for the users and takers

Hi there! Remember me?
The one you decided didn't matter, the one that was bad?
I'm not dead yet, though I'm sure it would be a relief to you
should I exit the mortal coil and all, a bit precipitously.

I have no such plans, though. I would not, for one thing,
give you the satisfaction.

But beyond that, why should I let you matter that much?

Lewis Carroll put it best. You're all just a pack of cards.

A flag for Ted Kennedy

I hadn't thought about how I might feel about Ted Kennedy dying. Having spent my life trailing along behind the boomers, I had not felt as identified with the Kennedy clan as so many in the generation prior to mine.

I knew he was a good Senator. I knew that he seemed to be a flavor of good Senator that we don't seem to get much anymore; the liberal kind.

But hearing the news, I found myself wanting to fly a flag I don't own, at half-mast. We do that for Presidents and ex-Presidents, including ones who caused a lot of trouble. Why not for this man, who did a lot of good, a little further down in our national governmental hierarchy?

It seems like an ending of something besides Senator Kennedy, his death. It feels like something larger and longer has come to some kind of sonorous conclusion, some kind of end of childhood. We became the grownups too, long ago. But we never really believed we were quite the same kind of grownups, with our idealism and our counterculture idiosyncracies. Somehow we thought we'd go on forever, or if not, that we'd at least go down nobly in defeat, in the pursuit of our valiant goals, in mortal combat with the terrible enemy.

This death of attrition was the last thing on our minds. It never occurred to us that not only would we age and weaken, but that our ideals, too, might wither on the vine, the fruit of our visions hanging too high. We were sure our history would never be forgotten. Our war, too, would be the last one.

It hangs heavy on many of us, this failure of humility. The best of us, though, do what they can, and do not overly indulge in such self-recrimination. I expect Ted Kennedy qualified for that description.

poem for a friend who is becoming lost

My life is getting a bit better.
I hope yours is too.

I like you a lot.
I think you're a really neat person.

It worries me that some of your friends have turned into my enemies.

When I see you, visceral things kick in. They are like lightning.

Or maybe submerged thunder. But anyway, it's rough.

There were places we went, and stuff we looked at,

And when you almost fell off the mountain, and scrabbled with your feet almost without noticing,

that was pretty cool.

And then there were the times we talked about cruelty
and how bad that is
and how one should always watch out for these things, and
try to cure them,
try to prop up your sick friends,
try to make them whole again.

So, is it all over now, baby blue?
All of that?
All of this life and kindness and love and convention and pain?
All of this ripping?

You showed me once, how to cut an onion.
This way, and that, and how to parse it properly.
You taught me how to brown vegetables in the cast iron frying pan
You taught me how to cook.

I cannot cut an onion without thinking about you.

What am I to do with this?

You stole chile from me, too.
You and your tequila concoctions.
You and your chocolate and chile; you've stolen it all,
and you haven't left me much to work with
for putting it together again.

Yeah, you're friendly
when you have time
when you're not busy

You're a nice person
no question about that.
No question about that.

But there's still too much of my life
that is all about you
And how do I divorce myself from your primateur
without betraying you

You who have managed, perhaps inadvertently
to drive yourself into my gut
into my nut
into the part that grows again
when anything grows again
if anything grows again.

And yeah, sure it will
I will grow again
I don't like to whine.

But I don't want to lose you, either.
I'd like to keep at least a trace.
Something to think about in the bad mornings
Someone to remember when he was funny
When he looked at me like some kind of
beloved kid sister.

And said "We love you, Miep, but you're really weird."