His broken down body had enough
power left to leave the line of cars
in late January, enter the cold while
others sat in warmth listening to
WLS and waiting for the train to
pass. He didn’t; he met the train
at the bend and said, “Take me.”
It spit him into a thousand pieces;
rolled over what was left and came
to a screeching halt in much the
same way as those back at what
used to be called home did, too.

A small, news item, a blip
in the local newspaper: man
killed in car crash on way
to birth of son; mother-in-
law killed in crash. Speed
was a contributing factor.
Won’t make national news
to be repeated over and over
and over for days and weeks
and months and years like
TERROR. Thirty to forty-
thousand dead on the high-
ways each year, a hundred-sixty
thousand grief-stricken for
life; the forty-thousand
only get a blip. There was
a bomb threat today and we
will be hearing about it ad
infinitum. There were twenty-
some injured and killed in
what has been termed a terror
attack and we will hear about
it ad nauseam. Xenophobic
politicians spout jingoism, native-
ism and garbage talk fascism
and the news media gnaws on
the carcass for ratings and
money and the terrorists
hold our gonads in their hands
while big, ballsy BMW’s, et. al.,
chase HORROR down on the
highway. We have our priorities:
“Help! TERROR! The sky is falling.”

A thousand Indian farmers
from India committed
suicide because there
is no more water
in the aquifers.

Thousands of Indians died
because there was no
more water in the
wishing well
of good will.

The cowboys all died
because there were
no more Indians
to kill and there
was no more
water in
the aquifers.

The cowboys just jumped
into the dry well
without saying
farewell.

Nobody said farewell
as they all jumped
into the dry well
following

the Indians from India,
the Native Americans
and the
cowboys.

A huge pile of guns was
found around the dry
well. They didn’t
do any good.

They didn’t save
a soul.
There was only one
place to go —
the deep, dark, dry hole.

We drove cross state through rainy, cloudy skies
and traveled through the run down neighborhoods
of the city raised up and then cast down
by crony capitalists in big board rooms
who left at the end of the day for waterfront homes
and ultimately abandoned the city to destitution —
bombed out houses and garbage in the yards
and victims left without the resources
to turn things around for them and their kids.
We traveled ‘cross the state to care for our dog
who is destined to get a more compassionate deal
than all those humans left with only prayers to heal.

A leading anthropologist/theologian
stated fatalistically, given human

nature, that guns win. And liberal,
Hollywood actors, directors and

producers cheered all the way to the
bank after their last “shoot ‘em up,”

and just before they, with tongue-in-
cheek and all the sincerity of the

meek and mild and righteous, joined
in the next call for gun control.

It’s fun to live for a while
in the immediate,
childlike wonder
of magic — Houdini
and certainly Carson, too,
but it’s all slight of
hand and control through
and through.
Then there is mystery,
the bowing before the
Compassionate Heart
at the center
of life, the wonder that
lasts as eternity,
past, present and future,
then and now and then,
too.

He doesn’t know why people keep killing themselves off
through war and terrorism and domestic violence and
robberies and death by way of the highway because they

are only going to live to be about seventy-five on aver-
age anyway but that seems to be the way of the world.
Then he thought about what happens after death whether

at the average age, older or somewhat or a lot younger
due to violence. Most people are pickled, put in a casket,
then in a waterproof, bug proof vault (which has such

a nice ring to it) and then placed six feet in the ground,
when it would be much more helpful for a resurrection if
the remains were burned up as in ashes to ashes to be re-

constituted in a new sort of way if and when the general
resurrection were to happen and if there isn’t a general
resurrection in the way we have been told, there would be

a resurrection of ashes to animal, vegetable or mineral,
earth, wind, fire and water with a personal insignia of
everyone’s DNA on it all in a new kind of earth, so God

would know who to call by what name. Just think about how
difficult it would be, even for Jesus, to enter the water-
proof, cement vault, when he had only walked through walls

and presumably the huge stone had to be rolled away from
the tomb for Jesus to emerge (but then again that was
probably for the visitors’ benefit) and then what do you

do with all the embalming fluid — formaldehyde, methanol,
and other solvents — oceans of solvents? They’re pollutants
and pollutants can’t enter the new heaven and earth I would

think. Jesus isn’t into pollution. He’s into spiritual
reconstitution, otherwise known as resurrection, which
is where everything is to be redeemed, which is differ-

ent from ordinary reconstitution, which is when you
would have to go through the whole mess of living and
dying once again, like Lazarus, more often than not,

from some kind of violence if things keep going the way
they are. The spiritual body thing is better. It’s all
so mysterious. Can’t we just think in metaphors and similes?
Jesus did.

He sat on the front stoop
after school all alone,
no one home.
He thought he had been
abandoned.
He cried the cry of
those in despair
and then his father
drove up and his
mother got out
and all was in
repair.
She said, “Dinner
soon will be
prepared.”
He wiped his nose
on his sleeve
not wanting them
to know how much
he was displeased
but pleased
he was no longer alone
on that front stoop.

It was the holiday travel show of
Europe and Scandinavia and as he
watched he realized what was so
familiar and now seemed out-of-place
demographically to his experience.
There were all the sights and sounds
and people from his background,
his understanding, his experience and
none of the people who had come
to be a part of holiday festivities
in America in recent years.
It was an eye-opener.
He waxed nostalgic
for what had been
but he knew it
could never be again
as an exclusive Christmas.
He thought of the previous Christ-
mas eve in the Southwest suburbs
of Chicago with his Hispanic
relatives by marriage. What fun it
had been to partake of all the food
and festivities.
The Northern Hemisphere
meets and greets the
Southern Hemisphere
and all were of good cheer.
He loves the English carols,
Dickens’ Christmas Carol, A
Wonderful Life, A Christmas
Story and his dad’s Swedish Glug.
He now loves
a Mariachi Christmas with
the spicy flavors, all the
relatives and really good,
blue agave tequila.
Merry Christmas and
Feliz Navidad sung first by
José Feliciano and then
Stevie Wonder, and then
he thought of Andy Williams
singing, It’s the Most Wonderful
Time of the Year, and this year,
it is.

He sought to be a pious mystic
with serene and heavenly
visage, perhaps
Gregory of Nazienzen
who told us we were gods
through Christ, gifts to
God, transformed in form,
or Julian of Norwich whose
soul dwelt in God and
in whom she saw no difference
from her own substance.
Ah! Ecstasy!
But they had not experienced
Holy Matrimony.
Aye, and there’s the rub.
It’s much harder to be
holy
when slogging through
the sometimes muddy
waters of sometimes
unholy matrimony.
It’s not the baptismal
waters so holy,
but then again, he
didn’t want to
give up the
occasional
ecstasy of holy
matrimony.
He simply
would have to
leave St. Julian and
St. Gregory be.