Miles We can Only Guess at

Childhood is a thousand lifetimes ago - who said that? Chainsaws rattle on the other side of the river, somebody keeps stopping and starting a car. Remember that poet who taught you the wrong lessons, yet who created two images - one haunting, the other beautiful, both stunning - that to this day you remember?

Liqueur glasses on the hay loft window sill, full of marbles, splendid in the sunlight. At a distance, towels blow on the neighbor's clothesline, distracting me with visions of clumsy angels approaching from the western hills. The golfer in me, like the sailor in me, surrendered to the Irish warrior in me, who sang bravely in dangerous places until a woman saved him (and then he just settled down and read his books and gardened).

Liars and those who save them. I could not easily hold my father's attention and, in many ways, nearly died trying (a fate certain uncles of mine did not escape). Bales of hay stacked in the pickup rattling around the back roads, the two of us laughing and drinking and later making love near Hruberic Orchards as the sun went down.

The last of the hemlocks waving in gentle winds under blue skies. There are outlaws all around us. What puzzle are you trying to solve, what letter is even now being smuggled to you across miles we can only guess at. 

On the other hand (ha ha), there really is "the world's smallest violin." I remember horses as a child, and creating a space in which my daughter could own them, and then being stunned to see the pain did not go anywhere just because. And cousins who cannot make it through rehab and are supported by mothers.

This is not your story. She was beautiful and happy, a little shy but also determined, and she was full of light, even in the shade. Forgetting everything, down to the kiss.

Is this church? Someone is waiting but who and for what?