Charlevoix, Michigan, October 1980.
A young fool had run away from a good gig,
From being a freshman at Princeton. He sat
On a ratty couch in a cold and run-down house
As it snowed, already, outside the uncurtained window,
A broke and unskilled and unwelcome guest
Given shelter for the sake of the cute girl he traveled with,
And he propped a spiral notebook on his knees,
And he tried to write a story he could sell. He couldn't
Even make it past the first page. The sensation
Was one of lifting weights, of stooping and shoveling snow
From those bent and surgically pinned-together knees.
It was a feeling as leaden as the lowering sky. It was not
A sensation of being lost in another world, of joy.
It was not even anything he could bear to reread to himself
Although he felt that the premise was a good one.
And he never did finish it, and he never did quit it either,
And it never did get there, and it never would be.
And thirty-six years later? Still composed of what could
Not support him, he parked by the remains of a waterfall
On the third day of a desert winter and no real snow, yet,
The first storm predicted for actual Christmas, possibly.
One reading of the tarot holds that the staff of the Fool
And the staff of the Hermit are the same, and that
The former character is the younger version of the latter,
A daylight wanderer, packed light, small sack of past on that staff
Over the jaunty shoulder bowed low by the years
By the time of the Hermit, now a night wanderer, needing a lamp
And carrying nothing but that lantern and himself on the stick,
Too much past to portage anymore, not enough discovery.
Three dozen circuits of the seasons around the sun
And he never did complete that story, never did stop
Searching for a wintry something, heavy as snow, as lead,
And he never did support himself, and he never did
Get home. By the rock he sat with his staff in his hands
And peered up the cliff as the cold water dripped, less and
Less descending into the storyless fangs of old ice and fresh snow.
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