Back when you wrote to Yesenin you mentioned your wealth of paper clips,
those small silver wonders that kept your work, “the whole thing together.”
That richness contrasted by your other shabby possessions—house, dog, wife,
baby—all in need of some upkeep/help whether it be a paint job or antibiotics.
As for your wife and baby, you clearly indicated “we don’t own humans.” True.
And then you. Housed in that brick-layer’s body already at your age buffeted
by winds of too much drink and too much anxiety and, according to McGuane,
that same ten pounds you were always trying to lose. We men and our bodies.
I looked in the mirror yesterday and almost didn’t recognize myself. An aged
face, crow-footed eyes, plus the once hoped for white beard just a batch of gray.
And the eyes. Hard to honestly describe them with any other word than “tired.”
But I hold my own with the guys at work (all in their 20s and 30s), and three times
a week I’m in the gym keeping up with the kids (most in their 30s). Some days, if
I’m feeling my oats I give them a run for their money. The male ego can still be
roused, so that’s proof of life, wouldn’t you say? We men and our bodies, and egos.
I will read the Scripture passages this Sunday, that role known as “lector,” that word
pretty close to “rector,” that word John Irving dislikes as its so close to “rectum.”
Makes sense to me. Reading the Scriptures is as close as I get these days to a pulpit.
There’s the occasional guest speaker scenario, but for me preaching is all in the past.
I’ve had people ask me before about a comeback, and I’ve wondered the same myself.
But I think I’m where I need/have to be. As you often said when asked if you would
ever consider a teaching post at a university: “No. Somebody has to stay outside.”
Poets. Off to the side. Off in the lilacs. Off our rockers if one thinks about it, that
these flowers for the void will amount to a hill of beans. In a gorgeous tribute after
you died, Joy Williams called you “a holy terror.” Actually that’s how she described
what you saw, the world as it was, “dancing with light.” But it’s violence to separate
you from your right and left eyes. Package deal as I see it. Harrison, that holy terror.
A friend wrote to me recently to say she’d read a poem of mine to one of her classes.
Afterwards a student asked, “Is he Christian?” Boy I got a kick out of that. Maybe
there’s a fleshy nature to how/what I write that could cause one with a rather fixed
way of seeing to wonder. My wife has said to me before “You like fleshy things.” It’s
true, I do. As did you. The vast wealth even in our shabby surroundings. To finish the
days as Andre Dubus did, there, at the end of each day’s written pages: Thank you.
*photo credit - Kate Shuttleworth