There was nothing idyllic about how
I ended up down at the dock.
A series of petty plans had been thwarted.
Life was level best falling apart.
By the time I had reached the concert,
Alone because abandoned by others
With better lives and other lovers,
The concert was sold out, and I sat,
A hunched homunculus, self-pitying, aged
Man at the edge past the ropes, marginal
And determined to feel cast out.
An old acquaintance found me, settled
On massive hips beside me, and talked
Of the loss of ex-husbands and stepfathers,
Of New Orleans, Mustang convertibles,
And her years selling Mary Kay.
We watched the older and the younger walk
Or dance or swim in the Kaslo Bay.
From the lawn outside the paid attendance
The bands were muddy sounding and not
In a good muddy way. We had saved
Ourselves by not getting in to hear them
And we congratulated ourselves in a way.
Then her son nearly as old as I am
And as ne'er-do-well as well, in his own way,
Texted her to say he was in a lot of pain
And headed for a hospital. I gave her a lift
To her car to rescue him. I ate at a familiar
Diner before driving up the Ghost Highway.
I got home almost contented despite
The emptiness of the day. I used to say,
Any day I don't end lying in a ditch, a jail, or
A hospital bed hasn't been an all-bad day.
(A morgue would be okay.) I was in a lot
Of pain myself, of course, but that's normal
For me and my physique, and I had no love
From humans that would make it worth
Those reeking hospitals, not that I would
Seek them out anyway. The world is petty.
Any shore reveals a staggering obsession
With ever-so-slightly different bits of rock.
Any living organism eats its order and shits
Decay. But the petty world never ends today.
Back at the cabin a note from a miserable
Bastard who couldn't make himself happy
No matter how many notes he'd made, made
Me annoyed. I wasted an hour composing
A response to this inanity, an hour I had
Supposed to be free from demands for me.
When I came back to myself I was sweating
In the muggy night. The fatly gibbous moon
Was up over the haze from the forest fires,
Looking orange itself to the eye but throwing
An improbably silver glow on the mirroring
Lake. Disgusted with my own pettiness,
Each littleness capable of barring my way,
I stripped off my clothes and hauled myself
Naked, absurd, and irrelevant, silly bastard
On my crutches down to the crystal shore.
It would be hard for me to suggest, for you
To imagine a more tranquilly romantic scene:
The moon, the glass water shimmering black
Miles away and away, the lack of any boats
Or voices, the absence of humans or dogs,
The flick of bat shadows over the empty bay.
I staggered into the phosphorescent ending
Of that day, half dreading surprising a bear
Come down in the glimmering dark to drink.
See? Now it all should sound pathetic, idyllic
As a conclusion, the lonely midnight swim
Of the broken, the surface sufficiently
Delicate to feel like lace caressing the face.
But that would not be it. Have you ever dived
In water too dark to see the rocky bottom
Even as you nearly struck your head, but
So clear you could see that darkness glass,
Scalloped obsidian lit by the moon? I did.
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