Thanksgiving

I am surprised sometimes

by the suddenness of November:

beauty abruptly shed

to a common nakedness—

grasses deadened

by hoarfrost,

persistent memories

of people I’ve lost.

It is left to those of us

dressed in the hard

barky skin of experience

to insist on a decorum

that rises to the greatness

of a true Thanksgiving.

This is not a game,

against a badly scheduled team,

an uneven match on an uneven pitch.

This is Life.

This is Life.

This is Life.

Not politely mumbled phrases,

murmured with a practiced and meticulous earnestness.

Thanksgiving was born a breech-birth,

a screaming appreciation for being alive—

for not being one of the many

who didn’t make it—

who couldn’t moil through

another hardscrabble year

on tubers and scarce fowl.

Thanksgiving is for being you.

There are no thanks without you.

You are the power of hopeful promise;

you are the balky soil turning upon itself;

you are bursting forth in your experience.

You are not the person next to you—

not an image or an expectation.

You are the infinite and eternal you—

blessed, and loved, and consoled

by the utter commonness

and community of our souls.

We cry and we’re held.

We love and we hold.

We are the harvest of God,

constantly renewed,

constantly awakened,

to a new thanksgiving.

Memories on a Bus

With the fuel tank hovering precariously close to empty, I back the bus into its home beneath the towering pines in our side yard. We only had one breakdown this summer, and that was easily fixed with a new bank of batteries. Not bad for a thirty-year-old icon of steel, chrome, and spots of rust. The old Cat diesel 3208 now runs just a little rough; the generator is well past the 5000 hour mark, and the tires that are slightly scuffed and worn, all remind me of where we've been and how we've returned; and while the kids erect a monstrous fort out of soccer nets and a massive blue tarp, I top off the oil, flush the tanks, and scrape the dried dirt off the mudflaps: some fine sand from the National seashore (and the minke whale swimming just offshore, just beyond the reach of our skipping stones); heavy clay from the mountain pass in Thetford Vermont that we just barely managed to get over while the engine steamed and smoked in disbelief at our audacity; the specks of field grass from Windsor Mountain in New Hampshire—flashes of the Perseied meteor showers raining out of the night sky while we laid on our backs in wet dew, heavy with mosquitoes and fireflies; crushed blueberries and wild grape leaves from the spot we carved under the power lines at Nana and Papa's house in Brewster; the parking lot gravel of every ice cream stand, town fair, and festival we happened by on side roads off of side roads; the shells, bottom paint and turpentine of the boatyard on Pleasant Bay where the kids bulked up in oversized life jackets spun the dingy comically, struggling like Sisyphus towards the mooring of our amishly plain and barnacled wooden ketch.

Inside the bus, I pull the countless sleeping bags out of the overhead bins and stretch them over the fence between ours and our neighbor's yard. They are musty from the massive storm in late July that caught the kids unaware in their pop up tent and soaked them all clean through to the bone, while Denise and I listened to them laughing, comparing, and wringing out pillow cases in the wind freshened morning. As I shake out each bag, long lost crocks and sandals and flip-flops fall out like they just won the final game of hide and seek, along with the wet jeans and bathing suits reappearing from the cocoon that for weeks on end was their dressing room—and I still hear the screams: “Don't look! Wait for me! I don't need a sweatshirt!” And EJ constantly reminding everyone: “If Fitz says it's not going to rain, it will! He can't be trusted.”

Everything in the bus reflects the magic disarray of action: books are shoved into every free corner; Nora Roberts, Hemingway, Dr. Seuss, and Jack London piled like comrades in trench warfare; Harry Potter relinquished to sharing a drawer with Reptiles of North America; Thoreau lowered to a conversation with a pile of Spider Man coloring books. Nothing, no one, and nowhere is more important than any other in this egalitarian assemblage of memory. My drawer for tools also holds the missing cinnamon pop tart that caused Emma so much distress on a hungry morning. The registration makes for a perfect bookmark for a Patrick O’Brien novel, while my coffee cup holds a universe of broken crayons, mismatched screws, and a pack of Old Maid playing cards. Only the keys—the majestic and untouchable single set of keys—remains in its pristine reserve set in the dashboard. Who could or would ever try steal our bus? Who could carry away our memories? It is as unthinkable as joy.

There is a balance and a linkage between the material and the immaterial. Our family is carried towards and away from our dreams in a ponderous conveyance built by union men and women working long days in another time and existence. They made a thing in which we are transported and recreated by the renewing power of experience. There are times on the open road when I find myself quietly thanking them for their efforts. I wonder if they knew what kind of life they were enabling as they constructed our bus back in 1977. Did someone say a prayer as they packed the grease into the bearings? Is there an initial scratched into some impossible to find crevice of the frame? Back then our Bluebird Wanderlodge was the top of the line motorhome, a toy for the rich to see America—and to be seen. Now it is more like a vestige of an old folk tune that anyone can sing—but few do. I wonder how our summers would be different if Denise hadn't spotted it sitting in the back yard of a Mack Truck repair lot in Maynard, set amongst the dump trucks and semi's just a row or two away from the junkyard?

All I really know is that we took a chance at creating a new opportunity—something that I can’t forget how to do. The bus becomes our metaphor for possibility, even while it sits in stoic patience waiting for its tanks to be drained and the water lines to be blown. It reminds me that I need to continue to create those opportunities that become the stories and traditions of our family. It reassures me that only the weak and restful are intimidated.

The rest of us simply try.

Making It Work

EJ and Pipo squat in the driveway

and poke their heads through

the wheel-well and pass

a half inch socket and WD 40

to my bloodied hand.

I shout out to them:

"The transmission cooler line

is completely shot,

and the thread

on the flare nut

is stripped bare—

it turns, but won't catch,

into the radiator.

In short: we're screwed."

I can hear them giggling

and splashing in the oily cold

puddle I am soaked in.

While Pipo runs to get

the extra red hose we used

to fix the heater on the bus,

I send EJ to get the cement

we used to fix the gasket

on the wood stove.

In my sarcophagus

under the old Buick wagon,

I fumble through my pockets

and find some hose clamps

that just might work.

EJ slathers the flare nut

in an icing of black glue.

And so Pipo can use

his beloved tape measure,

he cuts me a piece of red hose

18 ½ inches long—exactly.

There is no turning back now:

I cut out the old line

and jam the flare nut

into the fitting

until it sets.

For a few minutes, everything

is dead serious.

Pipo lays on his belly

and fits the 18 ½ inch hose

to the cleanly cut ends

of the cooler lines.

EJ takes his flathead

and tightens the hose clamps,

while I keep

the damn flare nut

from moving.

And in the stale air,

beneath a 1988 LeSabre Wagon—

soaked in mud, love, oil and anti-freeze—

I am the luckiest man alive.

Ice Storm Artist

A lone artist made a rhino
out of limbs and branches—
the detritus
of the great ice storm of 08.

Its skeletal mosaic
standing sentinel
beside the washed out ruts
of the gravel driveway
reminds me
of the blanket of ice
sheeting over everything
west and north of 495.

A lonely gargoyle
on a New Hampshire side road:
its sad, gaped mouth,
formed out of gnarled limbs
torn from a tangled canopy,
tries to tell
another side of the story.

The Yankee Cannonball

I stood in a long line waiting with Pipo for his first ever ride on a roller coaster. Things that move in strange ways are a big deal to him. When he first came to live with us, he was eight years old and had never even been in a two story house. On his second day here, we took him to Floating Hospital in Boston and strode into the elevator with an insouciance, which, in retrospect, reflected an utter lack of cultural awareness for a young boy in a strange land. The door shut, the elevator moved, and Pipo screamed and clutched me in his fear. Now, eighteeen months later, he stood wringing his hands, intermittently laughing and grimacing at the thought of the “The Yankee Cannonball.”

“Will it be scary?”
“Yes”
“Will I scream?”
“Probably.”
“Will I throw up?”
“I don't know. I might.”
“You better not!”
“We really don't have to go.”
“Yeah, we do.”

I could see his head racing a hundred miles an hour. I distracted him by yelling at some high school kids who were swearing at each other.

“Don't do that.”
“Why? They shouldn't be swearing.”
“What if they beat you up?”
“I'll hide behind you.”
“Mama will beat them up if they beat you up.”
“She better. Comb your hair up so you're forty eight inches tall.”
“Oh, man!”

Leaning on his toes he was just the right height. Squeezing into the car the single safety bar held me in a crushing gut squeeze while leaving Pipo astonishingly free to squiggle and squirm. “Do people ever fall out?”

“Rarely.”
“What does 'rarely' mean?”
“It means that only kids who ask a million questions fall out.”

“Whoo hooo.”

The cars slid toward the first hill and were grabbed by the chain. He held the hand grip, smiled, and raised his eyebrows in mock fear. “There's the bus! I wish I was on the bus.”

“I like the bus.”
“I like the bus, too.”
“I know.”
The first hill caught us both by surprise. “Oh, man.”
“Oh, man”

I couldn't stop laughing. Pipo squinted his eyes and held the bar in front of him. I think he held his breath for ninety seconds. The girl behind us used every form of the F-word ever created.

“Was it fun?”
“No.”
“Want to go again?”
“No. Never again.”

We found the rest of the family in the water park. Dripping and shivering, they all ran up to Pipo and asked if he really went on the Yankee Cannonball. “Yup, but never again. No way, Jose’. Who wants to go on the bumper cars?” Denise looked at me like I was a bad father forcing his son to be a man.

“He wanted to go.”
“Yeah, right. Was he even tall enough?”
“With a micron to spare. It was another one of those things he just had to do.”

Denise and I both understand that part of Pipo. When he decides to do something, he'll do it, no matter how much angst it causes him—or us. He is not so much interested in overcoming fear as he is in facing his fears. He embraces fear as an experience and not merely as an emotion. It is a lesson in courage from which we can all draw inspiration.

The Yankee Cannonball is also a perfect metaphor for the written word. The empty page looms in front of us like the rickety roller coaster. We can't call ourselves writers if we refuse to get in the car and go. We can't call ourselves writers if we don't tell the whole story, replete with every dip and turn of our inner and outer experience. We can't give in to the temptation to leap from the car at the first sign of fear, and we can't tell the story from a distance. But, that is exactly what so many writers do. They mistakenly believe that the cold reality of fact is more important than the multi-dimensional dynamic of experience. It is much safer to have opinions than to question assumptions. We want facts, and we want a sense of assuredness that we are making wise decisions in our lives, but are we always willing to take that ride with Pipo through the hairpin turns of experience? Are we willing to distill our facts through the directness of experience? Without the parable there can be no sermon.

Our lives our full of the parables upon which we can contribute an enduring legacy to the world. Those legacies are the journal entries, poems, songs, stories, novels, and essays that capture people's imaginations and fires their passion, or simply stirs the embers of a world that needs pondering. I have no problem with the well-wrought essay that presents an impeccable line of reasoning and logical argument, but if I sense a fallacy, a hypocrisy, or a lack of magnanimity, I quickly create a distance between myself and the writer who is simply out to set me straight. Seek out the writers who know of what they speak, and you will be rewarded with a truth you can cherish and turn in your mind for years to come. To become that writer you need to return to the source of your own wisdom and chip away at the stone of memory until it takes a shape—the infinite and varied shapes of literature and writing—that can be held in our eyes and opened in our hearts, and our minds.

For years I have had an idea for a novel, but I never actually sat down to begin writing it. The idea was too complicated, the characters to diffuse, the length too daunting in the face of a busy lifestyle, but I thought of Pipo getting on the Yankee Cannonball in spite of every rational fear he had of roller coasters. So I began to take an hour or so out of every day and began writing my book. My car caught the clicking chain and took me to the point where gravity took over. I am barely down the first hill, but the ride is exhilarating and real. I see the track laid out before me, and, like Pipo, I'm not sure what every turn and twist will bring, but I do know there is an end to the ride, and that is where I draw my strength. Maybe I will walk away woozy and say “never again.” But at least I will know.

Think of what you “really” want to write.

And begin writing.

Superman

There’s a little blonde boy in a superman cape

Racing around the back yard;

Sayin’, “Daddy don’t you know I can fly to the moon;

I’m gonna bring you back some stars.

And after that I’m gonna save the world”

Cause I’m superman today.”

I scoop that boy right into my arms,

And this is what I say:

You don’t need a cape to be a hero

You’ve got all the special powers that you need

Your smile’s enough to save the world from evil

And you’ll always be superman to me

That little blonde boy in the cape again

Says he’s gonna jump off the deck.

I say: “Little man, can’t you just slow on down;

One day you’re going to break your neck?”

He says, “Don’t you know that I can’t get hurt

Because I’m superman today.”

Well I scoop that boy right into my arms

And this is what I say:

You don’t need a cape to be a hero

You’ve got all the special powers that you need

Your smile’s enough to save the world from evil

And you’ll always be superman to me

One day he woke up and didn’t want his cape,

And we knew that something weren’t right

The doctors said, “We just don’t know.

We better keep him here for the night.”

So, I held his hand and stroked his hair

Until somehow he fell off to sleep,

Then I knelt at the window
and prayed to the stars:

God, help me own leap.

I’ve never been much of a prayin’ man;

I’ve never had a faith very clear;

But give me a sign and I’ll step into line;

Just get my boy out of here—

I’ll give you everything any man’s ever got:

I’ll give you every bit of my love—

And a prayer came back to me

In a whisper from above…saying:

You don’t need a cape to be his hero

You’ve got all the special powers that you need

Your smile’s enough to save the world from evil

And you’ll always be superman to me

That little boy woke up in a hospital room

Looking so quiet and sad.

I bring him in his cape and I say “Big boy,

How about a smile for Dad?”

And those wide blue eyes filled up with tears

“I’m not superman today.”

Well, I scooped that boy right into my arms

And this is what I said…

You don’t need a cape to be my hero;

You’ve got all the special powers that you need.

Your smile’s enough to save the world from evil,

And you’ll always be superman to me;

Yeah, you’ll always be superman to me

~Denise Fitzsimmons

Young Warriors

Young warriors almost

enchanted with dreams,

lie strewn

like daisies against

the gym wall,

waiting.

And what we humans call

simple joy

and mud-borne pride

will soon outweigh

the many tears.

~The Fessenden Wrestling Tournament,

Newton MA, 2006

Windsor Mountain

I am sitting in what they call “The Enchanted Grove.” There is a swarm of insects swirling—not buzzing—around my head. Strange as it sounds , they do not bother me in the least, but more so, they add another degree of sharing to the experience. The Enchanted Grove is a small patch of woods in the middle of a field, full of popple, birch, black cherry, and some long ago wilded apple trees growing in and around a good size granite boulder—around which my daughters (and a wonderfully crazy visiting artist) built a small deck last year out of pine slabs discarded from Bob’s old bandsaw mill they have here. “Here” is Windsor Mountain International Camp where we have been coming as a family the last few years. I am here as “enrichment staff;” my older kids as campers; and the three little ones and Denise as honorary and beloved guests. There is a magic here. Our old Bluebird motorhome looks more a part of the landscape than a thirty year old beauty of steel and chrome. As much as anywhere else on earth I feel I belong here. We belong here. In the same way, everyone needs to belong somewhere.

I look back on my life with thankfulness. In sum there is nothing I regret and nothing I would wish to change if it would alter in any degree the here and now. If I could excise out the idiocies, the hurt, the profligacy and the inane without mortally wounding the core of who I am and the essential beauty of this moment, I would do so a thousand times over—only a fool or a saint would do otherwise. My life has always been a confluence of opportunity and willingness, much of it down the road not taken, much of it proudly and stubbornly iconoclastic, but the greater irony is that I am here now after traveling the oft taken road—the long beat path of marriage, family, friends and common labor—and it feels (and is) more rich and real than any of the dreams I conjured in my youthful adventures. No doubt I use my stories to entertain, not out of wistfulness, but because I am acutely aware that the well of memory is more important to the present than to the past. I didn’t always realize that; I do, now; and that in itself is thanksgiving enough.

I have seven beautiful, wild, and unadorned children who run and play and fight and need to be told a hundred times to quiet down in their tent at night. I have an equally beautiful (there is no better word) strong, and loving wife who intuitively understands that family is intertwined and nurtured by a common experience; who knows in a quiet look what and who needs mending and what and who needs unraveling and what and who needs to be left alone to heal in the balm of contemplative time; and more than anyone I have ever met she knows and maps the charted and uncharted majesty of marriage, friendship, and motherhood. She knows that this camp is but another piece of the mosaic we constantly bring to the forward—a shared journey mentored to the next generation!

This is but stolen time—and I know enough of the cruelty of time to live solely in words—so I will head out to find Denise and the kids who are probably making their way back through the now darkened camp in a game of flashlight tag and dibs on tent space. The moon tonight will be the most beautiful they will ever have the chance to see—a full summer moon sparkled with fireflies and memory, family, and community.

Yes, this is where we belong.

~Windsor Mountain, 2008

The Fig Tree

I have a deal to make with my raspberries
who produce no real fruit.
and who took over the far quarter
of my springtime labor,
displacing the beans and squashes
in a sea of brambles—

those distant cousins
spread wildly from a few plants
(stolen from Patty's richer garden)
poking their prickly heads
like gophers
some distance
from their mother root;

and whose unruly sprouts
encourage their own offspring
to run amok
among my disciplined,
well-tended,
and orderly neighbors.

In church today we heard the parable
of the barren fig tree;
whose owner, mad with rage,
came to cut it down,
but whose fate was saved
by a wise and gentle servant.

Likewise, I will turn my own sins
into the waiting soil
and beg the patience of God,
that we both
may be renewed.

Saturday Morning

Before the pancakes,

soccer games, and birthday parties;

before the mowing and raking

and grouting the tile;

before I even glance

at the calendar hung

like a graffiti nightmare

under shelves filled

with the frosted flakes,

cheerios, and cocoa puffs,

I make a cup of coffee

and watch the slow

unfolding of the day:

Groggy and unsteady,

Charlie is up first

and knows to ask politely

if he can watch TV.

I practice a grave and stern

reluctance

and nod quietly.

He bursts out of

his warm cocoon of sleep

and sets the day

in motion, and drawn

by the faint roar of Scooby Doo,

five more painted monarchs

float down the stairs

and glide past me

unnoticed and gather

clustered on the couch.

I close my book and count out

the remaining measures

of this sacred time.

Born again into

a new day,

they will soon

come back to me

with their insatiable hunger.

The Size of Your Door

As I've been doing all summer long, I drove home tonight from New Hampshire for my weekly gig at The Colonial Inn in Concord Massachusetts—the same gig I've had for over twenty-five years. I came home to the usual scene: tall grass, too many bills, a ticked off cat, and a fridge that is stoically empty and a sink that is typically full. I put new blades on the mower, but I put them on upside down. It cuts fine, but not much higher than a putting green. The bikes—ten of them, plus a couple of scooters—are rusting in the bike rack with weeds growing three feet high through the spokes. A half finished dog house EJ started sits in the driveway with a weedwacker that refuses to run resting on its pitched roof. If there were more hours in the day, and I had half the motivation of my neighbors, I'd spend the time to make my home a castle fit for a sightseeing tour by the local garden club. Once, while driving my wrestling team to a meet, the kids were commenting on the various and tawdry mansions that lined our route back through the wealthy streets of Concord to our school. I interjected that the size of the door is more important than the size of the house. One kid seemed to get it; the rest let it drift through and out of their heads like any other of my oft spoken aphorisms.

Tonight our door will open wide. Two car loads of counselors are driving the two hours down from New Hampshire to see the show and "crash" at our house. The beauty of it is that this is not a rare occurrence. On any given night of the week people stop by from every corner and every walk of life—announced and unannounced. If my kids see a car pull up out front while we are eating, they will rush to scrunch over on their benches while two or three of them will rush to set as many plates as are needed at the table. It is just as easy to feed twelve as it is nine. When Denise and I bought our house, the first thing we did was to buy a huge table made up of thick pine slabs. A few years ago we moved it from the cramped kitchen space and put it in the living room where it lives with the fireplace, a piano, and my father’s old and memory-filled desk; all told, it's a great place for a communal feast, be it a feast of Krafts macaroni and cheese or a spread fit for a state dinner.

Denise drove with the kids down to Nana and Papa’s on Cape Cod, so I am missing a cookout on the beach at Tom and Maureens in Orleans; but, tomorrow I will drive to the cape for dinner with them, and with Aunt Mary-Beth and Uncle Bud and another whole coterie of cousins and friends. I'm sure that on Saturday we will be with someone else, or they will be with us. Ten years ago we lost the keys to our front door. At the time I didn't realize that it would evolve into a metaphor for our life as a family. Buddha said, "They are only rich who realize they have enough."

We have plenty.

Last Snow

Is this the last snow falling

in dull rhythmic thuds

on the front porch roof?

It slides off the gangly pines

and startles a pair

of chattering squirrels.

Bothered by this latest setback—

and each other—they quarrel

and do not notice

Margaret’s wet softball,

wrapped in her new glove,

waiting at the top of the slide

for yesterday’s spring.

Sugaring in a Mill Town

We do not need a conjurer,

for there is no real magic

to maple sugar:

We tap the gnarled trees,

boil away the sap,

and leave only

the sweet amber syrup

and another

mess in the kitchen.

My neighbors are happy

that my kids

tap the aged maples

that line the pot-holed streets.

The gallon buckets

hung from ten penny nails

seem so

absurdly out of place

in the close-knit quarters

of this old mill town.

I watch Tommy and Emma

line up behind

Charlie and Margaret,

and EJ and Pipo

as if following a team

of quiet Belgian draft horses

shaking oiled harnesses

and stamping shod hooves,

while straining through

the soft corn snow, still

piled high before

the ides of March.

And I remember once

while hiking through

the woods of Rumney

seeing a solitary man

with plaid wool cap, turning

bucket after bucket

into an endless vat

and dreaming

what is never spoken.

I fear them ever being that alone.

Instead, they are an uncouth gaggle

of cocked heads in floppy hats

covering single eyes;

unlaced boots and mismatched mittens

dancing a celebratory homeward waltz,

embracing the sloshing

galvanized tins

like prom dates.

The girls sing

as if they own the world:

"Girls go to college

to get more knowledge;

boys go to Jupiter

to get more stupider."

The boys, of course,

turn the cheer

to their advantage.

Held together

by the gravity of tradition,

no one is ever left behind,

though, invariably,

someone starts to cry.

Later, with the house full

of steam, smoke and pungence

we stand on tiptoes and benches,

and hold the smallest ones tightly.

We jostle for space

around the electric stove

and gather

as a community

and stare for hours

into the mystery.

Summer Camp Haiku

1.

Another day of heavy rain—

The soccer nets sag

like gill nets in an empty sea.

2.

Walking home across the field,

a lost gimp bracelet reminds me

of one more thing to do today.

3.

In the dark swamp

The kid with the new shoes

Is getting nervous

4.

When will the kids find

the dark puddle

on this dry street?

5.

A first silent star—

All that is left

of a long summer day.

No Dad To Come Home To

Rain’s falling outside of Boston—

Thank God I’m not working tonight:
I’ve got six of my own,

And a stepdaughter at home,

And a momma keeping things right.

I wonder if they’re at the table

With their puzzles, their papers and pens?

When I get off the highway

And pull in that driveway,

Will they run to the window again?

Daddy’s home, daddy’s home, I can hear you,

Though I’m still eighteen miles away.

This old station wagon’s

Got a muffler that’s dragging,

But everything’s going my way.

Momma put your head on my shoulder;

Let me hold you tight to my heart—

You’ve had a long day at home;

You’ve been working all alone—

Everyone’s doing their part.

She says, “Kaleigh is up in her bedroom.”

But she can’t really figure out why.

I find her upstairs

In an armload of bears,

And she looks at me softly and cries,

Was I sad with no dad to come to?

Did it hurt he was so far away?

Did I sit by the phone

And wait for him to come home

Like Margaret and EJ today?

Little girl, you can cry on my shoulders,

Though I can’t really say how it feels,

But if one thing is real

It’s this love that I feel,

And it’s one thing nobody can steal.

You had Nana; you had Papa; you had Mama—

And your momma was with you all day.

With her Ram pickup truck

And a boatload of luck,

You found me and you asked me to stay.

Now you’ve got your brothers and sisters.

You’ve got a step-dad trying to write songs;

You’ve got a momma who knows

How to make that love grow

Like them summer days coming along.

So, how about tonight we go dancing

Through every store in the mall.

If the kids don’t make scenes,

We’ll have food-court cuisine,

And wind up having a ball—

And if the kids don’t make scenes,

We’ll have food-court cuisine,

And wind up having a ball.

How about tonight we go dancing….

Xenia

Beyond Marcio and Andre’s garden, walled unceremoniously in orange highway fencing, I can hear Marcio, the camp’s Honduran maintenance man, weed-whacking around the the cracked and leaning stones of an old New Hampshire graveyard set some two hundred years ago on a hill outside the edge of the camp. Though I doubt there is a mandate from any government or anyone to take on this blessed task, I am sure it is just something he does because it is there, and it needs to be done; and, in his egoless and uncharted magnanimity, it makes this place, Windsor Mountain, a better place to be. It is this binding simplicity of necessity that sets the cornerstone of any community, while at the same time tempering and taming the often reckless flame of personal desire and the sometimes ironic interplay of freedom and responsibility.

My life is a small but jagged coastline cut into by safe and welcome harbors. These are the places that in some way, shape, or form I can call home—and “Home,” as Robert Frost writes, “is the place where, when you get there, they have to let you in.” I can’t quite figure if it is just happenstance, weakness, or some unconscious deliberation of a higher faculty I don’t know I have, but at every final tack I enter into unspoken contracts with a subterfuge of different communities—communities hammered out of malleable and enduring gold, gifted by the continuity of time and visitation, and empowered by a mystic and tidal mingling of giving and receiving—called xenia by the ancient Greeks.

If you have the means, make one place your true home, for there will always be those who, cast adrift by time and fate, will need to call your place home. None of us can start to live fully without a place to set out from and a place to return to. Like a sail without a ship, we would soon drift and sink in a tangle of sodden rags lost in a sea of unknowing. The plastic boundary of Marcio and Andre’s garden is not there to wall away a wandering and malicious herd, but to preserve a future bounty that they will share with a broader community.

Today I thank them both for lifting the blinders I might otherwise wear too comfortably. They remind me to live fully wherever you are and to leave your door unlocked, for at any hour of day or night some part or parcel of community will return to you, and it is your duty and responsibility to welcome them home. The wayward and wandering reflect the majestic mosaic of the world and leave us clothed in a richer garment when they leave. They remind me that I, too, might have unfinished business, and perhaps I need to rein in the harness of my solipsism and to strain the shackles of my practiced routines and easy assumptions.

They remind me that that at any time and any place to build ships in line with your dreams and embrace the crew who shares your vision, for the man who builds his own boat seldom ventures far from shore. To those who measure breadth before depth, my own journeys might seem myopic and mundane, but, against a rhumb-line through a sea of stars, all voyages and adventures pale in comparison and are, in truth, infinitesimally small and parochial.

I know I will never still the restlessness inside of me, but I also know that at any given time I am, at best, an imperfect captain on an impatient and unpredictable sea, but there is always a brine-worn and willing crew to point out the polestar and guide me to a perfect shore—perfect, because it is where I need to go and where I need to be. 

Right now, this place is perfect. It is where I want and need to be. It is where my family wants and needs to be. These words are only a finger pointing at a moon, tethered to the gravity of hospitality, and arcing around a world that simply tries to do what is right. We are only trapped by selfish ignorance and misanthropic righteousness. No place is so base that it cannot be made better by the giving of ourselves—and our homes—to a broader community.

Above the oscillating hum of a weed-whacker, I hear a car crunching its way up the rutted gravel road leading to this camp, and I know that, whoever they are, they will be welcomed like a gift of some ancient god. If they are hungry, they will be fed, and by giving, we, too, will be filled. If I want to share in this meal, I have to lift myself out of this chair and make my way to them.

In the end, we are only free when we care enough to give a damn about who and where we are and what we need to do. As a thought is only made real when put into words, a community is only made real when it becomes an action.

~Windsor Mountain, 2009

The Poet Goes to Work

Every morning,
before the rush hour diaspora,

we neighbors shout to each other

over the scratching

of ice scrapers

and stubborn wipers, balancing

cups of coffee, dancing

in a steaming minuet

of our morning rituals.

We start our wives' cars

and make monster faces
at our respective homes,

to the gallery of faces

at the breakfast tables.

Tom pulls on his cigar

and spits aphorisms

in an unending palate

of smoke and exhaust

and loads

his unquenchable van

with what appears to be

aisle twelve from Home Depot.

I grab my own tools

and squeeze through

the impossible space

my wife has left me

between our two cars.

I double-check everything:

Huck Finn.

This pen.

Christmas Everyday

I’m sitting here alone,

Wondering when the girls will all come home.

They probably stopped at Nana’s house to play—

I get Christmas everyday.

I’m so glad to be the guy

With three beautiful daughters

With their mother’s loving eyes;

Eyes that say more

Than any song that I can play—

I get Christmas everyday.

I never could have known

That someday I’d be watching

Four little boys get grown.

I never could have seen myself

In love in every way—

I get Christmas everyday.

My angels in the snow;

I love you more, I need you more,

Than anyone could know;

I know that everyday

The world comes out okay—

‘cuz I get Christmas everyday.

We’re sitting here alone,

Wondering when the girls will all come home.

They probably stopped at Nana’s house to play—

I get Christmas everyday,

Conversations on a Beach

Last night I walked to the beach with the kids to watch the sunset at Manzanita. After whiffleball, tic tac toe, and beach tennis the younger kids came and sat with me, leaning against pieces of driftwood gathered around a driftwood fire. We watched the other untold fires glowing up and down the long plain of sand to where it rose into massive cliffs swirled in wisps of fog. Kaleigh stood alone a hundred yards away, knee deep in the rhythmic returning of surf, her silhouette slowly melding into the coming night. I wondered what she was thinking. It was thirty years ago when I was not much older than her that I last walked on this beach and stood where she stood; where I slept by windy fires and wondered where life would take me or where I would take life. I didn’t imagine that I would be huddled with seven tired and crazily perfect kids after twelve years (to this very day) of a crazily perfect marriage talking about the difference between choosing to live simply without a lot of money, which is not being poor, versus not being able to make enough money to take care of yourself or your family no matter how hard you try, which is poverty.

We noticed the lights of the cars winding along route 101 curving slowly along the sides of the cliffs. “Thirty years ago daddy hitchhiked from here all the way down to the Baja in Mexico.” You never see hitchhikers now, and I had to tell them all about hitchhikers.

Pipo asked why I didn’t just drive my car. “I didn’t have a car. All I had was a backpack, a sleeping bag and three hundred dollars I saved from working at the gas station in West Concord. Plus, I wanted to hitchhike, and I wanted to see how far I could go with three hundred dollars.“
Always curious, Pipo continued his inquiry, “How far did you go?”
“Not as far as I thought I could.“
“Did you run out of money?“
“Yes, I did.”
“What did you do?”
“I did anything people would pay me to do.”
Margaret asked, “Did you ever beg?”

Pipo reacted with what is probably a visceral reminder of his childhood in Haiti, “That’s not polite, Margaret.”

“No, I never had to beg. I just found people who wanted some work done, and I did the work. When I had enough to move on, I started hitchhiking again. If you choose to be poor, then you are not poor.”

With his ubiquitous thoughtfulness EJ said, “You can choose to be poor; too bad you can’t choose to be rich,” as he laughed at the possibility.

Charlie wondered, “What did you eat?”
“My favorite meal was Milky Ways and Coke.”
EJ countered, “You said that you lived on baloney and baked beans.”
“That is another story.”

Charlie wanted to know how many stars there were in the Milky Way? I smiled, “There aren’t any stars; there’s just chocolate and caramel.”

“No. Really!” He laughed and got up and did a cartwheel and a handstand.
Tommy asked, “Did you have to brush your teeth?”
“Oh yes, all the time.” That was all Tommy needed to hear as he curled deeper under my jacket.

Pipo needed more, “Are we ever going to be rich.”
“We’re rich now—in kids and bedtimes and hamburgs and night-times on the beach.”
“Fitz! You know what I mean.”
“I know. We’re plenty rich enough.”

The cool wind off the Pacific drove Emma, Margaret, Pipo, and Kaleigh back to cottage where we are staying. EJ, Charlie, and Tommy stayed with me. In the increasing darkness the waves grew larger and more filled with mystery and foreboding. Charlie broke into the elongated silence, “Mason asked me last night if I would go to Toys ‘R US with him. But I said no.”

“But I thought you love Toys ‘R Us?”
“I do, but I knew you wouldn’t let me go. You never let me go.”

EJ laughed with a wisdom that belied his ten years. “You don’t have to go to Toys ‘R Us to get toys.”
“I know, but I do like Toys ‘R Us.”

Tommy perked up from his cocoon on my lap, “I like toys.”

In the true spirit of the constantly churning and changing explosions in his head, Charlie shifted thoughts, “If hot chocolate only costs a dollar fifty,  why did you get mad just because I had two hot chocolates.” That meal was three days ago, but I’m sure to Charlie it will remain in the present for as long as it remains a conundrum to him.

EJ laughed again: “Because two hot chocolates cost three dollars, and nine times three is twenty seven dollars.”

That seemed to satisfy Charlie. “My friends think we’re rich because we have a big backyard, a bus, and a boat.” He connected his thoughts quickly, “Are we going to go sailing this summer? I want to go sailing”

We have an old wooden sailboat that has been sitting in Tom Cummings’ yard all summer—and probably will all winter as well.  It’s a solid and funky old ketch designed by the equally funky designer Phil Bolger whose whole philosophy of sailing is to enable the common person a chance to get out on the water. I wondered if they sensed the wistfulness in my voice. “Next summer we’ll go sailing...” And we will, I’m sure. This was our summer to scrimp and save for this trip to Oregon. My head is still racing through the pile of bills that will meet us at the door in a few days. Somehow they will get paid, and we can always dream of somehow getting ahead of them. I turned my eyes back to the sound of the breaking waves fearful that I would lose the blessedness of the moment. Charlie brought me back. “I’m glad we are not rich. Rich people are not always happy.”

“And poor people are not always sad.” I lifted Tommy off my lap and shook the sand from my clothes, “Wow! My legs are so long they reach all the way to the ground!”

EJ jumped up, “Mine too. And my shadow is chasing me.”
“Mine too.”
“Me too.”

All of them ran through the dunes along a trail they only remember from today, drawn instinctively to the light of the fourth house on the right. I hear them counting and laughing and running. I walked slowly onto the same street, pulling the fullness of the night behind me.

~Manzanita, Oregon, August, 2008

The Only Fishing Pole

Because Charlie caught a huge bass

that bent and strained

his pole into a perfect arc,

the beach is now emptied

of every child
who, in a tumble of collapsing chairs

and dibs and hosies,

race in scattered packs

in opposite directions,

around the pond,

tripping on spruce roots

and ducking below the brambles.

They stop in an impatient line
just before they reach EJ—

the patient, ancient weaver

helping his little brother,
untangle rubber worms

and six pound test line

from the bulrushes

that encircle and wade into

Pete’s small farm pond,
dug laboriously

into an ornery Vermont hill.

Everyone now thinks
the pond is full of larger fish,

but with only one fishing pole,

everyone must wait in line

for their own

greater victory

over a common day.

Artists of Hope

The boys sit and count their money

long before it comes.

They spent the morning

untangling piles of old bikes

from summer weeds

grown through rusted spokes

wrapped around stuck gears

and stubborn brake cables.

They spray locked chains

with bursts of WD 40

and remember different wipeouts

on rides around Tobin Drive

or off makeshift jumps

built out of two by fours

and sheets of scavenged plywood

as if every tumble

adds another dollar of value.

They scrawl signs

with crayons and markers:

$2:00 for any bike!!!

I listen, watch, and smile

and wonder if they know

that every bike and every story

is a purse of gold

pulled from the pocket

of this almost mythical

childhood

Mike Mulligan & Mary Anne

Bring the kids upstairs;

read 'em Sam I Am:

Mike Mulligan

and good ol' Mary Anne.

Say a quick prayer

and turn out the lights;

blow out their ears

to keep their dreams alright.

Now it's just you and me

in our quiet little home

watch some CSI,

and nuke some Newman's Own;

and you figure out

who murdered who

way before

I ever do.

Then you hold my hand

and you fall asleep.

It’s just another way

for love to keep.

There might be a way

in some other kind of life,

but in this life here

you got to love your wife.

So always hold her tight

and always let her know

though the rains will fall

and the winds will blow.

because the sun always shines

from higher up above;

it’s just a simple reminder

about the power of love.

I take the little ones shopping,

but I never know

all the different kinds

of Cheerios.

I buy everyone candy

just to keep 'em all quiet;

but I’m afraid they'll instigate

a supermarket riot.

So close your little tiny eyes,

and I'll roll you to a dream

aisle nine

is full of natural ice cream.

If Momma were here,

well, she might not approve

of our new understanding

of what’s necessary food.

But that's alright

‘cuz I know she'll smile;

it's just another way

to keep love for a while.

—Chorus

In the quiet of the night,

in a window framed moon,

do you wonder why you married

this crazy old loon?

Yeah, I'm crazy for you,

and I want you to know

that love has been planted

and I’m watching it grow:

up into the heavens

past the moon and the stars,

but it all began here

with who you are.

You are the love of my life.

You are the beating of my heart.

You married me,

so I hope your smart;

and if you stop in the middle

of the things that you do

just think of the man

that just loves you…

—Chorus

9/11/04

It is so quiet still
three years on,
wondering why

he didn't hold her
longer, knowing
one more kiss,

one more sip of coffee,

one more search

for the missing bookbag,
would have kept her
from rushing
to the train.

Fallow Fields

The rain falls,
The grass grows,
Nothing is done;
Nothing is left undone.
~Lao Tzu

Every seven years, in biblical times, a farmer would let his or her fields lie fallow, which means "to let rest or remain untilled." It was the farmer’s way of giving the soil a break from the unrelenting harvests that came in the years before, and to give the nutrients a chance to replenish in a natural way—not forced by the hand of man. I feel the same way when the spring break comes up: I need this time to let myself lie fallow before another journey of obligations begins. It doesn't mean that nothing grows—only that what does grow is meant to grow. During this time, I need to let the weeds of my interests sprout before the dictates of work and money and obligation. I need this time to get back in touch with the core of my dreams and to distill the essence from the fruit of each day. Only from nothing can we see the possibility of everything.

On these days, I rise earlier and work longer—but, I only work at what I love. I trek with the boys to the mill pond and tease the horned pout and bass from the cold dark waters. I walk with Denise around Tobin Drive while the kids dart around us on squeaking bikes, roller blades, and skateboards, and I know that I am the luckiest man alive. I clamber around our old sailboat and scrape and sand and paint and varnish. I hammer back the loose boards of winter; rake and sweep the yards and gardens; I grease the wheels and change the oil, and I plant the early peas and radishes. I spit in my glove and catch Pipo's fastest pitch or Margaret’s longest throw. I kick back Charlie's rugby ball and collect worms with Tommy; I race Emma to the rope swing and back; I saw boards with EJ and try not to worry as he nails them to branches too high on swaying trees; I "hang" with Kaleigh and try to remember who and what I was at seventeen and try to let her know and feel and understand that dreams do come true—but only if you grab on to those dreams with both hands and ignore the drumbeats of those who tell you what you need to do and when you need to do it. Sometimes, Denise brings out popcorn, and we simply sit and watch and wonder.

The beauty is simply in the being. Nothing is done. Nothing is left undone.

And time grows from the soil of the day.

Preparations

Charlie slurps the sky with his snake tongue

and catches the invisible first flakes

while spinning wildly through the backyard;

It is the moodiness of New England

turning winds steadily from the northeast—

the perceptible shift from calm to storm.

A cacophony of maddened grackles

dart through white pines tilting in stilted dance;

Dell starts his old snowblower one more time,

and then points at me like an old schoolmarm,

reminding me of the work to be done:

I tighten the flapping tarp on my boat

and oil the boots I should throw away;

I remind the kids to check their cubbies

and to unload the groceries from the van.

My wife begins filling up the crockpot

and sings, “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive.”

There is a constancy to our motions—

the deer are bedding down in crisp oak leaves;

the town trucks are loaded down with salt;

I hear weather reports from passing cars

and see whole families looking upward.

Leddy wonders who will shovel her walk.

The dogs know to prepare for a long sleep.

Nana and Papa will call from Florida

and tell us of the news reports from there.

We’ll make vague plans for weekends in the spring.

I know as soon as the snow starts to fall

I’ll remember things I forgot to do.

I’m glad for unexpected today;

I need to be reminded once again

how we follow our inbred traditions,

and in the passing of a single storm

we are able to share in this one day

the same unaltered and unspeakable God

The Enigma

Black Pond is not as deep

as it is dark, dammed

some century ago

between ledges of granite

and an outcropping

of leaning fir, huckleberry,

and white pine.

For years I have paddled and trolled;

swam, fished, sailed and sometimes

simply tread water

in the night

trying to pierce

a dark, prickled sky.

Why is is that only now

have I made my way

towards the source,

through the tangles

of bulrush, loosestrife

and sawgrass hummocks,

to this place where

I am utterly lost

and happy

to finally be

as far as I can go?

~Windsor, New Hampshire

The Tide

They are building a world

and the plastic is fading:

Margaret and Eddie's

buckets are split,

pouring out the warm Atlantic

as they race

along the tidal flat,

filling pools connected

by frantically dug canals.

Tommy squats naked

and screams in guttural joy

at the solitary horseshoe crab

donated by a stranger

with a large belly

and a huge smile.

Charlie thrashes through the shallows

chasing crabs

and impossible minnows.

Emma is happy

to let only the wind

fill her net.

Pipo steps warily

and warns us sternly

in his broken English

to anticipate the massive toad

lurking in the undertow.

Kaleigh stands far away

toes lapped

by the edge of gravity.

She is almost a teenager.

I see her

framed in a setting sun,

stretching out her arms,

holding back

the inevitable tide.

Morning Coffee

Tommy must have been here before me:

there are plastic dinosaurs

positioned on my chair

in various poses of intimidation

and courtship.

The Brontosaurus,

who somehow made it

to the top headrest,

rears on his hind legs

and tries to reach

the spider plants

growing in styrofoam cups

on top of the piano.

The lazy triceratops,

trapped on an unsure leather arm,

circles and stares warily across

at T-Rex

who roars and roars and roars

in magnificent moodiness

and waves his absurdly tiny arms

in the primal morning mist.

Before I sit,

I gently lift Barbie

from her soft safe canyon.

I am surprised by her serenity

in such a difficult time.

I settle myself delicately

into this meticulous playground

and make an offering of myself.

And now,

do I dare disturb the universe

with something

as impalpable

as a poem?

Wedding Day

I wish you could be here Saturday

So I could remember you

impatient for things to begin,

shaking your head at some knucklehead

who forgot some something or other.

I wish I could see your tears

well in joy, and pride, and love

into the depths of a life

completely given

to family.

I really just wish you were here.

Denise came to your grave yesterday

and wrote a beautiful letter

to you while

sitting on this simple slab

placed among the common headstones

of neighbors, shopkeepers,

teachers and fireman

and only occasionally someone

we don’t know—

all of them
born into a time

when this town

had a place and a way

for everybody.

You never tried to be different;

you just were.

I’m glad Denise comes to you

and shows her love

in the way only she can give

to the dad she‘s never met.

She noticed the new flowers

Mum, or Patty, or Eileen,

or Mary Ellen, or Annie—

or maybe even Tommy

must have planted—

the fresh watering,

a silent prayer,

the clinging of life and tradition

above your final grave.

The flowers seem so ironic:

your practical bent would have us

planting peas or beans,

squash or corn—

or nothing.

We should just do

what you would do

in our oversized yard:

drive to Vanderhoofs

for a sack of lime and fertilizer,

spread it neatly around

the untamed grass

and call it done—

and simply accept the inevitable

witchgrass and dandelions—

like us:

the weed flowers

that bloomed and spread

in the imprint of your footsteps—

I really do miss you.

I am lost in the directness of your memory—

the spaded and turned topsoil

of remembrance

dug deeply

in some rift in my heart.

Always loved completely

your love continually grows

and needs no labor

to stir to life.

In the simplicity of loss,

I just wish you were here.

Your voice—which was never abashed—

carrying over the congregation:

The scent of Aqua Velva,

Old Spice, and Brylcream mixing

into this beautiful day.

First Day of School

Up three times last night

her lip still quivers,

her stomach

still hurts.

In the big chair

by the window

I hold her and watch

the high school kids

racing down the street

laying out rubber, squealing

around the corner.

My words hang

as if strung from

a paper mobile

in an empty room:

You'll be fine.

It will be fun.

We love Mrs. McNamara.

I hear sirens

and don't let go easily—

angry at time and idiocy,

amazed I'm alive myself.

I gently stroke

her neatly pleated hair

and wipe her cheeks

and brush the new clothes

she picked herself

shopping with Mama

at Wal-Mart.

I hear the deeper horn

of Maynard's biggest firetruck

and the staccato wail

of the new ambulance

we voted in last year.

We are not comforted by words

but by sound—

by practiced motion

in the liturgy

of a familiar parish.

You'll be fine.

You'll love Mrs. McNamara.

Time held

in abeyance.

Supermoon

Last night the August supermoon

reminded me of the fickleness

of time and how

substance becomes shadow

and memories begin

to etch themselves

immutably

into the hardness

of what is

already lost.

Waiting

It’s not like a poem

to come curl by my feet

on this morning too beautiful

to describe,

though I am looking

and listening

and waiting:

A rooster crows

above the low hum

of morning traffic;

the trash truck

spills air from brakes

and rattles empties into bins;

my neighbor hammers

his endless projects

with meticulous efficiency,

so I try to do the same:

Slowly sipping coffee

from an old mug

with a broken handle

I cast a trusted lure

into a familiar hole

and pull these few drops

of dark, still waters

into my boat.

After Eighteen Years

At midnight I hear the cuckoo clock chiming

from it’s perch in a cluttered kitchen

locked in cadence with the tower bell

gonging this old mill town at midnight

to a deeper sleep,

like a call to prayer

reminding me that this new day,

starting in the dark of a hallowed night,

is more than just an ordinary day:

blessed by memories

stirring in palpable realness—

your soft breathing beside me

mixing with crickets and peepers

calling out into the darkness,

searching for a dream

fit to be called a true marriage—

our gift constantly opening,

revealing a mystery and a majesty

larger than the box itself—

stunning in the simplicity

of renewed, remembered,

and resplendent love.

Mum

I ran into an old friend one day after visiting my mom, who was entering what we all knew were her last days or weeks. Struggling for words to express his sympathy for both myself and my mom’s condition, he said, “Mary is not the mother you knew.” I guess in a way, none of us are ever that person whom we knew. Every day is a new contract with a life that simply—and often painfully and poignantly—comes with new terms and conditions that we have no choice but to accept and embrace with dignity, grace, and wisdom. No matter what life threw at mom, she accepted the terms put before her; and the world—and especially our world—was always a better, more loving, and infinitely richer place because of her; and though at the end she was not the person we remembered, she was always the mother we had, and she somehow managed to make everyone around her feel “mothered” right up until the very end.

She hated whenever I called her “Ma,” but, still, she was always “Ma Fitz” to anyone whose own mother was displaced by time, fate or distance. Even the toughest kids in town knew that as soon as any one of them placed a foot on Fitz territory, the rules of Ma Fitz were all that mattered. But, along with those rules came a woman who accepted anyone, anytime into a house already crammed with kids. We learned early and often that it is not the size of the house that matters, but rather, the size of the door—and like loading a dishwasher—there’s always room for one more.

On a Sunday night, some months ago, I walked into my mother’s room at Concord Park, and without thinking, I went straight to the refrigerator. It’s the same mechanical motion I’ve made every day that I’ve walked into her kitchen since I was a little kid—no matter where she lived. I didn’t even know what it was I was looking for, but I knew that mom had to have something in there for me.

Maybe I am hungry to know that Ma will still feed me. The refrigerator from my childhood—bursting with unending trips to Stop and Shop, Triple A, and  Star Market is now a small countertop square in the corner of an uncluttered kitchenette. I open it and stare at the small bottle of ginger-ale, the pint of milk, the dainty plate of cookies and the half a sandwich, and drift back into the memories that persist and gnaw and flow out of that small space.

I still expect to see gobs of grapes, oranges, and apples; chocolate pudding, leftover tuna casseroles and Shepard’s pie, Appian way pizza, kool-aid, custard, baloney; and eggs: pickled, deviled, scrambled, and boiled; and potatoes: fried, mashed, hashed and rehashed in the unending evolution of necessity. But sometimes, when times were harder (times that were never actually mentioned but were full of green stamps and coupons) mom made potato buds: dry flakes with carnation instant milk and two tablespoons of butter, mixed into a pudding like potato that was a perfect place to hide the peas, beets, boiled onions, liver, cod and other scourges of an Irish Catholic childhood; food that kept us at the table long after dinner, stubbornly poking and dabbing the edges with tears and a fork until someone—and rarely mum—relented in their stubbornness. And when we were really young and the milkman came everyday, we pulled out the whole milk with cream tops in glass bottles with paper caps; EJ, our almost epic father,  would paw the top shut and shake the heavy cream back into the milk itself, exhorting us to imitate his practiced perfection—which none of us could do—and someone always spilled the milk on the cracked formica table and vinyl chairs, and he always screamed, “Every night! Somebody has to spill the milk every single night!”

And then after the mopping rags, dinner resumed in the chaotic recollections of the day; fights about whose night it was to do the dishes and who didn’t mow around the trees, who got seconds last night, and who got a C in penmanship, and who shouldn’t get two hydrox cookies for dessert because they weren’t smart enough to hide their peas in the potato buds!

And we sat in the same seats: I had little sister Annie on my right, always holding on to her waitress pad from Friendliest that she used to take our drink orders and would nod her head and say “thank you very much” and move on to the next of us; and little brother Tommy on my left who we could always get to laugh (and eventually spill his milk) even when he had no clue why he was laughing; and my big sisters staring across from me: Eileen, with her studious perfection and black and white perception of right and wrong, who for some reason Mum put in charge of making sure my bed was made and my room was clean—and who fined me a quarter when it wasn’t, but still I took her to Russo’s on my birthday when I could only bring my best friend; Mary Ellen with her CCHS sweatshirts and unending commentary on everything good, bad, cute or not under the sun—a gift she keeps to this day, and who came to every game I ever played and made the scrapbooks I would never make; and Patty, so old I hardly knew her, until she died so young that I can’t forget her….

And in the overstuffed kitchen, dad’s back was crunched almost against the basement door, and mom was pressed against the dining room wall—the room with the walnut table and eight matching chairs that we never seemed to use—like a museum stuffed with bone china and silverware that we polished every Christmas, bought, I’m sure with the green stamps and coupons.  We could live without the dining room; but we lived and grew in the kitchen. We gathered in that kitchen everyday like chattering birds drawn to a stubbled and time-worn field—and out of that space we were reborn each day.

Every morning mom poured the Wheaties, boiled the oatmeal and cut the grapefruit while we listened to Joe Green in the BZ copter mumbling unintelligible warnings about tie-ups at the Alewife circle and sang along to “Watch me wallabies feed, mates, watch me wallabies feed.” Dad would grab his briefcase and we’d all try to be the first one to scream “Bye dad!” in a cacophony of competition, and, as if on cue, mom would sneak behind me and hold my head while I jerked convulsively, and she’d rub a warm wet cloth across my face and straighten my clip on tie and try to force down my cowlick and pick at my ears until I was fit to be presented to Sister Jean Beatrice—and, by some sort of convoluted math, to God himself.  And then she’d sit in her chair, quietly, and write her own mother a letter.

Marion Fahey, 84 John St. Dalton MA. Every single day she’d write her mother a letter.

One of us could get the letter paper; and one of us could get the envelope; one of us would get to lick the stamp; one of us could put it on the letter; one of us could carry it to the mailbox, and the last one could lift up the metal flag. I never knew it was a ritual of perfection—a continual journey into the heart of the mystic love of family. You never know, but still, you remember.

Over the past few years, Alzheimer’s has slowly chipped away at the edges of her memory, but never to the point where she lost any of her true self.  One day she’d remind me that it’s my childhood friend Danny Gannon’s birthday, and on the next day she’d ask me who my pretty children are…and like polite grandkids they would dutifully tell her their names once again, except for Tommy:  “You know me Grandma, I’m Tommy!” and who’d crawl on her lap and ask for a kiss—“Not that kind of kiss—a chocolate kiss.” And she’d smile and say, “Of course, I know you. You’re Tommy.”

I’d go to see her and we’d look at ads for cars in the Boston Globe.  She wanted a Toyota. “Your father loved his Toyota.” I smile to her, “That’s because Toyotas were cheap, and dad loved cheap.” It didn’t matter that she would never drive again. It didn’t matter that we would have the same conversation the next day. It didn’t matter that soon she might slip into a cloud of unknowing. It only mattered that she was there and in the magic and mysterious majesty of memory, and she will always be here.

We all remember mom, Mary, Mrs Fitz, and Ma Fitz in our own ways, and I know all of you remember her for what she did “for” you. Maybe she knit you a sweater, or sewed a first communion dress for you, or showed you how to quilt or bake or fry or can, or freeze. Maybe she made you dinner, washed your clothes, gave you a room for a few days, weeks, or months or a place to come on Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, or any common night when you were hungry for love and acceptance. Maybe she played bridge with you, or took you to White’s Pond, Stinson Lake, Tenney, Waterville or Cannon, or took you to dinner at Russo’s, Friendlies or Jimmies, or drove one or two or three hundred miles to be with you on a special day—or on any given day—when life was too special to go uncelebrated or too crushing to be alone. Maybe she taught you how to be a mother, a friend, a wife, or simply a good person. Maybe she let you marry one of her children and then loved you more than her own kids. Maybe she taught you how to never yell, but just give you that look. (Only Patty seemed to have mastered that look…The rest of us find it easier to yell.) It is easier to remember Mrs. Fitz than to be like Mrs. Fitz.

Sometimes God takes one to touch and teach many. Today is that day. God has blessed us by putting mum into our lives, and though our memories grow from different soils in different gardens, we live today through a shared memory.

Nurture those memories. Hold them. Cherish them.

Thanks for being here. Mum always loved a party.

Weeds

Somewhere locked

in this choke of weeds

spread like a mangy carpet

is the hardened vine

of Pipo’s Concord Grape

he planted in an eager spring

three years ago.

Gasping for air and sun and water

perhaps it has found some way

to hide from my flailing hoe

and the bitterness of my neglect.

Maybe it has buried itself

below the transient roots

of witch grass, sow thistle,

and cockleburr

and can only wait

for another spring

bursting forth

from fresher ground.

Dad

Moaning like a lost whale

the thin ice 

bellowed behind us

then cracked and rang

as if spit from a whip.

The sharp steel of

my over-sized skates

etched unspeakable joy

into the slate-grey,

reptilian skin 

of Walden Pond.

Our mismatched hands

gripped together

in the fading light

of a January afternoon,

And you pulled me

onto untouched darker ice 

where fathers 

should never take sons.

You circled tighter

and, spinning like a bullfighter,

you let me go, 

splayed across the ice,

arms outstretched,

screaming back to you

out of the black hole 

of memory.

The Love That Flows Unending

Another night of playing,

And I’m driving home alone;

I make the right at Verrill farm:

Two miles and I’m home.

I pull into the driveway

To the red cape on the right,

But the porch swing’s the only thing

That waits for me tonight.

You won’t be sleeping on the couch

With the phone still in your hand;

No half-sipped Lipton iced tea

And burnt popcorn on the stand.

Only the old stuffed chair

In the corner of the room,

Where I close my eyes and count the time

To an ancient lonely tune:

I need you here beside me

Like the winter needs the spring

Like the flower needs the seed

To give life to everything

Like the breath we share between us

In the whispers of the night

Like the love that flows unending

When we hold each other tight.

This house, it speaks a language

From every hinge on every door;

And we know the sound of every kid

By how they run across the floor;

We know the sound of every round

Of every battle lost and won;

But I need you here to let you hear

The unsaid and undone.

You know, I tried to sleep alone last night

But I was kept up by the moon

Making shadows and shapes

That danced around the room;

I tried to hold you tighter

Than I ever held before,

But I woke and found, scattered ‘round,

The pillows on the floor.

—Chorus

So, I’ll leave the doors all open

In case you sneak back on the moon

And find the red cape on the right:

And me waiting in the room;

Or I’ll catch you in the windows

Filled with wispy thread;

And pull you gently down

Onto our downy bed.

And I’ll lose this empty loneliness

In the beauty of your eyes,

Tangled in the love

And sleeping by your side—

And I’ll whisper softly to you

And you’ll know that it’s for real,

And you’ll know that you are everything

Of every thing I feel.

—Chorus

The Busdriver

While we parents talk

about a dog who died,

the schoolbus stops

further up the street than usual.

The kids energized

by the unexpected

run from John and Helen’s mailbox

and make a surprisingly dutiful line

closer to Dell and Dawn’s

towering catalpa.

Backpacks swaying, marching

in mock rhythm,

they squeeze two abreast

up the massive narrow steps

and bump down the aisle

to their usual spots,

then flatten their faces

against the cold windows

and wave to us

in robotic ritual.

“No wonder.” Someone laughs,

‘Sharon is not driving the bus.”

And we laugh and wave

at the new driver

and eye him carefully

and watch in uneasy acquiescence

until he makes

the predictable turn

onto Sudbury Road.

Big Sister

When the kids

polish the fireplace mantle

with Pledge and handi-wipes,

they hold a small frame

of Patty and me—

the only picture we have

with just each other.

In silent reverence

they turn it just so—

so I can sit in this chair

and remember the love

that was never

actually spoken
but gestured in every action
in countless days.

And in the same way,

during quiet walks,,

down cracked paths

through winter deadened fields

I see the hand of God

lifting, turning and holding

you before me.

You seem to be everywhere I go.

I am drawn to your memory

by a common house sparrow.

Forty Niner

In the heavy-eyed morning

I read and re-read

the pile of birthday cards

scribbled and crayoned

and stacked on my crumpled bed

by kids more eager for this day

than their old man.

I lure them to my bedside

with tales of precious gold—

and then snatch them

and hold them at arms length

kicking and squealing

and slowly lower them down

into the tickle monster.

(I need to be sure that

forty nine years

can't kill the magic.)

After they scatter into the day,

I think of my own father

holding me high in disbelief

at some Boston Catholic hospital—

his first son after three girls.

Out of so much memory

I don't remember

any of his birthdays,

and neither, perhaps,

did he remember

his own father,

except as the same

engulfing presence.

Long in their graves,

we are all fathers now—

closer now than we have ever been,

Finally sharing

in the same

meticulous repetition

of creation.

The Mystery Within

EJ wanted a banana tree for Christmas

so that early morning

brought a plastic bag,

a few meager roots

and no directions.

I bought some potting soil

and a square cedar box

EJ placed deliberately

by a westward window.

He gently splayed the roots,

pressed the soil,

and smiled and shrugged

with his calm and gentle

equanimity.

For years now

the tree has lived and died

in a cycle of births

and deaths

on meager rays

of a distant sun,

cups of water,

leftover Gatorade, cold tea

and the remaining milk

from bowls of Fruit Loops.

New England is not kind

or welcoming to anything

not from here, practicing

a stoic and mystic

indifference to all of us

transplanted bodisattva’s

who somehow persist

in spite of everything

and our tender shoots

harden into a pithy bark

and we manage to survive

on the mystery within.

Evolution

The coyotes and fisher cats

seem intent on striking

some new deal

with each other

to toy with our fears

in this gentleman’s wilderness—

patches of dense woods

dotted with overgrown fields,

riven and intersected

by highways, powerlines

and quiet, suburban

neighborhoods.

Last night it was the coyotes

who edged closer

chattering and howling

in the scrub brush

below the power line,

reminding me

in staccato yelps

of the precariousness

of evolution.

Dealing with Ether

Trying to only see

what is in front of me

my eyes are continually drawn

away from this page

and the work left to be done—

my labored words etched

and scratched away

like fleeting mosaics

in dry sand.

I need a windowless cell

to work the alchemy

that shapes the palpable

from the ether of thought.

It is hard to imagine

any poem more important

than the massive bolts of ash

dry and brittled

in an overgrown field

waiting to be split and stacked

into a perfection of form

and preparedness.

Denise

There is something about coming home

to this empty house, yesterday’s

heavy downpours scouring

clean the already

weathered deck

where I sit

wishing for,

wanting,

you.

Simple Things

There is a heaviness in this morning heat as I sit and sip my morning coffee. From my back porch the half moon hangs in a hot dull blue above the soft green of the trees lining my yard. On the street, the trash truck is beeping incessantly in reverse. (Why, I don't know.) The muffled traffic on 117 seems more distant than ever before. The yard is as the kids left it: the mower parked in front of the soccer net, trucks scattered in the sandbox, towels hanging on the porch rail; and the balls—footballs, baseballs, soccer-balls, basketballs, and whiffleballs—grow like fungus scattered on a feral lawn. The kids will return next week. I can already hear them screaming as they jump out of the bus. They will disperse like a flock of startled grackles into every corner of the yard; they will try to catch up on everything at once. Every ball will be chucked to a new home; the swings and the slide will be tested; the blackberries will be gorged; the cats will be chased under the shed; the sprinkler will go on—and so will life as we know it as the beautiful panoply of seven kids returns to their other Eden.

It is strange to be here alone. Denise and the kids are up in their other paradise at Windsor Mountain. I came home yesterday to do a couple of shows and pad the bank account before I head back up later today. From there, we'll load everyone on the bus and keep going north for a weekend in Vermont with cousins and friends on Pete's mountain tree farm. We'll climb the mossy waterfall and fish for bass in the pond, and roast and sing around a massive campfire. We'll flip pancakes and make challenges and boasts for 'capture the flag', and we'll climb the small peak and look south and lie about how about far we see: “There, past the far mountain, I see Maynard, and I see Gramma Mary knitting on the porch—and there's Soren knocking on our door. He's yelling, “Where are you? Are you ever coming home?'” In the mid century of my life, every memory becomes a blessing—a host offered to a loving and waiting deity. In every moment there is nothing more that can be done. We simply are what we need to be.

Summer for us is a time to live and relive every moment. It becomes a tapestry that we hold like a child's blanket throughout the rest of the year. It is the promise that we repeat to ourselves when dragged back into the rituals of our other life. We wait in expectation of the returning dawn. We gather our scrapbooks and laugh at the memories. We go back to the pond. Tommy paddling around on a surfboard singing, “Merry Christmas, I can swim.” EJ caught in mid air trying to back flip off the rope swing, his body a tattoo of bug bites, scrapes, sunburn and muscle; Margaret celebrating her first headfirst dive, the wet jangles of bracelets she wove during some craft’s class glistening on her ankles, wrists and neck; Emma squatting at the edge of the dive tower peering in her solipsistic intensity into the waiting abyss of joy; Pipo neck deep in the pond counting out the seconds he can tread water: “One- two-threefourfive six!” Kaleigh, bedraggled and smiling after two weeks of paddling and climbing and becoming a young woman, is surrounded by friends who think she's the coolest kid on the planet—and Charlie—everything to Charlie is joy: seven years old, his long blond hair in dreadlocks, soaring higher and spinning wildly off the rope swing as if gravity only applies to the timid. Always near, always one clutch away, Denise leads them everywhere: cheering, brokering, warning, and loving—and loving, too, every second of every summer day.

Nothing we do is grand. No place we go is uncommon, but in the steady flow of simple actions we flow into the greater sea of common, ordinary joy—and that is all we need. It is all anyone needs.

As you write, don’t forget to celebrate the common and the ordinary. Don't wait for inspiration. Don't wait for something extraordinary to write about. Simply look around you and within you. Weave your own tapestry out of the life you live. If what you see gives you joy, it will give others joy to read about it. If what you do is hard and moiling, let your writing capture that toil, and we will live more fully and think more deeply through your efforts. We often travel too far to see too little. Let your own backyard—the life that you know best—be the place where you begin.

In the end, we can only write well what we truly know.

Start there.

All That’s Left

All that's left

of the long winter—

a mitten in the daffodils.