Tag Archives: Poetry

The Moment Seizes Us

after Richard Linklater’s Boyhood

First let me say I’m glad Mason didn’t kill himself. I thought, at times,
that is where the film was going. Second, I’m comforted, and not surprised, that
the story moves and ends, at least for the moment, in the natural realm – in The
Big Bend under endless sky, alone with a few friends, looking up at eternal sky,
standing on solid rock howling a primal howl – a howl of catharsis – a yearning,
a cry to be, just to fucking be.

So much happens in this film but Nature, the constant, the glory of the
indifferent organic universe frames it and confirms the story. At the end, the new
friend says it best: “the moment seizes us” rather than all of our useless striving
to seize the moments, our futile attempts to control this magic called life.

So Texas, so America – so sad in a hopeful way, hopeful in a fearful way – makes
me feel guilty and broken – but relieved. It is our story: yours and mine, all of us
who have failed our children by trying to be happy.

Third, the kids, the young adults, the children who have been imperfectly raised
in an imperfect world by imperfect parents, in the end, choose to play the game.
They don’t check out. Though they see the hypocrisy, see through the emptiness,
the meaninglessness staring them in the face, they bravely choose to adapt and
survive. They go on, on their own terms. I admire this. Sure, some of their angst
is just evidence of the natural maturing process. Like their parents and their
parents’ parents, they rebel against the structures, then grow old and conform –
I’m sure that happens to us all on some level. But Mason, and his generation,
have seen more and survived in a new way, and in some ironic way, their
adaptation and survival is also ours, their imperfect predecessors. The future
is not over, and we don’t know what its final pages will read. But I’m proud of
them – they go on. They choose to face life. When things don’t make sense, they
go on, not unlike a Camus rebel of the absurd. And in their gentle and subtle
perseverance, the moments seize us. The moments seize us. What great news after
all.

Canadian River in Moonlight

Even muddy water shines
sand glistens — a crystal
menagerie overlooked
in our desperate plight
to dazzle ourselves with wires
and bulbs piling kilowatt
upon kilowatt in the hyper
glow that dulls with the faint
hope of progress.

Hear brackish grass humming
in the deeper curves, a salty voice
whispering in shadows – the river
bends forever and I follow
the turns toward yesterday.

I am captive, wayfarer
subdued by wild, enduring
unobtrusive glory.

Like critters secluded
along your sandy shores
I am at home.

of grandmas everywhere

for Steve Pedersen

It’s true what they say of death, how it arrives when we are not ready for it – we are never ready for death – even autumn leaves hang on as long as they can and we’re lucky to get some good color out of the season, some beauty out of pain.

Isn’t that what art does – make beauty from pain? All loss is profound. Hell, when I can’t find even a favorite article or item, some longed-for object, I am beside myself. How much more, then, when a loved one passes? We are left holding the empty sack that once contained possibilities now spilled on the lawn outside heaven’s door.

I remember the death of my grandma. Fortunately I have many fond memories. She was the nurturer in my life, even from a distance – but I regret that my nephews, my niece, my son did not have the closeness I had with her. She moved five times in her long life. Her father disappeared, and without a mother, she became mom to her siblings. Then she married Elmer and lived a pioneer woman’s life on the farm for sixty some years – even as a widow for many years after grandpa passed. She loved living independently far from town on the section of land Elmer homesteaded.

Then the day came for her to move to town into a small two bedroom house – the living room full of a quilt being built, just like back on the farm. Then after quite a few good years, the time came for her to move to an assisted living, one-room apartment. Now her quilting was displaced in an adjoining, common room – but still she quilted. Her last move, of course, was to the nursing home or rest home (as curiously we call it), and of course no one returns from there – and this knowledge could not have escaped her. Her wide, open sky prairie section of better than 600 acres, now reduced to a bed and a chair with a few photos and quilt blocks hanging on the wall. This, the progression (or is it digression) of life.

I was fortunate. There was much beauty in her life. Much beauty in her pain. She was a poem. Even the last time I saw her, weak but determined to sit upright in her chair, falling in and out of sleep – in and out of conversation. She passed a few days later. There was beauty, and beauty remains in memory of her life, despite her last breaths choking for dear life while clutching faith. Death always hurts. It stings. It is always inconvenient – I have nothing else to say. What can be said? Except maybe this is why we write. Maybe this is why we have each other. Our voice – an echo of grandmas everywhere.

Blue River

She calles me to secluded pools
along quiet shores
beneath canopies of White Oak
and Red Cedar.

My pace slows –
thoughts diminish,
sounds hush
in this cloistered place.

I sit in shadows smoking
a soft cigar,
the full moon peaking
above the ridge.

Beyond dense timber,
purling water
and tree frogs abide
a humble campfire.

I have no need tonight
for noise,
no desire
for that other life.

Only primal sounds matter:
these ancient rituals
merging fire and water,
earth and sky.

Ken Hada
from The Way of the Wind
(Village Books Press, 2008)