Hughlings Himwich

"That's the face of a man who has seen it all."

 

                                                                                                                                           Photograph by Ber Himwich

“That’s the face of a man who has seen it all.”

Not so. There’s more to come
And it’s not all suffering loss
The mind shedding all

That is not nailed down
Eyes vacant still
Focused on what no one else can see
A sky so blue the light so full

That you can speak only
In single syllables silently
To the coming darkness
As though it were a friend

Passing onto another life
Where there is no sky
But the sky we have become
When at last we have seen it all.

 

The Phoenix

         
                        for Michaela

What’s left to say?
Just this

In the rain
There are sparks

Of dark fire.
Do you see them?

They are like roses.
Do you see them?

Do you see yourself,
Burning shamelessly?

How will you begin
When there is no end

To the night
Or the burning?

Think of a bird
On a branch

With no wings of flame
But words

To set itself on fire
And sing

Of the night
Of the rain

That will not stop.
Without that song

There is no morning light.

 

Hold True

In Memoriam

 

for Nathaniel Bowie

 

When we return there will be an empty space

That we will fill with true memories

Of one devoted to what we devote ourselves:

The life of the school, service to others,

Kindness, a look that says I will

See what I can do

                               And then do it.

Night Song

Quiet falls like leaves

Like night, the wheels

That turn the stars stop

There is no you, only

The sound of birds

Nesting in these words

So quiet they must be true

 

The Song of Songs

 

He thought of her as if she were with him, but the truth was that she was gone and she was not coming back. The last time they spoke on the phone, she had told him. And that was that. Still, he thought he could hear her voice, singing the song she had written for him, her father, though as it turned out, she had been, on that early autumn day, more in need of the song than he. It had been a song of farewell, though it seemed now, as he listened to the light falling around him, a lullaby like the one his own father had sung for him when he was a child and if that mockingbird don’t sing, his daughter’s words now restless and unsettled like that of a mooncast muse or like living with and without regret. He thought if he could just remember the words of her song or snatch their meaning out of the call of birds that had never abandoned him or feel their rhythm in the outflow of his heart or see the flash of her eyes in the flickering of the candle on his desk, she, the singer of the song, would be there for him now. Without knowing where the words were coming from, he began to sing. He sang of all he loved and all that he would be leaving behind when his own time came. Mostly, though, he sang of the sea, the song becoming the gentle rock and slap of the boat, following now only the river’s stream taking him out. He too was not coming back.

 

Somnium

 

Somnium: Out there in the stars a drum is heard and they draw near the soft body and nearer the other one within, softer now, slows, now sleeps. The moon hangs in the sky. We find our way there. First, a hand and only then the eyes. What do they see? The moon hangs in the trees, wind weaving the light. There’s a burst of autumn colors, then the tears come. We dig in the dirt and find seashells, bones, roots. Still, the drumming, leading us on. You close your eyes to listen, then wake to find yourself alone, pawing at all that’s not there, the drumming now too distant to know if it is anything more than a lonely heart.

 

Child's Play

When Selina saw the children at play, she wished that she could tell them and make them understand: Don't grow up. You'll never play like this again. Your feet have roots, your arms branches that reach out for the light. The birds talk to you as friends should, and you give them shelter. They, in turn, give you wings that will take you far away from this time and place. When you return and other children gather around you and ask why you look so sad, you will tell them a story, not yours of course, nor theirs, but of some other children whom time forgot, children whose wings became leaves and whose feet were rooted in the ground and free.  

Lonely and Always in Love

 

The tires were singing Isabel, Isabel, Isabel

There is a stream in the woods  

There the wind sweeping through the trees

Through the window the leaves reach out

Don’t  know where I am going, but I am gone

Are you crazy, son?  

Before the sea swept me away there were tears        

Will you? Won’t you? Shouldn’t you?

Spring in winter is icumen in . . . and bloweþ med

Lonely and always in love

 

The Winter Geese

for Pauline

The winter geese are almost gone

I know not where

They won’t be coming back

I’ll be waiting here a little longer

 

Her eyes wild dark shining,

"I won’t be here" -- she meant

She won't be coming back

I'll be waiting a little longer

 

Autumn's Child

 

I see you now, child, wrapped in vines and visions,

happy to find a place to hide, laughing hoping someone will find you.

Don't call out. No one will come.

Let the wind be your voice, just as you hear mine now.

It's autumn and the leaves rustle alive for one last song before winter. 

Someone will hear the wind laughing in the trees.

They will see you in all your glory.

 

It's Raining Tonight

It's raining tonight.

there's thunder & lightning too

making sure we stop and listen

there's no place to go

no reason to be elsewhere

no summons for tomorrow

it's all happening now
here within & without
there's no need for prayer
I hear the beating
of every heart in my own
If this is a dream
I don't want to wake up

The Sound that Wind Makes

(for Maya)

I want words to breathe like I do, weep when I do, and bruise easily.

I want words to dream and remember those dreams that first set me on this path.

I want words to grow old with me and become like the lines in my face and tell me
      old stories that keep my stumbling spirit from falling and new ones that tell of
      love forever young and freely given.
I want words of no regret even for the sorry waste of all I have left undone, unsaid.

I want words to hold up a mirror and see there all who at some time have gone hand
      in hand with me through this life.

O what a wondrously crowded reflection that would be, all of them in the morning
     of their lives, young and old alike.  

O that words would fall like these tears and mark the page in silver and gold, the true
colors of night, that these words would live on in their hearts and find some rest there,
though I myself be nothing but the sound the restless wind makes on a cold night,
the wind that sweeps down the mountainside and past all the houses in which loved ones
have died and gathers up all those lost souls and scatters what is but dust and ash
through the deep space of time. 

The dead don't talk

I know why

the dead don't talk

to the living:

it hurts

to remember

and we stopped

listening

The Poet's Voice

 

Poetry is what is missing
When you wake in the morning
And don’t listen for the silence
That will always be with you.

But for that unheard song,
There would be no call
Of bird, no sigh,
No laughter, no word

Beyond the word
To call you home.

When your love speaks,
Listen for that silent singalong,
For the truth that cries out
For life and to live

Beyond life itself. 
Do you know that voice?
There are children playing
In the rain. There’s one

Who stops and listens, his heart
Beating wildly with your own. 

 

A Madrigal: Bembo and Cervantes

Don Quijote (II, 68):

Amor, cuando yo pienso
En el mal que me das terrible y fuerte, 
Voy corriendoa la muerte,
Pensando asi acabar mi mal inmenso.
Mas en Ilegandoa l paso,
Que es puerto en este mar de mi tormento,
Tanta alegria siento,
Que la vida se esfuerza, y no le paso.
Asi el vivir me mata,
Que la muerte me torna a dar la vida.
iOh condici6n no oidal
La que conmigo muerte y vida trata!

https://youtu.be/5q8G1PSCKyg

O Love, when my thoughts turn
to the suffering, dread and fierce, you bring,
I swiftly run toward death,
hoping to end forever the pain I feel;
but when I reach that place,
the port in this rough ocean of my torment,
I feel such joy and gladness
that life grows strong and does not let me pass.
And so my living kills me,
and death insists and gives me back my life.
Mine is a novel state:
I go on living, and constantly die.

(Cervantes, Miguel de; Edith Grossman (2009-01-29). Don Quixote (p. 905). Harper Perennial.)

Bembo: Gli Asolani, o Los Asolanos (1515)

Quand'io penso al martire,
Amor, che tu mi dai gravoso e forte,
Corro per gir a morte,
Cost sperando i miei danni finire.
Ma poi ch'io giungo al passo Ch'?
porto in questo mar d'ogni tormento,
Tanto piacer mi sento,
Che l'almas i rinforza,o nd'ion ol passo.
Cost il viver m'ancide:
Cosi la morte mi ritorna in vita.
O miseria infinita,
Che l'uno apporta e l'altra non recide.

Mignarda - Quand'io penso al martire by Jacques Arcadelt (c.1507 –1568)

When I think of the suffering 
That love has so grievously forced upon me 
I hasten toward death 
Therefore hoping to end mine own damnation. 

But then to add to the suffering 
I stand at the port of this same sea of affliction. 
Senseless in the face of such delight. 
Why the ship of my soul braces a waterless wave. 

Thus, living kills me; 
Thus dying, life returns. 
O endless misery 
One gives, and the other takes away. 

Here is my own take on this theme in Latin and then in English.

Amor

Amor, mori velim 
abesseque ab asperis vitae
sed mors me a litore tuo repellit
donatque mi tantum gaudium 
ut mare meo in corde tuum inveniam. 

Love, I would wish to die
and be far from the harshness of life
but death drives me from your shore
and grants me such great joy
that I find your sea in my heart. 

 

Remembering

    

Photo by Ber Himwich

Remembering

How like the river this scattering

Of ash. It takes our tears to heart, 

And every sorrow flows through love.

 

The river reminds us of tomorrow.

The river runs through every sorrow. 

 

But For Song

for Eve

If the world were round
And night had its way,
Then words would mean
just what we say.

But the world plays false,
Sometimes flat, sometimes hoarse
And sometimes singing
Like a tuning fork.

And sometimes night
Shines with loving eyes
And says what we mean
with joyful sighs.

 

Of Another Life

          (June 27, 2021)

The silences of flowers

Teach us to listen

To our own

            *

These morning birds

Sing of the night

And the fall of rain.

            *

The shadows of trees

Fall like tears like light

upon the grass. 

            *

The wind takes

Our breath away

And is always at rest.

 

Charles & All

 

Hugh,

Yesterday was very busy.  I drove alone to Manistee to get a prescription for Pauline and a variety of things needed at the hardware store (mousetraps, a garden kneeling pad, lids for 5-gallon buckets, specific sizes of screws, ballpoint pens, paper plates, and groceries).  It took a long time and was tiring.  

I thought about your De Anima reflections but didn’t get farther than concluding that the Latin is preferable to the Greek (Peri Psyches) in that casual English usage would stimulate overtones of Life in Latin rather than of Mind in Greek.  Happily, neither would immediately connote “soul” in common parlance.

As usual, the problem is the fundamental poverty of language itself. You probably will have to gin up some poetry if we are to proceed further!

I have been sleeping well, and this morning I woke fairly early and was able to have more than an hour of reflective thought before getting out of bed. That luxury is counterbalanced by constraints on my writing time this morning. So, although my thoughts will have some semblance of order, my writing will not probe as deeply as it might.  I had probably better start with my comments because the pressure of time is increasing.

After we began reflecting on Julian Jayne’s take on Consciousness (when was that?), we came upon some agreement on the utility of the phrase: “subjective reflective self-consciousness”. (Did we hack that phrase together or did we incorporate it from someone else?) Without going further in that direction at the moment, I would also like to add the concept of “personhood”.  

I believe I sent you an article (tell me if I didn’t) on Aphantasia––the inability to form mental images of remembered persons, places, things, and experiences.  This rare phenomenon draws our attention to the fact that most people are able to form and be conscious of these images.  There are also some who cannot mentally “hear” remembered tunes. At one time I was curious about the fact that it is quite possible to vocalize pitches indicated on printed musical notation with surprising accuracy. As I reflected on this, I noticed that my vocal cords physically changed their tension as I thought of various pitches. [Just think of the bugle call “reveille”. You will be surprised at how dramatic and clear this sensation is]

FULL STOP!! A Great Blue Heron, the first we have seen this year, just flew up from the water under the “Yellow Iris Cedar” about 30 feet from me!  WOW!  What a spot!  What a life!

At any rate, “personhood”, although it can veer off and dive deeply into various realms, can be hijacked into being a stand-in for that element of De Anima that is limited to the idea of an essential human element that you allude to.

My, my.  I had no idea that I could reduce the deep waters of thought that I had this morning into something that would have any coherence at all––much less that it would relate  to the subject you are addressing.

I do hope that I can dip into the prospectus you sent, but I must warn you that I am also following the trail of the common elements of “the good Life & the good Death”––as well as living an otherwise ordinary life. 

Something will have to give;

It always does.       

                                Charles

 

                                                                    Charles & All

                                                                              (June 9, 2021)

                                                                This morning's herald: 

                                                                Rising from the water

                                                                Beneath the cedar

                                                                And yellow iris,

                                                                A Great Blue Heron

                                                                Welcomes us home. 

 

 

 

What is not there

Though I am known to God
As Hughlings, my friends call me
Hugh and leave it at that --
Grace takes care of the rest.

Though I do not believe
In anything or have any Jesus,
Yet I retain a kind of genius
For harmless lies.

It is as if during the day
I can still see the stars
Blazing out of the night
And truly see what is

not there. Some say
it is a harmless madness --
My friends though look deep
Into what were once my eyes

And all they see is night.

Summer Rain

If it would only rain my words would pour forth like girls and boys too young to know shame O they are bold as I would be the rain falls I am young again dance touch while the music plays so falls the rain O she is here there are tears of joy tears songs of praise for the beauty of the day earth yields up its flowers to her hand turns to gentle thunder her body lifts and holds her laughter makes the night shudder unbinds her hair and falls to me now here now there like summer rain

Jumping the Gap

     

   for my students

 

There are so many echoes in my life, but there’s one voice louder than the rest.

         It tells me to move on, be on the move.

There will never be a time just to look back and wonder.

Even this morning there are the birds, ever still in flight, and the wind

         Chirping in a nest of leaves. They say, Fly away and be still.

A phantom hand reaches out . . . now so near . . .  It’s Her hand –

         It pulls me forward. Flower and flame await, love and consummation.

This is what I believe: it’s never over.

May the next words I write bind me . . . cricket and rock,

         rain and tears, sparrow and sorrow . . . all one . . .  

         too foolish to see the trees in winter.

A hand claps: there are children at play, lovers blushing, there is a road leading into the

          mountains, the birthplace of sky and sea.

I jump the gap and see it all as flower and fire, worlds appearing and disappearing like children,   

          a daughter not to be but in love’s mirror.  

Here all is possible and real – a needle threads its way, becomes a tuning fork.

I move on and hear every heart beating as one its own raucous rhythm,

          unaware of the harmony that is creation.

I move on. A tiger leaps through the gap and mauls its prey, a girl beats her heart out on a

          drum, unheard; a babe lies abandoned in an eagle’s nest, its cry my

          own. My breathing stops.

I move on. A blue sky thunders, stars are born and burn out, a raven’s

         wing covers all.  A whirlwind out of the darkness sweeps us all along.

Who knows but I will meet you on the way to terra incognita.   

But here I am, writing these words, my legs ache, my right foot throbbing. I am hungry, alone,

          my days more like nights, my nights more like spring, a dying ember.

But what about tomorrow or tomorrow or tomorrow when I do not wake to wind or jay.

Then, my friends, hear my song . . . it will be the whirlwind of creation,

          sung at last as it should be sung.

Listen, listen, never stop listening. It’s your song too.

 

For James Wright

 

 

        “ . . . They love each other.

         There is no loneliness like theirs.” 

 

There is, of course, the love of life

To go on living after one has lived

In that place that is no place

But like the wind finds itself at home

Touching all things like skin that shivers

And brings forth all we have loved and lost.

 

Spartoi

 

If we were to sow our teeth,

There would come stories

To make us shudder

Like the one about a desperately

Happy old man who gave up

His love of life to become

A gravedigger and lied

To those asking whose grave

He dug, falsely saying

He was looking for treasure

But so far had found only gold.

 

Spartoi: the ‘sown men’ of Greek mythology, born from dragon’s teeth. Cadmus in founding Thebes had for good reason slaying a dragon, sacred to Ares, and was advised by Athena to sow its teeth. The genealogical line of the Spartoi ends in a great many tragic stories, those of Oedipus and his spawn among them. In death, Cadmus and Harmonia, his wife, became snakes. It does not seem to have been a punishment. It is worth noting that Cadmus is said to have brought the Phoenician alphabet to Greece. The result we all know well. One might ask why are snakes sacred to the gods. To understand that would be a treasure. It may be necessary like Cadmus to become one.

Quirky Little Love Poems

 

Ode to the Stars

O she is pretty
But she’ll never catch me
Looking
More’s the pity

O she’s so pretty.

So simple is love
If only she weren’t so damn 

 

 

Da Blues

 

You left me standing there
Alone

Like a tree.

 

Do you know what it's like

Just standing there

Looking up 

At all that blue?

 

 

 

Not Another Quirky Love Poem

Please, not another love poem

That’s not about love at all. 

You know, like Platonic love

Or hate mail. 

 

Uva uvam vivendo varia fit (explained)

Uva uvam vivendo varia fit. 

This Latin phrase from Lonesome Dove is neither nonsense nor bad Latin.  It means "A grape becomes mottled by being a grape," with the sense: it is the nature of a grape to become "mottled" as it ripens.  In the context of the novel, this means, "Character is destiny" -- the truth of which is illustrated time and again in the novel.  The repetition of the 'v' strengthens the point. It is lovely Latin.

vivendo here is a gerund of vivo, in the ablative (instrumental).  uvam is a cognate or internal accusative (a play on vitam vivendo), a not uncommon feature of ancient Latin. Most often in Classical Latin the gerund and its object are rendered into the same case and gender, but the usage here is also well attested. The grammatical formation of the gerund and its object are too involved to discuss here, but for a Latinist it would present no problem. I have seen elsewhere the claim that vivendo is a "false gerund." That's absurd on the face of it (the gerund form of vivo is actually quite common, e.g. modus vivendi), unless the author of the post meant that vivendo was simply thrown in without any regard for its grammar or meaning. In either case, the claim is unfounded. The effort to derive this superb Latin sentence as a corruption of a line from Juvenal is likewise misguided and is likely responsible for the "false gerund" claim. At best, Juvenal's line is a red herring. Clearly, an accomplished Latinist, perhaps an acquaintance of the author if not McMurtry himself, is responsible for Uva uvam vivendo varia fit. 

Just as a grape or a man can become nothing other than what each is, pigs remain true to themselves. "We don't rent pigs. . .  Goats and donkeys are neither bought nor sold," only cattle and horses whose character man has fundamentally changed.  

 

 

Wild Iris

 

for Zoe

There’s that garden

that none

need pardon.

There wild Iris grows

beneath the trees

it loves.

They catch the light

and make its song

their own.

 

How a man becomes the sea

 

The moment she touched the old man’s hand

He lost his sight, yet standing lost upon the sand

He heard the light upon the waves like keys.

She sang and let him go and like the wind he sighed.

None knows what song she sang or how he blindly

Played with light or how a man became the sea.

Knowing and Not Knowing

 

 

Ber and Dad One

 Revised Edition, 8/5/21: Download Ber Dad One

 

 

Windflower

 

Come with me, two

three jumps but

don’t look back.

Lately angels

have been falling.

The garden is rank

With anemone.

 

 

As Beautiful As Ever

   As Beautiful As Ever

                 for my students

If you watch the ripples spread out

from what was once the smooth, blue surface of a pond

before you threw a rock, searching for an answer

for what troubles you, scattering the light, 

and if you wait,

for however long it takes

for the smooth, blue surface to return,

you will feel the ripples yet spreading within you

from the very center of creation

and you will have your answer. 

Everything has changed

and you, dear ones, are born again

just as you are, as beautiful as ever.

 

Nothing Shines Like Back

 

Nothing Shines Like Black

 

play you play you
Circe’s bouncing boy
ol' man bring back
your leaping joy!

play you ol' man
wolfish grin to hide
moly moly
molly in her sty. 

playyou playyou
Circe’s whip and crack
O O O NO
nothing shines like black. 

Note: Circe is a dark lady for many reasons. Most readers will know her from The Odyssey. It is told there that Odysseus spent a year with her on the island of Aeaea on his way home to his beloved and faithful Penelope. Circe is the one who turned Odysseus' men into pigs, a consequence our hero avoided by using against her the magic of the herb 'moly', all white but for its black root. The herb had been an unlooked for resource provided by Hermes, that traveler between the worlds of light and dark, known thereby as Psychopompos. The herb worked! Later it would be Circe who sends Odysseus far west to where the Titan Helios does not shine (i.e. Homer's version of the Underworld, at least in The Odyssey). Helios does, however, sometimes threaten to bring his light to this dark region of the earth. And so, Odysseus is off to the far shore of Oceanus. Such is the fate of the moly-bearer. It is in the Far West that Odysseus learns from the prophet Tiresias, the only shade among the dead who yet keeps his nous (i.e. mind), how to navigate the dangerous journey home to Ithaca.

 

The 'Molly' here makes a guest appearance here from JJ's  Ulysses; she appears in that work as a thinly disguised Penelope. In Dante's version, however, Odysseus chooses upon his departure from Aeaea to sacrifice home and hearth for still more adventures at sea. Apparently, he does not want to give up his Oar, as Tiresias tells him he must. Ultimately, in Dante's version, he goes down with his ship, landing in The Inferno in the company of other great liars.

 

And so it goes. Sometimes it best to know when to say no more. Let others suppose, provided they do not know. (Let's see, the Latin for that would be: Alii cogitent dum nesciant. Keep it handy. A little gift from your Hermes on your travels to the Far West.

The High Ridge

   
   The mist on the mountains lifts

ghostly greens glimmer

   and a new day darkens the valley

far below—your fingers tracing

   a line across the high ridge

that runs just above my eyes:

   I hold my breath—a sudden

swoop of wind and wing

 

The only true word I know

I don’t know how you know you have to make a change. You just do it and think about the whys and wherefores later. And in any case, I would only be making it up to sound like I wasn’t crazy or something, as though I actually had reasons for doing what I did. Maybe it was the rain. Who in his right mind would throw a few things in a backpack, leave his car and bank account behind, and just set off walking in the rain?  That's what I did. At nightfall I found a place along the side of the road to sleep, but I couldn’t stop shaking.  It didn't stop raining until early the next morning when the sun came up as though for the first time. 

I had started out in Rhode Island but hitched rides that left me the next night in Georgia and the next day I was in the panhandle of Florida, walking down some back country road that would take me wherever I was going. I really had no idea, but I was going and I was going to stay gone. I know that this all sounds crazy, but it didn’t feel that way then. It felt right and for the first time in a long time my head was clear. 

When I had started out I had only a couple packs of cigarettes and about twenty dollars which paid for coffee and more cigarettes for awhile. The kindness of strangers supplied the rest. Folks who picked me up were curious about what I was doing and where I was going. What interested them most was that I didn’t know. They saw my sorry shoes, shook their heads, and gave me money for a meal at the end of the ride. One man said he had never picked up anyone before but now he thought he would the next time he saw some young person thumbing a ride. It had somehow been interesting. I told him that was a bad idea. 

I went wherever a ride would take me and that’s how I found myself in a small West Virginia town, where an old preacher picked me up and took me home for a meal. He showed me with pride the wooden casket he had made with his own hands and how he was all set for eternity. He called it his boat. It was really no more than a crate, though its dimensions where about right for a coffin. I don't know about eternity. What I was really curious about were the huge old books that were lying on the casket as if to keep the lid on. He said the truth was in those books and I could see for myself if I wanted. The first one I opened had the picture of a  young woman, tied to a stake, her breasts exposed, looking up at the heavens ablaze with lightning.  I swear her whole body looked like it was electrically charged as though she were having an orgasm or something. Beneath the picture were the words, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” I turned over the page and saw the words "I ad crucem!" scrawled over the English text. I knew what those words meant alright: "Go to the cross!"  On another page was the picture of some wild man who was having a crimson X branded into his chest. After that I was in a hurry to go, but the old guy kept me there talking about how half the town was dying of cancer because everyone was marrying their own kin and goin’ to hell. I got the crazy idea that he was about to ask me to nail him and his books up in that crate and set him adrift. I told him I had to go. He wanted to know why I was in such a hurry. I  told him someone was waiting for me in Winchester, which was just across the state line. He said he would drive me there, but I just walked toward the door and thanked him. I closed the door behind me and didn’t look back.  

My next couple of rides landed me in New Orleans. I was beginning to realize that though everything was new to me, I was not quite a stranger to the folks I met. In New Orleans, I fell in with others about my age who looked just as lost as I did. They had liberated an abandoned house, worked at odd jobs and did drugs at night. When I didn’t partake, they became suspicious and shortly came to the conclusion that I was a narc. I had never heard that word before but its meaning soon became clear to me. They said my story about going wherever the road would take me just didn’t add up. That wasn’t the last time I was suspected of being a narc, but later it somehow didn’t matter. They could just think whatever they wanted. The first time, however, it was a shock. I had been glad to have a place to crash for a few days, but they told me I had better leave.

I ended up spending a month or so in New Orleans, making some money by working out of a day load outfit that sent out sober men like me on jobs that paid ten dollars a day. If you didn’t quit the job – loading, unloading, throwing bricks out of boxcars and digging holes – you got paid at the end of each day. In the late afternoon after I was paid, I felt like some goddam saint. Cripples, men with no legs, drunks and drifters like me were lined up along the sidewalk with their hands out. One fella, mounted on a board with rollers, had no arms or legs, just a cup. I had a simple rule. I would give away half of what I made and keep the rest. It was more than enough for my needs. They would call me father, though I was younger than they were. Maybe I looked older because like them I had grown so thin. A fellow worker had his own room where he let me sleep on the floor and he knew all the churches and other places where a person could find a free meal, though sometimes you had to pay by praying after you ate. I didn’t like that and said so. I ended up basically stealing the food before the praying started. The problem with that was that they were on the lookout for you the next time. At night, I wandered the French Quarter looking in the jazz joints and at the girls who looked right through me as if I weren't there at all. I can't say I blame them.   

I forgot to tell you that before I left to nowhere in particular, I had been a desk clerk at an otherwise respectable hotel called the Pilgrim Inn that catered to a certain class of working girl. They were all somebody’s daughter and they sent the money they made back to their families. Some paid guys who protected them and would beat them up to keep them in line. I would take payment for rooms from the johns and take them up in the elevator first and then the girls. It became routine. I liked the girls, but they all thought I was queer because I hadn’t done anything with them even when they offered for free. They would laugh and ask me if I knew which hole to put it in. I didn't mind. Everything had been going along fine until one night I was arrested along with the girls in a police raid and spent the night in jail. The next day they just sent me home. The hotel's lawyers had worked something out. The girls had to pay a fine. After that, I felt like I almost belonged and everyone treated me as if I were one of them. Then one night a little later I got beat up really bad by a guy who demanded to know where a certain girl was and when I wouldn’t tell him, he came around the desk and let me have it. It all happened so fast I didn’t even have time to be afraid or even feel any pain. I was kind of numb or stunned I guess. After that, the girls treated me like a brother, which I guess I was.

After I had saved a little money in New Orleans, I set out again. I had heard from others about riding the rails. It was fast and straight but they also told tales of railroad bulls that discouraged me. I thought hitching was safer. My first ride, a long sleepy cruise through the night, took me to Texas, a little west of Austin. It had been a sweet ride; the stars out the open window seemed to pump their light right into my veins. My very next ride, however, changed everything, but I have written about that before. I don't really want to go into it again except to say I came out whole after a man tried to force me to have sex with him and maybe for the first time in my life I had been brave. That was then. What I really want to talk about is Richard whom I had met a year before all this craziness began, never saw again, and miss every day of my life. Before we parted he gave me a small carving, made from an odd piece of wood found on an east Texas beach. He had used only the sharp edge of a stone. It was like something out of the prehistory of man and had three faces on each side, one emerging out of another.  It is the face of every man I meet. For forty-six years I have kept this carving with me. It really is Richard's story that needs telling, not mine, though maybe his is in some way mine as well. You see, he taught me the only true word I know and he taught me by example and it cost him dearly.  He was the most honest person I have ever known and the bravest.   

https://www.hhimwich.com/hughlings_himwich/2016/03/song-for-richard.html

https://www.hhimwich.com/hughlings_himwich/2010/04/this-i-believe.html

Photograph by Her Himwich 

Oranges

He was determined this time not to cut his fingers as he sliced the oranges.  He would focus and keep his fingers well away from the blade.   He remembered all too well how previously his blood had flowed onto the oranges and pooled on the plate.  He knew it wasn’t just because he was getting old, fading into memory and the lure of the trees and his first kiss.  She had been as nervous as he and had closed her eyes.  Now all he could think of was feeding her oranges and the taste on her lips.  And suddenly, she had bitten his lip, making it bleed. And then, more softly, she was feeding him. She was delicious and he . . . . he was lost in the trees.  He put the knife down and wept.  

Death makes strangers of us all

I met her first in high school. Her name then was Alice Cyan. We dated and did what teenagers usually do, being full of hormones. When we went off to college, we wished each other luck and that was it. I met her again in law school, though her name now was Francine Bedower. She didn’t remember me, but I knew her the first moment I heard her laugh. It was like wind rattling through dry leaves.  She was beautiful. I mean, really beautiful, statuesque, as they say.  I slept with her once then, but so did almost everyone else. We didn’t see each other all that much and, though we graduated from law school in the same class, there was really no reason to stay in touch. When I met her the third time, her name now Townsy Harper, she was working for a law firm in San Francisco and I happened to be close by. We would meet for drinks. She was divorced, had two kids, a daughter and a son, and a lot of cats, but no dogs. She had made a point of that, no dogs. She had grown so thin I almost didn’t recognize her, but she knew me. She reminded me that when she and I were dating back in high school, her father had died and that’s why she liked me. That puzzled me a little, but okay, that’s as good a reason as any I suppose. Then she  stopped coming by. When we met for the fourth and last time, I was in the hospital for what I was assured would be a routine colonoscopy. Her name was now Sally Caulder, same last name as mine, though spelled differently as it turned out. It startled me at the time. She was stooped over, staring down at me as I lay there, waiting my turn. I had recognized her right off, that same laugh, but tart. When I asked her who she was now, she spat her name Caulder in my face and told me she didn’t know me and that she never wanted to see me again, biting down finally on "asshole" but seeming to look through me like glass. I can't say I blame her. After all, as I was soon to learn, she did not have long to live either.

Each Alone Together

 

From where I sit
I can hear the rain
And see the desert bloom

It’s but a room
Like yours,
On a street like yours

What we’ve done
To each other
Cannot last forever  

Outside a girl plays
In the rain
And gathers flowers

She sees me watching
And laughs,
She could be crying

She’s rooted there
As I am here,
Each alone together

 

Nighttime in the Lyceum

Before the light changed and I forgot

the rules for how to see things as they are,

day was day and night was hidden in my heart.

Out of Time

Out of Time

When they removed the tree they moved the place
Or rather the place became a barren field
Where light through the green, still moving shade
No longer marks the ground like rain. 
And yet here I am with you,
Your face bent over mine the air
rippling with laughter the tree
covering us in its bright shadow the earth
yielding as we fall out of time. Out of time?
What is left but song?
Listen! the ringing in the air, this rain
These tears hammering out the tune, time and place.
He, she, and all you love, draw near. 

 

What's left to say

He was watching the parade
The clowns, the words, the trumpeteers
And in his dream he was awake
Or he was awake and dreaming.
He closed his eyes.
No matter, he heard the drums.
He opened his eyes a second time
And saw himself marching
Now to a different tune
A martial cha-cha-cha
And wet his pants.
There is little more to tell.
The daily Tribune records
That during the St. Jude Day Celebration
Saturday passed and a forgotten man
Had died, shouting blessings
Upon one and all. 

Still alive

It was the long, cool time between sleep and waking, nestling in the morning light like a fledgling, though by the counting of the clock the world outside was buzzing, he impervious to its insistent question, What now? What to do if not everything at once? He remembered the previous night when he had talked himself to sleep, giving himself to the Oblivion that soon enough would put an end to all the questions, the time when there would be nothing at all to do and the chance to forget, giving himself to the future with nothing on his mind but the GIVING AWAY, the questions no more than the flutter of leaves just outside his window that was more like the chatter of children than a farewell. And now in the eternal Before and After, he lay there in the half-light and was glad, surprised to be still alive. 

(112020)

Carmen Nocturnum

What do I do to sing like you?

Die, be born again and sing the blues?

It’s not the same. There’s another song

in the song you sing, buried with you

in the cold cold ground. The earth

to the moon now sings for you.  

 

Directive

There is a song
that must be sung. 

No time for work
‘til the song is done. 

This morning bird
sings all day long.

 

du Pré

 

The song falls below sound

and begins again beyond our hearing,

erupting now as light bird wind and sky,

your fingers driving the bow across the strings

your hand arm a hammer beating

against the silence that holds all

and you rise one last time

alive as never before

calling to us to hear the music,  

to breathe again, to dance and die

as every day the night and night the day,

and you, grateful for the applause,

stand before us as ourselves.

 

Vae!

Onegonethewaithefe

Oywoemangwaeweh

 

64 Seasons

For Lynn on her Birthday (11:49 pm!)

I don’t know why
I was surprised to hear
you are just now 16.
I had been thinking
you were the age
of summer or fall
winter spring.

You do not need
the look of a 75-year
old man turning
with the seasons
like the pages of
a book dogeared
at 303, not like yours

a well-read 64.  

Surprise

                for eve

Suddenly
this morning
I knew the rainbow
to be a bird

of my soul
taking flight 
and vanishing
into cloud and sky

as I am bound 
to do, shimmering
not with color
but surprise

to be at last
not here. 

 

Forget Me Nots and Rue

Errores sunt flores,

expectantes florescere. 

 

Starry, Starry Night

Both poetry and mathematics are forms of madness, the latter well disguised by what appears to be its rational method and application, e.g. facing west we plot a course to the third star to the left of that cottonwood where we pledge that someday we will travel. We are eagerly triangulating when a poet comes by and we dazzle him with our mathematical machinations. He seems for a moment unsteady on his feet and asks us to sit with him. We do, feeling sorry for our hyperbolics, but then, as if our diverging equations had actually driven him crazy, he begins to spout utter nonsense. He tells us we have already arrived where we seek to go and that the leaves are laughing at us. “Can you not see how the descending darkness of the evening is becoming one with the shadow of the tree?” We politely acknowledge the plain truth of what he says and, using that same darkness as an excuse, say we have to go. As we are walking off, we look back and then stare at each other: there’s no one there. We return to where we thought he had been and now, a little unsteady ourselves, sit again beneath the cottonwood, laughing ourselves into each other’s arms.