Of Two Lives and One Man

Of Two Lives and One Man

(“I die every day! That is as certain, brothers and sisters, as my boasting of you—a boast that I make in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 1 Corinthians 15:31)

Oklahoma’s sun is a hot towel sauna
that makes your sweat bead up and fill
every pore until the skin skips breathing,
absorbing each ray of heat magnified by
the tiny beads’ lenses on every square inch
of uncovered skin.

A hod-carrier from early morning until
the afternoon cured his legs like the mortar
he carried; the bricks were stacked; play-school
children’s pyramids. The only definition: wider
at the bottom than at the top. And I would carry
nine at a time, a full brick-tong’s load, to the
top of the scaffolding where, three stories high,
he dropped them, and like a baby monkey, climbed
the scaffolding to begin again; and again, 20 times
again. Three years married, four years out of high school,
the young scholar sweat his muscles dry.

The Northwest’s drizzle is a cold rain forest
that leaves the damp on every roof green, moss thicker
than the sod by April. Thirty-seven years married,
forty out of high school,
the air always sounds like a trout stream at night
just beyond a canvas-tent’s walls.

A chronic head-tong grabbed him just about each ear,
and the step from bed to floor is the greatest attempt
of the day. From mid-morning when pain has settled
to the sound of distant gongs, until mid-afternoon when
it arrives again full-on, he tries, like he did decades ago,
to simply sweat out one more our of the day. But, his
mind a fog,
his head fully vised,
his ideas old,
his hopes sold for a simple day when five minute phone calls
do not drain what was empty a full hour before.

And though we all begin to die once we cough into being,
and though God knows I could never leave the love I’ve known,
I would question Job, except he had an ending while he lived;
Lord of All, hear the whining drill that barely shows upon my face.

The Pain Took Over

The Pain took Over

(“The path of the godly leads to life. So why fear death?” Proverbs 12:28)

There are days for sitting outside the tent,
leaves and needles scattered, pinecones the squirrels have
rattled, and the wisps of last night’s fire are faint smoke
in the midmorning warm. No one offered, before I turned 20,
that days like these might cease, that age would counter the
delight of waking in the woods.

There are days for waking before the children,
vacation opens the door, the chivalry of open-ended mornings.
Those days, having found a grassy patch, mom and dad
have the grey cabin tent to themselves. Two young boys giggle
in their two-man dome tent next door. Dad was always gone
before they awoke,
and returned by the time coffee was on. He had discovered
his anonymous café. No one suggested, before I turned 50,
that I would rarely wake before 10.

When the pain took over, it was a downhill coast across weeks,
(allergy, infection, spinal fluid, immune reaction), and had to end
at the bottom of the hill bouncing with only an annoying start.

When the pain too over, it was a nonstop careen down the months,
(rare disease, unknown cause, no cure, relief a mirage), pinball
crashing from specialist to specialist; each appointment a
half-hour dissertation of the physicians’ reputation and an empty
jug of answers: $150 per hour please.

When the pain took over, it was monotonous train clacking down the years,
(same song, same verse, more drugs, no cures), pinball machines
attack my pain like a steam-engine demolishing meditative retreat.

No one told me, an hour, two at the most, is all, before I’m 60,
I can focus; read, paint, write or sing. Set up camp: out of the question.
Run down a forehand: leave my head on the baseline. Take
my darling to dinner: lay my head upon the table.

Cry and hope, question and sling the quiet out the window;
I’ve heard the answers, the air, the acquaintance, the songs,
the patience I am told inspires the bold.

If I could choose one afternoon, it would be, soon please,
to live from then till dusk without a single grimace at all.