The cottage is as compact and tight

as a vacuum/shrink-wrap bag used to

keep meat and seafood frozen forever

and when thawed as fresh as the day

they were slaughtered or pulled from

the sea. He sits and watches the wind

blowing through the birches in back.

He hears nothing. He wonders if the

cow and the lobster hear the suck-

ing noise when the freezer door is

opened or the thud when it is closed,

or, if like the man in the cottage, life

silently but swiftly passes by.

Do you ever read any of my poems?

he wants of his children to ask,

but thinking better of it like an omen

he just keeps at the poetry writing task.

It is said you don’t just marry the per-

son; you get everybody back to Adam

and Eve. And that’s not bypassing

Cain. The only time his mother enters

the conversation is when she can

turn it into a fight which was al-

ways her forte in life. She lurks,

up and out of the casket next to

his father in a little cemetery

along a railroad track in Lans-

ing, Illinois. He imagines that

his father, from the grave, app-

reciates his wife’s absences in

death as he did in life. They

were like little reprieves from

purgatory. His mother, on the

other hand, on a mission from

hell, plays with her son’s mind

when he hears what he imagines

to be an unwarranted, fabricated

criticism, actually an attack, made

by his wife at the urging of her

dead dad who whispers in her

ear, “See, he’s exactly like I was;

in fact, he is Your Father,” which

translates for her as “Tyrant.” The

man’s mother says, “See, I always

knew you couldn’t measure up.

She’s right. In fact, she’s me.”

So his mother and her father go

at it tooth and nail, metaphorically

speaking, through the minds and

mouths of their children, over

and over again thus confirming

the definition of insanity known

to all readers of the Big Book.

A former friend asked sarcastically

and with a tinge of meanness,

“Do you STILL feel guilty after All

these years?” Is the Pope Catholic?

Born to a Dutch Calvinist mother

and a Swedish Lutheran father he

embraces guilt like an Irish Catholic

mother who owns everything that

goes wrong in the lives of her twelve

children and then makes them feel

guilty about it. He owns guilt like a

Jewish mother whose children didn’t

become Ph.D.s. He pushes guilt around

his psyche like he used to push mortar

in wheelbarrows up plywood planks

in gusty cross winds between floors of

a new construction. Sisyphus has noth-

ing on him. Turns out the former friend

is a Swedish mother who knows a lot

about guilt and just inflicted it on him

and he accepted it like a Chocolate Lab

lowers his ears and accepts the harsh

voice of his master and pleads for for-

giveness even when his master was

just yelling at the T.V.  He thinks to him-

self, at least I keep it to myself, and

then he thinks, surely, there were

times, and, of course, feels guilty

about that which must have been

but which he can’t remember.

Out the door I dash, on my way to school

dodging all the stones like a football fool.

Jumping some and running round others

I clear them all and charge toward brothers.

We join each other and wait for the bus.

As we enter, the driver tells us to stop the fuss.

The same driver drops us off in the afternoon —

we feel the time couldn’t come too soon.

Books in hand and weary to the bone;

I trudge past a rock which is a headstone.

The books slip and fall to the ground;

I stub my toe, bend down, look and frown.

The stone of Swedish granite is hard;

my father’s business is in our yard.

I live in a graveyard; the inscription I’ve read.

It says my father’s name and that he is dead.

It didn’t happen in reality exactly that way,

but it might just as well have been that fateful day.

I’ve been haunted by sudden death since running

past gravestones, wondering when another is coming.

Another came and even though in the past,

it haunts me still and so each day I ask,

as I continue to run past family headstones,

if others run with me or if, ultimately, I run alone?

The dead do not die;

They live on to accuse.

They travel the folds

of the brain stopping

for a while in the

ancient brain and

then moving as on

a roller coaster to

the frontal cortex,

causing fight or flight

panic to the stark

realization, accept-

ance, agreement,

guilt for having

done the deeds

and shame for

just being. Jesus

forgives. It’s easier

for some to accept

than for others. Do

the dead then come

back saying “We for-

give, you, too,” or do

they say, “We were

just having fun at

the entertainment

park in your head”?

Carlos Neruda wrote of a

dog who waited for the self-

professed atheist/Communist

in doggie heaven. I, Christian

that I am, have four who wait

for me – three Chocolate Labs

who will slobber all over me

with celestial saliva and slap

my face with tails lifted high

and swaying in pious praise

and one Beagle/ Dachshund

who will stare me down,

point me in the opposite direct-

ion and tell the others what I

really was like.

On Indian Summer-like days, they bum-

med around Indiana from state park to

state park, hiking flat-lands along a river

running through it, then rugged trails

up and down towering, sandstone cliffs,

around box canyons, into deep gulches –

Indiana? Each evening around the camp-

fire, he tossed his hiking boots and wore

moccasins and thought he was Ojibwa/

Chippewa. Hiking wild, rough, narrow

terrain carved by ice and then Pottawatomie

petroglyphs, in a little spot, a pin’s head

on a map as south as glaciers went before

heading north ten thousand years ago, hiking

up and down sand dunes all around Big

Water, marshes and Massasauga rattlers.

They met two Choctaw from Oklahoma

camping in the dunes who couldn’t believe

the Big Water was so big a person couldn’t

see the other side. The Choctaw traveled in

a forty-four-foot motor home pulling a Jeep

Cherokee and didn’t wear Minnetonka

moccasins around the camp fire. They told

the Choctaw that the Ottawa along the

shore up Michigan-way about a hundred miles

and about a hundred-fifty years ago left

the sands for Big Water farther north be-

cause they couldn’t stand the smell of the

Dutch. The Choctaw laughed and the

couple wished the Choctaw well on their

trip to the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas,

Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras, the

authors of the first American democracy,

and then Abenaki, Haudenosaunee, Mali-

seet, Mashantucket, Mi’kmaq, Mohegan,

Narragansett, Nipmuc, Passamaquoddy,

Paugussett, Penobscot, Pequot, Schaghti-

coke, Shinnecock, Unkechaug and Wamp-

anoag on to Pawtucket and Nantucket down

to Seminole swamps and who knows

where after a Choctaw winter’s stay at a

Florida KOA. He took off his Timberlands,

put on his Saucony trail shoes; they hitched

the travel trailer, left the serenity of the shore,

pulled onto I-94 North and the rude reality

and seeming insanity of civilization while

listening to the fine, flute of R. Carlos Nakai.

So many die in their sleep

with the assistance of

hospice helpers’ helpers

with partners not far be-

hind, slipping away peace-

fully. It wasn’t meant to

be like this, not as they

came to terms with mort-

ality envisioning the joy

of being together for a

decade more, maybe and

then the “Please forgive

me,” the goodbye kiss

and the last “I love you,” but

slam, bam, out of nowhere

ridiculous, idiotic, senseless,

insane, crazy, wrong-side-

of-the-highway driver, crash-

ing into them in a nano-sec-

onds, violent death. What

now; what now? Shock–not

even grief, numb. How to

face another day, one day,

one hour, one second when

the numbness wears thin

and the heart pain perm-

eates every membrane of

existence? After sixty years

of being together, through

everything, no time to say,

“I’m sorry — please forgive

me — I love you –good-bye.”

How to be alone, alone,

alone? How to be? Friends,

loved ones to hold, caress

him like a baby, listen,

listen, listen, hold his

hand, shh, shh, hope

and then, later, maybe

much later, stand, walk,

talk together, maybe,

shh…shh….

Instant, instan,

faster, faste

insta, inst,

fast, fas

ins, in,

fa, f,

what’s happening

happenin’

and on and on

on the i-phone,

insta, inst,

fasta, fast,

Everything,

everythin’

is

happening,

happenin’

fasta, fast,

fas, fa,

f and

gone in

a flash,

flas,

fla,

fl,

f;

well, you

get the

idea,

ide,

id,

always,

i, i, i,

i,i, and

i.