Empty Classroom

There is a sense of the color having been drained from the air
in the classroom, after the last lecture.
The emptiness takes on an echoing depth - 

like a whale singing a seeking song into the darkness -

the song reaches out and out.

The chairs with their arm desks are the same,

and the lectern has not moved. 

The white board needs to be washed down

with its layers of blue and black smudges

like a boxer's face, two days after a fight. 

But everything is different 

the moment the door closes behind the last student.

You may see them individually

on campus or in town -

a year from now one will write politely, asking for a recommendation.

But the class - this leviathan with which you have wrestled

and tried to tame,

struggled with late at night in the waters of darkness

strategizing the maneuvers for the next day -

this thing you have intermittently loved and been enraged by - 

it existed in and in between.  

Now it has dissolved into component parts

and drifted away like driftwood in clumps of two or three -

with a friendly wave and a "thank you"

it has ceased to be. 

And who are you, standing unopposed,

nothing to challenge 

and nothing to confirm?

**

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/Empty-Classroom-e11ol0q

YouTube: https://youtu.be/pbyWL80F9-A

the game

I didn't hear the coach at first

pulling me out of the game early -

I thought I had another inning or three -

or was it another quarter? another period? 

another match? a few more holes?

I thought I'd be walking off of the field

with everyone else, shaking hands, slapping backs

and maybe in years to come,

I'd sit in the stands

and reminisce about the good old days.

Instead, here I am walking back to the locker room

alone.

I wave to the custodian sweeping the halls

under the hard fluorescent lights

pushing a broom that looks like a giant white moustache.

I take off my uniform and fold it neatly on the polished bench

and pull on my jeans.

As I push the aluminum bar to open the door to the parking lot

I am struck by how dark it has become,

how quiet.

The game goes on

and on,

but I no longer hear the cheers from the fans

or the referee's whistle.

I played well, I hope, as I step through the threshold.

I'd like to imagine they will talk about

a while

over beers tonight

or next season when the play 

would have been just right to put me in.

For a moment,

it would be like I was there again.

**

audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/the-game-e11ibke/a-a5m4p8p

YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZrWFDSliOzY

Bargaining with the Devil

I've been bargaining with the devil -
I've promised him every winter morning's brilliant sun
reflecting off of the snow,
and I've laid on the table, like a street merchant,
the quiet of the house just before midnight.

I've handed over, as a gesture of goodwill, 
the smiles and small gestures
of my friends and colleagues, and even strangers.
And of course, as an ante,
my ability to sit and listen to the rain or wind.

The devil nods in gratitude with each proffer,
as if I am so close to his reservation price,
but he only takes
and he has never really said
there was a deal to be had.

**

audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/Bargaining-with-the-Devil-e105q7r

YouTube: https://youtu.be/G3qeAd0alws

this thing

In the beginning, you said

"Let there be us", 

and there was us.
Truly, I say to you,

this is the one God-like thing
by which we recognize each other -
it is the capacity of the soul to create connection

where there was only void.
This thing we call love,
it emerges to fill empty spaces,
invisible except in action,
unlimited by superficial happenstance.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/this-thing-euqk13

YouTube: https://youtu.be/n98YdOiddcU

A meditation by a tree upon the noble truth that the root of all suffering is desire

At fifty I'm coming into my Buddha-hood -

I'm finally starting to let go of desire.
Not the immediate lust
for sex and wine and song -
that is a thing of the body, not the mind.
No - I'm beginning to loosen my grip on should -
the corrosive expectations 
that have been scourges on the present,
the slave master who wielded the whip
driving relentlessly toward power and wealth,
driving with the indifference that comes from knowing
there were a long line of bodies 
to step up when this one failed.
But the hand holding the whip
is attached to the same body 
as the back upon which the blows land.
"To what end, all this toil?" I ask
in my best 18th century diction,
and try to sit still with an empty mind,
here,
beneath this tree,
with its leaves still heavy with spring,
but I am only beginning to let go. 

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/A-meditation-by-a-tree-upon-the-noble-truth-that-the-root-of-all-suffering-is-desire-etd208

YouTube: https://youtu.be/kIzS7j0bqu8 

sailing in company

I wouldn't have chosen you as a friend -

we had no common anchor 

in a sea of choices of companions.

But here we are, decades later

laughing on the phone -

An accident of wind and tide tossed us together

and the things we have in common

are the stories we have shared -

the common weather of 

disappointments and triumphs -

as the world stormed and washed over us

letting us know with certainty

we were single-masted boats in a vast ocean.

We have willed our friendship into being

first weaving strands from the salty air

then rope from those strands.

It is a thing from nothing,

but as our grip on the rudder 

diminishes arthritically,

its strength binds the distance between us.

I wouldn't have chosen you as a friend

when I was young

and did not see below the waves,

when I did not know anchors are meaningless.

I would choose you now.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/sailing-in-company-estojn

YouTube: https://youtu.be/_HuPpbN0SB4

 

cancer killed my mother

Cancer killed my mother this year -

the year I have at last arrived at after so long a latency.
I have wondered about this year -

fifty.

It's a weighty word in your mouth -

it has to be spit out

like a lemon seed.

It lays on the ground afterward,

hard and sterile.

I've resented this year

since her skin took on the yellow of a bad sepia filter

on some influencer's feed.

Cancer is not coming for me this year -

perhaps a heart attack

or a car accident is in store.

But it won't be cancer. 

 

audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/cancer-killed-my-mother-esrh1i 

video: https://youtu.be/lDIGrswWh_I

The Many Days

What have I done with the many days -

the perfect spring ones when you see the daffodil shoots
erupting from the mulch like a promise -
the perfect summer ones when you can paddle on the river
and watch the red-fingered sunset
play across the flowing surface -

the perfect fall ones when the sun is low
and there is morning frost on the grass
and the wet leaves smell like the turning of the world?

finally, what have I done with the perfect winter ones -
the ones when you wake to brilliant white light
reflected off the fresh snow covering 
the lawn you mowed in the summer
the leaves you raked in the fall
your kayak out on its rack
and the mulch beds where the daffodils lay sleeping?

It is on the winter ones that I sit at my kitchen table by the window
my coffee's steam billowing up through the brightness 
from above and below
that I hope with sincerity
that I have not wasted the many days,
even the imperfect ones, which, upon reflection
are not so different, after all.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/The-Many-Days-escm8n

YouTube: https://youtu.be/TpIW7pSF8-g

Morning Commute

I can hear The Downeaster pushing the air ahead of it

before it rumbles past the back of the house, again,

like it does every morning.

In the late days of winter, the sun is just cresting

as we hear the train making its way back to Boston again,

the light glinting off the silver roofs

 just visible from my kitchen table.

At this hour it's businesspeople reading the paper

or their morning emails,

drinking coffee. 

They're eyes rest on the glass of the windows

but mostly they see their calendars and day's meetings

even as the New Hampshire woods slide past.

Some part of their brain is  vaguely aware of a little house with grey siding

they just passed,

sun reflecting off the windows. 

They don't see the man, also drinking coffee,

looking back at them.

They are passing through Newburyport

when I put my mug in the dishwasher 

and wander up to my office

where my own calendar and email awaits.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/FemO2vL8tVU

George

A giraffe is not a horse

of course.
But what if you could ride one and train it to pick apples?
You could saddle up George - you would name your sweet ride George -
and meander into an orchard completely unnoticed
and George would sidle up to an unsuspecting apple tree
and pull one off for you, turning his great neck 
and making a loop of it
to drop it in your hand, and then 
he would pluck another for himself
and you would wander amongst the trees
and the children and their grandmothers
nibbling your apples
and no one would really notice you, or George.
He would be a subtle giraffe,
standing still at times, 
so still no one would see the two of you,
unless you happened to sneeze.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/George-ervjj1

YouTube: 

on this sort of day

 

On a day when there the snow falls without a whisper

fat flakes catching light and slowly piling white,

on a day when the furnace burns steadily

a soothing roar of air and heat,

on this sort of day when I kick my legs over the side of the bed

and the first steps ache in my knees, my back,

but by the time I have my t-shirt on

and,

one step at a time, make it down the stairs to the kitchen

with only a little creaking of ligaments in my feet 

to match the creaking in the old wood,

and,

with a cup of steaming coffee I can sit at the table

by the window.

It is on these sorts of days

that is surprises me how little

I wish for youth again. 

YouTube: https://youtu.be/FbaspS2aqT8

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/On-This-Sort-of-Day-erm8th

moving day

You walk through the empty house and

there is only dust in the corners and impressions in the rugs

where the furniture had rested a few hours before.

Where you sat at a desk against the window

and sometimes stuck, looked up to see a rafter of turkeys

wander out of the woods,

the rug shows where the legs had stood,

and there is an outline where the rollers of your chair 

roamed back and forth as you stood and sat.

In the bedroom there are the rectangular outlines of your dresser;

in the living room more divets for the couch and coffee table.

All the places you sat or slept, dressed or read,

laughed with friends, drank coffee or sipped wine

have been reduced to fibric memories that will disappear

when the crew you've hired to clean the carpets comes tomorrow.

 

YouTube: https://youtu.be/hwzN_84tCL4

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/Moving-Day-erm8pl

A Man's Song

I paused to stand upon the ice in the beaver's meadow
where he had dammed a brook and made a pond
and now cloud-white ice rimmed the sky-blue body
in the last days of February.
Listening to the brook babble on the other side of the dam
where motion held back stasis,
I suddenly heard a man's song on the wind.

These were not the bass notes of creation
rumbling deep below the surface of everything,
nor the tenor that lifted up the heavens,
but a baritone of life - a mix of honey and tears -
a rising note of the cycle of birth to death.

When I turned to listen
there was one more note in the air -
a fatherly intonement of responsibility -
weighted and worthy -
then it was gone
and there was only the silent frozen pond to one side of me
and to the other,
the brook talking on its journey away.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/0RPQQJ7NS3c

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/A-Mans-Song-erm8kb