me to breathe.

Then deeper in I float

with strong currents.

There words move me

in a kind of kinesis to realize

I’ve the understanding

of a one-year-old

just learning to say

Mama and Papa

Tom

Two doors down from our building on Court Street there was an old bodega. It was convenient for a Nutriment or half dozen eggs in the middle of the night or a buttered roll with coffee in the early morning. Inside aisles were narrow and shelves tall making for a claustrophobic experience. The fabric enclosure outside prevented natural light from ever making its way in. Out in front on the sidewalk, already narrowed by the awning, there was a medium sized blue metal box. I never knew why it was there, but it was chained to a signpost, and made for a rough seat a man might rest upon when his legs tired of standing.

That is what old Tom used to do. He was a tall, lean black man with a huge smile and big dark eyes. He really wasn’t that old. Day after day most days he would stand outside the bodega. He kept an eye on the newspapers, produce, and flowers. Tom would watch your bike when you went inside for a bottle of water. His clothes were worn, yet always clean. From the green army cap to his boots, there was something about Tom that was both benign and a little bit intrusive. He insisted on being part of your life. If you asked him how he was doing it depended on the day of the week.

"How are you, Tom?" I would ask

"Pretty good, for a Tuesday, Mark." He would reply. "Hi to Jen."

The bodega did not hire him to stand there, greeting people as they passed. In his large hand he often held a crumpled blue paper coffee cup. A few coins clinking together at the bottom. Not specifically a panhandler, Tom graciously accepted donations from the public with a smile and a soft-spoken word of thankful encouragement.

Everyone in the neighborhood knew Tom and when he asked your name once, he would remember it. His wisdom always pleased. Nearby restaurants would feed him. There was something comforting in seeing him out there. It was a different time. After tall buildings were leveled in lower Manhattan by terrorists with jumbo jets our big city got little-town smaller. Community grew closer and we relied on the good will of each other to assure us the world had not devolved completely into darkness. Tom represented that cohesion. That unity. When he wasn’t out there, I worried about him. Wondering if he was ok. When he was there, it seemed everything was alright.

Tom was not homeless. He was a veteran who lived on a quiet street not far from the blue metal box. One time I asked him to tell me about himself. (Which was a big thing for me to ask such a personal question!) I wanted to know how he came to be standing outside the bodega not exactly panhandling. He said it was an interesting story. That one day the guy who used to stand out in front of the bodega just stopped. So, he took over.

Tom had a very wry sense of humor.

When our apartment building caught fire in the cellar while we were away for a Labor Day weekend, Tom was able to give me the moment-by-moment news of how he saw smoke and sparks coming from the sidewalk. How he told the guys inside the bodega to call 911. Unfortunately, one of the restaurants which gave him meals was destroyed, otherwise no one was hurt.

Then one day he was gone. It soon became clear something had happened. Word came that Tom was in the VA hospital. He had pancreatic cancer.

Tom died. We would no longer see him sitting on that blue metal box, long legs crossed, elbow on knee, big smile, offering kind words and thanks for the coins and dollars he collected. Someone made a sign and placed candles at the box. The sign read “We Love You, Tom. You Will Be Missed.” More elaborate memorials would follow with box and signpost decorated in his honor.

Not long after he passed the bodega would close and be renovated into a real estate office. The sense of close-knit community did not go away, but something palpable was happening. Like the barely perceptible erosion of sand on a beach, or the wearing thin of fabric washed and worn for years, and years, our once overt sense of togetherness slowly faded. Today divisions seem to multiply. Nothing can be said or done which will not spark fiery arguments.

But I think of Tom and our neighborhood which once embraced him. I miss my friends from the old building. Laura and Locke and Corrine and Tony. And little Paloma all grown up now. I miss Jean François from Quercy downstairs, Louie from Sam’s next door and Brenda from Reuben’s Liquor across the street. Jim and Andy were down the block with their produce garage, and Mr. Staubitz, I don’t know if that was his name, but he was the elderly gentleman who owned the oldest butcher shop in Brooklyn. Fish Tales and Cody’s and the laundromat, the list of establishments frequented goes on each with people working inside who had become like extended family. And I miss Tom. I am glad I got to thank him for his service.

Sometimes I feel like a mosquito flitting along the surface of a pond. Barely making a ripple as I skip and fly looking for my next bite. At others I feel a vast depth to our universe. The stardust from which I am made radiates inside of me. And I feel one and at peace with the world.

“We all just passin’ through, Mark,” I remember Tom saying.

Isn’t that the truth.

09/12/2021

That day the fire hydrants all ran dry and we began to douse still smoldering flame with our tears. A fine dust was piled like pink snow except where it met water. It there expanded into a thick, foamy muck a shade or three lighter then blood with bone pulverized and comingled. And we all went to work heavy with sorrow for those brothers and sisters who lay buried.

The Visit by Friedrich Durrenmatt as adapted by Maurice Valency at ECU

directed by Kimille Howard

Sardonically funny at times this production is a tragicomedy with satirc contempoary overtones which range from #MeeToo through #OnePercent. The plot is simple yet complex. It is about a time and place which has historic overtones on how a society declines into less than humane behavior. Howard’s production is set in Germany and though no time frame is specifically mentioned, the costumes, sets, and props suggest a time just before the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich. The homecoming of a powerfully wealthy prodigal daughter to her birthplace, which as a town has fallen on hard times, sets the play in motion. Claire Zachanassian (Tatiana Burrus) returns to fanfare and expectation as potential saviour. Her ex-lover, Anton Schill (Andrew Goins), is chosen to woo her generosity and investment in the broken down old place. Yet there are dark secrets to be revealed.

I took away a feeling of great sadness over The Visit. At the same time, it is filled with hilarity from comedic turns by supporting characters like Kobby (Nikki Neuberger), Lobby (Riley Yates) and Bobby (Bobby Moreno). What a wonderful performance of a play which does not always celebrate the best in us as human beings. The last time I felt like this after a theatrical performance, Taylor Mac was The Good Person of Szechuan where beauty and spectacle belied serious subject matter.

The question of justice looms large in The Visit. Vengeance, unfettered capitalism, family values, the devastating effect of generational poverty all wrapped within characters dressed in period costumes and played on an ambitious stage festooned with brilliant sets and props. Kudos Delta Childers-Smith, Reid Parker, Nolan O’Dell, and Michael Shoaf. Movement and intimacy, of which there is abundance, directed by Jill Materelli-Carlson and Emily Phoebus. Vocal coaching by Elana Kepner.

This bold production choice could not have been timelier. The play satirizes a process through which group mentality can be manipulated by way of materialism which in turn facilitates a decline of society. I applaud the smart casting by Director Howard. There is a strong voice of reason coming from a character like Professor Muller (Casey Wortham), but reason is ultimately overwhelmed by temptation. ECU students all rise to the challenges of their roles which included the wearing of masks while speaking with German accents. Yet everyone works valiantly to overcome obstacles and their characterizations, to a person, are spot-on. This theatrical experience works its magic by compressing time into a delight filled evening. Even if it is one that left me feeling sad. The following came to my mind before bed the other night with the play's end landing in my soul.

Hearbroken days for world full of hurt where a mountain of gold is worth less than dirt When tears are flowing over lives we have lost, is there anyone showing just how much we've lost?