A Sailor Once

 

I was a sailor once, upon the sea,

Gazed on horizon, examined me.

Rising storms embraced the roll,

Teeming water, held my soul.

I hammered and climbed, reached

And pulled and leaned into the wind.

Lifted, shouted, hauled and swung,

Bold heart to windward bend.

I was a sailor once, dolphins at the bow.

Albatross soared the wake we’d plow.

Spraying salt would pervade my breath,

Reflected moon spoke watery death.

I was a sailor once, far. far away.

A sailor once, red sky at day,

A sailor once, no sight of land

A sailor once upon God’s hand.

Foreign ports and narrow eyes,

Piercing doubt, mischievous lies.

A sailor once, I rode the sea.

A sailor once ... will always be.

"For the Love of All Mankind"

 My parents were from small, rural S. C. It was a farming community, mostly cotton and watermelons. Many of the field hands were black. Often growing up the hired help was also black. As a young freckled boy, I just figured black folks were poorer than even us and therefore fell to doing the labor that white folks didn’t want to do.

  I seldom heard any form of derision though yes at times someone would make a disparaging comment about the intelligence or motivation of black people. It strikes me now that even then I was conscious that because they were poor they lacked resources for education, nutrition, and cultural motivation. The climate was scorching hot, the work grueling, and the pay poor.  How would one not move slow … perceive a need to manage strength, harbor resentment towards the source of their suffering?

  There were no blacks in my grade schools. There were two in what we then called Junior High School. My last year of high school federal forced busing for integration was passed. We were the last graduating class that was not forced to bus to other schools.

  There were fights and riots. We managed to resolve them with a minimum of damage among ourselves thanks to a few peaceful “hippies” that set an example of tolerance.

  When he first appeared on the scene, I did not care for Dr. Martin Luther King. Most in my circles felt the same.  He was “rocking the boat.” …. “Stirring up trouble.”

We had always got along with black folks. What was all the noise about?

  In Junior High School they passed out a mimeograph sheet of terms we were no longer supposed to use. “Negro” was out, “black” was the correct term. I found it ridiculous yet complied out of a sense of civic duty.

  Then came the television news. I, like so many, could not ignore the cruelty of white folks spitting and cursing at a lovely African American child in a light colored dress walking the gauntlet to school. I could not ignore German Shepards being set loose on black folks in suits and ties and Sunday best.

  Then I began to understand. The status quo had been fine with me because I experienced nothing negative from it. Now I did. Now I saw the injustice. Then I heard,

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.”

  Then they killed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy … and Dr. Martin Luther King …

 and Robert F. Kennedy … and I knew. We had ignored our prejudice and our fear. Those with the courage to expose it were destroyed.We had brushed it under the rug as an “inconvenient truth” while black folks were tortured and murdered and lynched from trees and worst of all while they were subjected to the worst indignity of all … denial of self worth.

  When I was a wee boy my Mom and Grandmother sent me down to Joyner’s grocery for a loaf of bread. It was a small town and Mama Laney lived across the street from the High School. Joyner’s was just a couple of blocks away but it seemed like a trek through the Sahara that day. Coming back I held the bread up one handed as long as I could. I didn’t want to cradle it for fear of their warning,

 “Don’t squish it like you did the last time, Honey.”

You see the loaf was so long that I had to hold it straight out. After exhausting both arms I was resting and an old black man came up.

“ Reckon I could help you out, young 'un?”

“Oh YES, please. You sure could. I gotta get this loaf of bread back to Mama Laney’s.”

“I just happen to know right where that is.” He grinned a gap toothed smile.

 So he took the loaf of bread, grasped my right hand and walked with me.  I was surprised at the rough, callused, leathery feel of his huge hand encircling my tiny white fingers. I noticed though that his palm was much the same color as mine though he was black as night.

  We stood in front of the house and he asked,

“You gonna be ok from here little fella?”

“Oh yes sir. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

 My mother tells the story of looking out of the window and seeing me standing there with the bread looking up into the face of that tall black, man talking as I was prone to non stop do. She has shared, that though startled at first, she quickly realized that the exchange was harmless. When I walked in I told her what happened. Her and Mama Laney just chuckled at my precociousness.

 I, on the other hand have never forgotten him.

Years later I sat at a desk and listened to a lesson on “the love of all mankind.”

The speaker concluded his lesson with a quote. It never ceases to echo at the core of my being  …

      “Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!^’ ”

I can only pray that we as a nation choose freedom ... rather than fear. 

 

"Uncle Don"

 

 Our Uncle Don, died yesterday. He had been a U.S. Paratrooper as a young man. A rookie had “stolen his air” and he fell breaking “damn near every bone in my body.” They told him he’d probably never walk right again. After quite some time in the hospital he lumbered through another 62 or so years … stomped really, sort of like a friendly gorilla.

 He and eleven siblings were raised in rural S.C. You might say the five boys were scrappy. Nobody wanted to take on Don though.

 He was passionate about fishing, boxing, golf and family and was definitely not adverse to a friendly wager. He loved to laugh. He had a way of teasing you that would make you feel special … like he was letting you into this man club he was a charter member of.

“Bubba, I CAN lend you some money for some new blue jeans if you'd like. Looks like you could use it.” (big grin here)

 There’s like a jillion cousins. He cut all our hair for years and wouldn’t take a dime. You couldn’t force it on him. I hid it on his counter one time. Couple of days later, Dad holds out the cash,

“You ougta know he’s not gonna take it, Bo.”

 I went to visit him toward the end. I’m grateful I beat hospice. I was able to say goodbye.

  “I’ve got too many things wrong, Scotty,” he whispered.

  “As long as my little wife is taken care of, I’d just as soon drift away now.”

 “I knew he was in pain. No way he’s going to complain though.”

 We made sure he was the first to cut our son’s hair too. They’ve always asked about him now and then. You gotta love Uncle Don.  He has a place on our wall at home. I’m glad.

You see, this whole genetic thing’s kind of a trip. When I think about the boys coming into their own I have to figure if they end up being like Uncle Don … I’d be just fine with that. A guy could do a whole lot worse.

Don Hicks … tough, loyal. Truth is … he was sort of a hero to a red headed, freckled boy. Hell … still is.

“Another Cup of Coffee, Please …”

                                  

 Hospice has come to my best friend since adolescence home. He’s been on dialysis every other day for three years. We went in the U.S. Navy at the tail end of ‘Nam on the buddy plan. About half way through our enlistment he started having kidney problems.

 Fast forward 2 transplants, skin cancer, lung cancer and various sundry ailments, torments and treatments later and there you have it. We have had an ongoing discussion over the years on matters of the spirit, God, religion and such. He’s a self-proclaimed agnostic.

  “I’ve just always figured … we’re here and then we’re not,” he said on the phone the other day.

“The thing is,” he continued, “ I just want to keep having one more cup of coffee with Lillian.” (His wife and caretaker) “I just want to look out this window and see another sunrise.”

 “I know you’re tired, man.” I said.

 “Oh yeah, I’m plenty tired and you wouldn’t believe how frail I’ve become but I LIKE it here.”

  I’ve always wondered how he kept on; transplants, dialysis, hospitals, doctors, shots and needles, pain and discomfort. Not just for while but for his entire adult life. His comments have echoed though and I see a hint of the source of his perseverance.

  I’ve always believed in an “afterlife”. No doubt … no friction … just and evolving faith that assures another reality … another place of expanded awareness that I can call “resting with God.” So if I was suffering like Randy I’d just want to go home, I think. I’d want to let go of the pain and surrender into the universe that is abiding faith.

  For him it is an end. For me, I suspect it would be a new beginning. So I’ll go see him three hours away most likely to say goodbye. We are both survivors of violently alcoholic fathers. I think we became codependent for many years. If I could give him anything it would be the hope and assurance that it’s not over. He gets another chance … another cup of coffee with Lillian.

  Guess I’ll just tell him I love him though. 

Standing Over the Marsh

The roar of rolling waves is like distant traffic on this balmy morn.

Sunrise clouds, a nuclear mushroom billowing from earth’s bowels.

Black bird flaps towards me delivering his message of my calling.

The egret’s pure white wings slow motion whips rising over the green haired marsh of earth and mirror black water,

Weathered wooden walkway reaches into the distant trees.

Sea decay wafts, not unpleasant through my brain.

 I can feel in my gut the pollution filtering through the mud and reed.

I stand grateful over this delicate balance ... nature at work.

Near silence rests here but for the distant rumble of ever rolling waves licking at our illusory bastion of solidity

They permeate my mind’s eye, milking the sand.

Lush green truth, eternal, waiting buxom, reeds of life, feed all God’s creatures.

Sun’s light casts reflection and shadow that speak to our bashful psyche that is hiding like a petulant child behind the skirts of Mother Earth.

A community of marsh crab with overdeveloped pinchers like some super hero tennis players lurch about in this times square of mud … holy feces enriching our lives.

I was born here upon the sea and marsh and to them I will always return ... 
as the crow caws me home. 

Memorial Day 2016

 

  I see you lying there in your own blood wondering why and I know. You went to war. Old men decided there was no other way … so you left your fields and stoops.  You took a gun and joined your fellows.

  War … man’s inability to coexist,

  War … stealer of youth,

  Whore of uncontrolled desire that sets men against men in horrible struggle when all any would do is feed the children.

  War … the hateful remnant of a tear stained letter resting soaked in your garment as you lie there dying.

  Rest and leave your weary heart upon this earth that we might raise it in tribute to your sacrifice.

  War and remembrance must be forever intertwined. Should we forget we will all lie bleeding. Though “thank you” be so little to say to you and all your loved ones we can only bow our heads in gratitude.

  Would that your gift instill in us the desire to wage peace rather than …

  War.

 Rest in the peace that we could not sustain and know ... We remember.

Jesus Freaks

                                                  

  It was our senior year of high school 1972. Tensions were razor sharp. We were the last senior class to not be included in the now Federal legislation that began “forced busing” of children to public schools. The government wanted to promote racial integration.

  This was before the proliferation of guns among young people as exists today (2016) yet rumor was that many were armed with knives, brass knuckles, pipes, girls with razors hidden in their afros and such things. 

  As usual the primary instigators gathered their respective cronies. White youth milled about on the concrete commons outside the cafeteria. The blacks gathered on the grass below the wide four or five steps leading down from the commons where the “Jesus Freaks” usually liked to sit cross-legged in soft laughter and subdued camaraderie.

  We were not novices to fist fighting so were prepared though not vocal. My small group was standing clear of the “rabble rousers”. A pang of consciousness troubled me over this ignorant display of mob mentality. I could only muse, “ There’s got to be a better way.”

  Just as the anger was reaching a crescendo, one of the displaced “Jesus Freaks” (white) walked out onto the grass and reached out his hand to a petite black girl in bell-bottom jeans and the requisite afro. After a pregnant pause she took his hand. The pervading roar of animosity subsided.

  He whispered in her ear, kneeled down on one knee and she stepped nimbly over and onto his shoulders. He stood with his lanky frame, long brown hair, dirty jeans with vest and gazed up at the crowd with soft, clear, blue eyes. The chocolate woman-child on his shoulders stared in kind, black eyes sparkling in the sunlight … both smiling.

  I recall the sudden frog in my throat and a welling of tears as I watched transfixed … afraid that someone might see the weakness of my sorrow. Or was this joy?

  The opposing masses from the commons area and grass moved toward one another. We were breathless. First a hand shake then a hug and in just moments most were dancing and riding shoulders and singing much to the glaring chagrin of the rabble rousers. 

     I know today that my tears were not weakness. I know today that it was no accident that a youth that had been branded a “Jesus Freak” was the catalyst for peace. There were no more riots that year at our school.

  Would that all nations and all colors and all religions could ground themselves in the message of Christ. Would that our driving force be like the compassion and love of those two, bright eyed youth on a crisp and sunny day in 1972.

Namaste …