Things that make me happy.

I'm indulging myself here. In an effort to shake my cranky-pants mood I'm surrounding myself with things that generally don't piss me off. I wore my favorite non-running shoes to work today, listened to 80's hair bands on XM as I drove to work, I may eat a greasy-cheesy non-healthy cheeseburger for lunch, and I'm posting a poem that makes me happy. This is what I got today folks. Nothing much to see here, move along.


The Faith of Birds

This morning driving to college
To teach a poetry class,
A row of ringed-necked geese
Walked across the parkway
Between Old Keene Mill and Ox Roads.
I stopped in the left lane
To count eighteen birds
March past my bumper
Assured that the world
Would stop. It was me
Checking the rearview mirror
To see what traffic would do.
It was my rational philosophy
Undermined by geese refusing
To look at me in the truck
Cars lined up behind us.
Accelerating, I though, well
That's poetry; a line of geese
Walking across a road
Under the rumble of warm engines
Halted for the slap of webbed feet
On asphalt. They walk like they could fly.
Mark Craver

Family resemblance

I spent a good part of last night reading poetry. This is not a normal occurrence for me. Poetry in general, frustrates me, it’s not something I can remotely imagine writing, or at least writing well. I was reading my brothers poetry. This is sometimes a happy exercise, where I get to remember the people and stories he told me about during or after his writing process and sometimes it’s more of an exercise in twisting the knife in my heart since he died. Last night was a little of both. I’ve decided to be okay with that. Decided that like my opinion even mattered.

This book in particular always appealed to me, the black cover and ominous title calls to my own darkness. The book is dedicated to a high school friend of his, his wife and their daughter. The wife died about 3 months after the birth of that daughter. She had apparently dismissed some discomfort for some time thinking it was normal postpartum recovery. It was stomach cancer, and quite advanced by the time she pursued it. I remember Mark telling me about Sheila and tearing up talking about his friend’s pain.

I know that friend well; he has been a great source of comfort to me since Mark’s death. It’s hard sometimes; his voice on my voice mail or name in my inbox makes me choke up, well up. I know how much Mark loved him, know that love was returned and is now shared with me. It’s hard to accept that kind of love. I find myself worried that I won’t meet with his approval and I’ll lose his presence in my life. He has no family obligation and I am afraid of loss that big, again. For the record, I didn’t handle it so well the first time.

This particular book is full of stories of loss. The title proclaiming the theme starkly, “They come for what you love.” There’s not much hope in this book. It makes me wonder about this period in his life and it frustrates me that I don’t know why the work in this book is so sad. I looked at the publishing date again to try and place that time in my life. 1998. I brought my puppy home that year. I started leaving him with Mark when I traveled. Mark’s house was well and widely known as Camp Craver - Where dogs can be dogs. Mark didn’t care if they slept on the furniture or got the floor muddy or barked at the neighbor kids or chewed on the trees in his back yard. He gave me good advice that year when I found myself involved in a wedding I believed was a mistake. He went on motorcycle rides with my boyfriend of the moment. We went to high school football games together. I met more of his friends. The math teacher that played Pink Floyd on Fridays for his students and still looked like a 'bad boy' from the late 80's; long hair and earrings included. We went to the renaissance festival and paid "the insulter" to make fun of the math teacher.

I also wonder if I’ve misinterpreted this book. There are a few places where I catch him speaking to a more general mistreatment of human beings by other human beings, e.g, “What won’t we kill in each other?” And sounding outraged at the general unfairness of the world "They invented love so they could laugh at it."

Is it that I am enough like my brother that merely being witness to the everyday shit people inflict upon each other; that seeing, hearing, or being somehow associated with things that make you flash back to being 7 stomping around in circles and screaming "It's not FAIR" revisit you when you are alone and feel the need to get it out.

I hope so.