Category: nature

Broomstick Season

Published on by geriatric pilgrim12 Comments

~

The trees that can have given up their leaves—

the reds and golds you see in magazines,

(though dry and chewed and rotting with black mold)—

standing outlined against the sky: broom sticks

whose branches seem about to sweep the clouds.

~

Hard not to recall those who died this month:

a grandmother, father, mother-in-law,

Thanksgivings when their absence filled our plates.

The Ronald McDonald House Thanksgiving

of turkey, fear, anxiety, and tears,

as my wife and her sons saw my daughter

for what we all knew would be the last time.

~

Well into the November of my life,

I mourn the green and teeming dreams I had,

The gaudy colored leaves of happiness,

chewed by anger and blackened by misdeeds.

Now naked of ambition, strength, shame, guilt,

but rooted in the rocky soil of Grace,

supported by my friends and families,

I raise my bony, brittle arms to sweep

away remorse, and cry in gratitude:

Thank you, thank you, and thank you, for it all.

~ ~

Desert Labyrinth

Published on by geriatric pilgrim7 Comments

**

Entering:

Heel…toe…heel…toe

trying to focus on the boots

that walk this path lined with

tan, gray, white, russet

stones snaking its way

over copper-colored gravel.

Still, the mind twists, bends, curves

with the path going around, back, between

the blue of the sky, labored breathing,

the inhaler back in the room, 

past mistakes, future apprehensions,

prickly pear, barrel, saguaro cactus,

fantasies, “if onlys,”

scrunch of footsteps.

Following the narrow road of stones

toward the center of what looks

like a petrified brain

which is right ahead

and then it’s not,

spiraling further away.

Turning a corner

torso teeters, trips,

boot kicks

a rock into the path.

Voices from the past snicker

Clumsy klutz!

Kicking the rock back into place.

Walking on.

*

The Center:

Finally

three red rocks triangle

a flat altar stone

spilling painted stones, shells,

ribbons, bracelets, a plastic flower,

a wooden plaque that says:

“Too much of anything is bad,

 but too much good whiskey is barely enough,”

left perhaps by someone hoping to leave 

both plaque and whiskey behind.

Sitting on a red rock wondering

Where is my center?

What do I need to leave behind?

Brown rumpled hills dotted with saguaro,

prickly arms lifted as if in praise,

reply with silence

punctuated by

the cooing of a distant dove.

*

Returning:

Heel…toe…heel…toe

trying to focus on the ground beneath the maze,

the silences between 

the ripples of wind, a cardinal’s whistle,

yellow palo verdi blossoms, azure sky,

sunlight on sweaty skin,

overhanging mesquit branch that 

grabs a shirtsleeve like a past sin.

Stumbling again

kicking another stone again

booting the rock back into place again,

breathing to Thich Nhat Hanh

(breathing in, I calm my body,

breathing out, I smile.)

circling, looping, spiraling,

remembering the center—

The soul? Love? Divine Spark?

Face before you were born?—

circling, looping, spiraling.

Gazing over russet, white, brown, tan

stones to the exit

except it’s also the entrance—

accept it’s also the entrance—

to life’s labyrinthian journey.

**

The Goat

Published on by geriatric pilgrim8 Comments

Feral goat somewhere in the north of England. Probably has nothing to do with my dream (although who knows?), but I thought I’d post it anyway.

~

“We are such stuff as dreams are made of…

—Shakespeare

~

I Dream of a Goat

chewing grass

outside the sunroom

of my house.

Which is strange,

because I live in a development

and the only animals

I usually see are

cats and dogs and birds.

But then,

I not sure I’m in my house:

it’s darker, emptier

—only my chair and a bookcase.

Oh, 

and the glass doors

through which 

I watch

the goat 

are bigger,

 and in a different place.

It’s a large goat,

probably female,

although I don’t know

much about goats—

I think 

that’s an udder

back there—

brown, white chest and legs,

 and two small horns

V-ing down

into white stripes 

until they meet 

in a white mask

over a long nose.

At first, 

I’m curious,

but the goat starts butting its head

against the glass doors.

The damn thing’s trying to get in!

I can feel its

 onyx eyes drilling

into my soul.

I lock the glass doors

but one is loose.

When I try to 

tighten a screw

with my Swiss army knife

another screw loosens.

I go from

one sliding door to another

trying to keep 

the goat out.

But when I turn around,

the goat is in the sunroom,

its hoofs clicking 

like some Flamenco dancer,

chewing,

either finishing the grass

or the leaves of a book,

I don’t know.

I worry about shit

on the floor

(like pebbles, right?),

but so far, nothing.

I don’t even smell anything.

From a closet

that seems somehow familiar

I find a broom.

I wack 

at the goat.

It runs away,

but whether 

back outside

or deeper 

into my dark house

I don’t know.

For some reason,

I don’t care anymore.

Actually,

I’m tempted

to open

the doors and windows

to see who else

might come in.

~~

Wading

Published on by geriatric pilgrim8 Comments

~

The setting sun lays down a carpet on the bay.

A school of clouds across the skyline floats

over humpbacked islands of pointed firs.

Closer to shore, three skiffs face out to sea,

and closer still, silhouetted

against the light, my wife wades, 

legs cut off at the knee by undulating waters,

back straight, arms out to the side for balance

(always important as we get older),

testing each step, her face turned to the sea,

while on this shore of tide pools and broken shells,

I, who find the water too cold,

the stones too sharp for my old feet, 

lean against a barnacle-encrusted rock

watching, wading in gratitude.

~

Gazebo

Published on by geriatric pilgrim6 Comments

~

“We are saved in the end by the things that ignore us.”— Andrew Harvey

~

At the Spiritual Renewal Center in Arizona

I’m not feeling renewed spiritually or otherwise.

Dusty desert wind sears my lungs as I sit in 90° heat,

stuck to a faded plastic chair in a rundown gazebo—

rotting floor…peeling paint… broken railings—

good place, I think, for an octogenarian

with COPD, a weak heart. and arthritic joints.

Just six years ago I walked the nearby desert trails 

for miles past petroglyphs and rattlesnakes,

up rocky canyons and down sandy washes.    

This morning, I reached for my inhaler after 20 minutes 

and turned back feeling old and dilapidated.

Now, I sit in this decaying gazebo awfulizing about my future:

a sudden heart attack that strikes me down

before I can say good-bye to those I’ve loved, 

or a stroke which leaves me paralyzed and drooling 

while others change their lives to look after me,

or worse, dementia, unable even to say thank you for caring.

Which leads me to wonder: Will I be missed when I’m gone?

Certainly not by the flat cumulous clouds 

floating over the hills on the horizon

 or the wind through the prickly pear, cholla, barrel,

organ pipe and ocotillo cactus,

 not to mention the saguaro standing

with arms raised to the heavens,

 and certainly not by the coyotes 

barking from the copper-colored hills behind me, 

or the doves or cardinals or flycatchers or thrashers 

or warblers or wrens or quails,

nor, come to think of it, by the yellow blossoms

from the palo verdi  blowing in the desert wind, gilding

the rotten gazebo floor and my decrepitude 

with the golden certainty of new life. 

~

First Thoughts on Spring

Published on by geriatric pilgrim6 Comments

We would rather be ruined than changed—W.H. Auden

**

The sun shines on budding branches;

snow has retreated into the shadows

exposing last year’s dead leaves.

A cacophony of cardinals, titmice, finches

sparrows, jays, and crows 

fill the chilly air.

I want to yell out the window,

SHUT UP! IT’S TOO EARLY!

*

I’m not ready for this.

I want to spend the day

by the fire with Jack Reacher,

sipping hot chocolate and petting the cat

while Jack beats up bad guys,

look every now and then

out the window,

agreeing with me and myself

that’s it’s too cold/snowy/icy

to go anywhere.

*

Hibernation may be dull,

but it’s a peaceful dull,

free from having to expend 

all that energy

walking in the woods,

planting a garden,

going to a beach,

having coffee with friends, 

celebrating birthdays with family …

*

But those damn birds keep chittering,

like an orchestra tuning up before the symphony begins.

***

Sonnet for the new Year

Published on by geriatric pilgrim4 Comments

The hemlocks in the hollow all have toes

That curve and claw down into rocky ground

To keep them anchored when the north wind blows,

And waters rise as heavy rains come down.

But overhead, these trees sway in the gale,

Dancing a jig to nature’s stormy song,

As if in celebration while winds wail,

Of their sure faith no tumult can last long.

Great lesson, that, especially this year

When God knows what strange winds will blow ‘round me:

Grasp on to love, trees say, instead of fear;

But sway, be supple, let adversity

First rev and race and then run out of gas.

Keep faith, my soul, that this as well shall pass.

#

On Hope: an Admonition

Published on by geriatric pilgrim6 Comments

#

Stop confusing it with expectation.

You’re going to be disappointed,

resentful, angry, pissed off at God

because the cancer didn’t disappear,

you didn’t get that new job you wanted,

Hurricane Hattie flooded your basement.

#

(Write this down: Don’t hope for anything

you can see, hear, touch, smell, or taste.)

#

And even if you do get to come home

from the hospital a day early,

or the car coming right at you swerves

away at the last saving second,

or your friend’s stock tip pays off enough

to finance an Aruba vacation,

please, please, please don’t proclaim to the world

how God in His goodness answered your prayers.

You’re only setting yourself up for

future resentment, not to mention

guilt and shame for having somehow displeased

His Royal Holy Hood.

#

Instead, divest, dismantle, ditch, doff, dump

expectations, anticipations, wishes.

Take a deep breath, and go for a walk

along that path you’ve been walking all

your life. Don’t worry about what’s ahead

—Here be dragons, right?—

but have a seat on this old tree stump.

Take more deep breaths, turn, look back

at all those times when, despite all your

mistakes, your blindness to injustice,

your embracing each Seven Deadly Sin

as if your happiness depended on it

while breaking all Ten Commandments

like you were making a hash omelet,

times when, despite your screwed-up family,

the hereditary overbite,

hip dysplasia, and weak heart,

times when despite the ugly divorce,

your daughter’s even uglier death,

all those goddamn operations,

the loss of lung capacity and libido,

you love the woman you wake up next to,

you sing to Sirius FM’s ‘Fifties Gold,’

you savor your morning hot chocolate,

you look forward to lunch with old classmates,

you feed the birds, play the banjo, plant

a garden, enjoy Wordle and Brit Box,

worshiping in silence, dabbling in poetry,

watching the grandchildren grow up.

#

Hope is not about getting what you want,

it’s about seeing what you already have,

the force that makes life worth living,

that same power that is pushing new growth

from this dead tree stump you’re sitting on.

#

Now, go get those dragons!

My One, Unfolding Life

Published on by geriatric pilgrim8 Comments
The beach just down the hill from where I used to live in my “other life.”

#

6:45 a.m. Driving up the turnpike from Brunswick to Bangor, headed down east to Mount Desert Island, I’m apprehensive. I’m returning to what I’ve always called my “other life”: different marriage, different house, different job, different hobbies, different self. A self, quite frankly, I’ve never liked very much.

But I’ve received an invitation to attend the 50th high school reunion of the Mount Desert Island Class of 1974. For many of these students, I was their English teacher as well as senior class advisor. And while I have, at best, mixed feelings about this other life, I enjoyed teaching at MDIHS and have continued to be in contact with some of these former students. I’d really like to see them.

My name tag at the reunion.

The reunion is tomorrow, but besides an invitation to the reunion, I’ve been asked to talk about my book, The Geriatric Pilgrim: Tales from the Journey at a gathering—which I figure will mostly be former students— in Bar Harbor a few hours from now. So, while I watch the leaves change color as I drive north, I try to figure out what I’m going to say. 

I know I’ll start by saying the most important thing I learned in writing The Geriatric Pilgrim was that the physical pilgrimages Mary Lee and I made to places like Iona, Big Sur and the redwoods, Nova Scotia, Israel, Africa, and Turkey have shown me that any journey—including the one we make as we age (and these former students are now all pushing 70. Good God!)—can be a pilgrimage. Especially if looked at with curiosity and openness, as explorations to discover new facets of ourselves, seeking surprises rather than security, looking for evidence of and trusting in a power greater than ourselves. 

Then, I think, Okay, if any journey can be a pilgrimage, that means this trip back into my other life is a pilgrimage. How?

When Mary Lee (who is sitting beside me, looking at a map of Maine—she loves those big unfolding maps that take up half the front seat) have gone on a pilgrimage, we often talk about what new insights we’re bringing back with us which we can use in the future. So, what lessons did I learn during the seventeen years I spent at MDIHS that have stayed with me? 

Well, I’ve always said that those years were the best teaching years of my life. I’ve taught in other schools, some with more impressive teachers, some with smarter students, some with better sports programs, a wider variety of extracurricular activities, more opportunities for materially or intellectually challenged students. But what made MDIHS different was that, despite the annual arguments about the budget and the tensions about dress codes and what was being taught, the parents, the school board, the administration, the faculty, and the students all agreed on one thing: MDIHS was a good school. And because we all thought it was a good school, it was—winning national awards for excellence.

MDIHS in the early years. My room was the closest on the end.

 Making a pit stop at the rest area outside of Bangor, I realize how I frame the reality of my life determines how I see that reality, which in turn determines how I live that reality. Thinking we had a good school, I went to work each day excited and proud to be there (okay, not every day, but I can honestly say, most days) which made me work harder, which made me a better teacher and the students better students. Fifty years later, when I can think of my aging not as a problem, but as an opportunity for growth, I’m less anxious about what I can no longer do and more curious about finding new things I can do, more grateful for those things, which makes me more pleasant to be around.

Back in the car, however, turning on to Route 1A and heading for the coast, I ask: if MDIHS was such a great place to teach, why did I leave, and in the middle of the school year? What’s the lesson there?

It probably begins with that guy I used to be—the one I’ve never liked. Come to think of it, he didn’t like himself either. Despite the accolades (one state evaluator said my Advanced Placement English class rivaled the one at Phillips Exeter), I was not a happy camper. I’d created this persona—loud sports coats, matching ties and pocket handkerchiefs, green ink corrections symbols and sarcastic comments in the margins of papers, pictures of sixty-four famous authors glaring down from the walls—which began to feel like a body bag. 

Soon after waking up one morning gasping for breath as if someone had their hands around my throat, I resigned. In the middle of the school year. Moved out of my house, divorced my wife, married another woman, and moved 120 miles away to teach not AP seniors but freshman juvenile delinquents (one of whom as far as I know is still in prison for murder).

And I think the reason I’ve never liked that guy in my other life is that I’ve always thought he was a fraud. But thinking about it, I honestly liked my job, and I wanted to honor my profession by looking and acting my best. I recall reading in David Whyte’s book, Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity, something to the effect that the things which once served us can imprison us if we remain with them too long. 

Which, as I think about it, is also true as I age. I can’t hold onto those activities, that self-image, those beliefs that once sustained me. When I think about making a new pilgrimage, I can’t plan—or I shouldn’t, anyway or I’m going to be disappointed, either that or die—to hike the Appalachian Trail or climb Mount Katahdin, but I can continue the journey toward what I might, for lack of a better word, call my true self. A journey, I realize, that began when I left Mount Desert Island, maybe even before.

Speaking of which, I can now see MDI on the horizon, its rocky silhouette reminding me that this is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I remember, especially in those days when most of the tourists went home after Labor Day, how many afternoons and weekends I spent walking the trails and beaches there. And I realize that those walks were the beginning of what I call —somewhat euphemistically perhaps—my spiritual journey. Sitting on the top of one of the mountains, looking out over the neighboring islands, I experienced not only the inchoate presence of a Higher Power, but also a vague sense that everything belongs.

I needed help interpreting these experiences. Which led me to religion. When I first began teaching on the island, I hadn’t been in a church since I was married in one, and by the time I left seventeen years later, I was not only a member of a church but a member of the Board of Deacons. I sang in the church choir. I advised a church youth group. 

It dawns on me that without Mount Desert Island, there’d be no Geriatric Pilgrim.

I also see that I have no “other lives,” only this one—one that has been unfolding, like one of Mary Lee’s maps, from the beginning until now and will keep unfolding (I’m guessing; I’m curious to find out) after my earthly death. 

Wow! Now, if I can just remember to talk about some of this an hour from now…

# #

Swimming Upstream

Published on by geriatric pilgrim3 Comments

#

Because once upon a time

despite the threat of my mother’s hairbrush

I swam in the river below our house

dog paddling through chicken carcasses  

rotting perch and raw sewage

drifting downstream

from the falls that from a distance

was this white rush of water

spilling over great gray rocks

I attend church despite the disdain of old friends

fight the undercurrents of doubt

dodge the dead fish of boredom and

theological questions bobbing like chicken guts

pray to catch a glimpse of Spirit

flowing from the chalice.