I started writing this piece about my friend Craig several years ago. I thought I had lost it, but I found it again as I was purging files this summer. I was so grateful to find it!
Writing this was an experiment for me, as I was attempting a Japanese form called Haibun, which combines prose with haiku. It is intended that the poetry and prose will reflect and deepen each other.
I began writing the first part as a light-hearted piece, making fun of my own penchant for drama. But then life took a twist, and so did this work. I hope it holds some meaning for you.
On April Fool’s Day I spend the afternoon in a coffee shop with my friend and spiritual guide Craig. Craig is a big man with a shiny pate and a laughing Buddha bearing. He wears a pale green T shirt and khakis. He is relaxed, jovial, leaning back in his chair. I lean forward, feeling manic. I am facing a plate glass window looking out on a busy commercial street. Emergency vehicles dart by, sirens blaring, over and over again. It’s a strange type of April Fool’s joke, I think, and I worry it is an omen.
I say to Craig, “Life has been so stressful lately I’m afraid my head is going to explode.” Of course I’m exaggerating. Still I pull out my notebook. I have actually made a list of things to vent about, starting with the lack of support from administrators in my teaching job, moving on to my IRS return, and concluding with ongoing arguments I have with my ex-lover.
It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, Craig says as I tick each item off my list. “Life is a dream. These problems are an illusion.”
“I’m so lonely,” I say, finishing my list.
Craig leans in to touch my hand, lowering his voice to speak softly. “There is only one essence here on this planet, only one consciousness. You. AreNot. Separate.”
clam shell
on the river levee
mystic journey
I drive home in the dark over the H Street Bridge. I am heading west but eastbound traffic is backed up. There are two police cars blocking one lane, and people are milling about in the darkness on the side of the road near the university. Now what? I wonder as I creep toward home.
Two white ghost bikes haunt this stretch of road, one here on the left, the other around the curve on the right. They appeared suddenly, mysterious memorials, after the deaths of cyclists. A photograph framed in plastic flowers is tied to a tree in the median strip. It is a remembrance for a young man who hanged himself from the bridge last summer. At another spot on the south bank, pink and orange ribbons stream from a cottonwood tree in memory of a teenaged girl who was sucked in by a whirlpool and drowned in the river current.
Confronted with all this sadness within this small space, I stand stunned with my neighbors at the virtual river’s edge. At first no one speaks, but then whispers begin and grow louder. I listen as people begin raving about the inadequate signage, the poor timing of traffic lights, the speed limit way too high. “Something must be done,” someone shouts. I hear people blaming the government, public schools, churches. The city council must do something and it must be done fast. Because life is fragile, and we love each other so much.
seagulls inland
bruised sky
approaching storm
Craig dies suddenly in November. His family decides against a service. I understand this would be his choice, yet I am frustrated to have no outlet to express my sorrow. A week later I am out driving, running errands. National Public Radio has special coverage for the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. While listening to interviews of people who were there in the streets of Dallas, tears begin to stream down my face. For an instant I see Craig sitting next to me in the passenger seat where he has often sat in my car. His eyes are gray, his mouth pinched. I feel his sadness, and it is for me, because I am taking his passing so hard. He says nothing, then he is gone. I pull over and park, lean my arms and face against the steering wheel and sob.
flashing needles
through black fabric
meteor showers
A co-worker tells me about her brother who became ill unexpectedly. He was in a coma, they were afraid they would lose him, but he is recovering now. As she relates the story, she pauses occasionally to affirm that he is healthy and strong, that he is recovering fully. She affirms that she herself is strong, that she has learned so many lessons from this experience.
I nod, I affirm with her. But, I think, sometimes it’s okay not to learn anything. Sometimes it’s okay just to endure the pain and frustration, to be angry, to be sad, to be grief-stricken. To be.
break in the clouds
whorls and knots
an unpainted fence
In this waking dream I am writing. Craig told me my words vibrate with a kind of intuitive numerology coded into each of my stories and poems, creating a blueprint for the expansion of human consciousness. I like that it is blue, a vibrant blue tinged with grays and greens like the river that runs behind my house, rushing toward the ocean where it will become a pure crystalline blue, an infinite reflection of our sky.
rumors of sea lions
in the River Sacrament
lead me down a different path
