Morality at the Bottom of the Sea

Ethics demands personhood,
like tentacles reaching out into the dark abyss of human preponderance,
so too, if we recall, those pointy ends,
grasping at straws for which way to go
and to whom or what to turn,

that even the tips of those long, undulating appendages,
seeming to float and waver in the unknown,
are traced, over long eons of inquiry, back to the cephalopod,
the source of all their searching for what is good and right,
for they are not cast off into the deep chasm and personless void,
but connected to the one who searches all, sees all,
who both commands and cooperates with its many arms,
working toward the ultimate good. 

Ethics demands personhood, and we are reminded of Ivan,
the Karamazov brother who would later repent
after debating the devil,
who said, in cold journalist rhyme,
"If God does not exist,
crime is not only permissible,
but necessary."

Saving Death from the Spider

When a spider catches a fly in its web, I can find a satisfaction within myself that it is good and right, for the victim in this captured entanglement seems appropriate: the fly is a disgusting creature full of germs and is also  an annoyance; but when I see a hummingbird, with its elegant grace of darting and hovering flight, and  its shimmering, colorful coat caught also in a web--this time in the snare of a much larger arachnid, I shudder at the injustice and recoil at this thing and call it evil.  "Too much, too much!" is all I can say: the bird does not fit there, and the spider has outgrown its appropriate size, becoming a monster, rather than a help.  It is a monster.  And now the grace and beauty of this gentle bird shall have its very life sucked out of it through the malevolent straws and narrow eyes of a creeping, feeling thing with too many awkward legs, like a thief's hand bent on violating all that is good and sacred in the home of a kind mother.

I can only conclude that this world bespeaks of a transcendent good, which is now corrupted, though it retains much of its original state of wholeness and offers hints of paradise.  How shall I rescue this bird without the horror of looking my enemy in the eye and even with a stick offered by the benevolence of a tree, avoid feeling its bulbous, bagged body squash under the force of my prodding?  Oh, to think of it, and the awful memories produced!

Now: the bird will drink nectar and bring delight to our eyes amid colors and hues only flowers can bring, whereas that dark, evil creature shall drink nothing except death!

Lake Forest Cemetery

We're heading up to Grand Haven in August, and second on my list of to do's is to visit Lake Forest Cemetery, which lies adjacent to Duncan's Woods, and where across Lake Avenue, is another wood, bordering a great sand dune, the top of which offers a panoramic view of the flat, green Michigan expanse, split in two by the river Grand with its tiny fingers extending into bayous and ballooning out into Spring Lake.  I usually envision such a visit alone, and maybe my wife is standing in the background at the border of Duncan's and the cemetery, amid the milkweed and beach grass, where Monarch butterflies flit and twitter about, resting with that classic, open and shut revel of orange and black as they drink sweet nectar.  An indulgent summer air is there to drink in and exhale, leaving your head in a lush, as the waves in the far distance offer gentle roars and monotonous delight.

Duncan's Woods holds great mystery.  A good man and his wife gave this rolling parcel of tree-drenched hills to the city of Grand Haven many, many years ago, on the condition that it would never be developed, and always available for the people to enjoy.  There is a black road that cuts through the wood like a horseshoe-shaped ribbon, with a hill offering the apex of speeding adventures for boys on bikes racing with an alarming rush on their way to win the applause of imagined crowds.  And maybe that girl will be waiting at the end with her congratulatory smile, and keen eyes.  Or maybe there'll be a deep chasm at the end, full of snakes and monsters with glimmering teeth, over which he must jump in order to save, not the day, but himself.  That's Duncan's Woods, and it's got even more to offer.  But next to it is a place of solemn beauty and to this we now turn.

There are friends of mine buried there, and "gone too soon" is the apropos grimace we all share, though it is cliche.  The thing about cliches is, they're true.  Heather and Amy are there.  Heather's dad is there.  He was a good man.  My boyhood neighbor, Jack, is there.  He was a good man, too.  My friend's dad, Keith is there.  Keith died when his eldest son was only three.  I remember standing there when I was 13 or 14, watching my friend, not yet a man, and far beyond a boy, standing there on the precipice of adulthood, staring at his father's tombstone, and a deep chasm we call the abyss of cold death.  He stood with his head down, like a sentinel who's lost hope for the dawn.

When we were in our 20's, we would tremble through the Wood at midnight, (and I was fearful of evil men with knives), and drinking and smoking and thinking of the ancient natives who lived and hunted there, got married and had children.  We were so high and mighty: we weren't like the lemming slaves downtown on a Friday night, lapping up the poison of driving, droning noise, and spreading their peacock tails in order to impress would-be companions for a mere, short night.  Making up poems full of non-sequiturs and half-stoned observances of things we have never seen, felt or heard, we pretended to be Jim Morrison, the great Shaman.  We were so much better, O yes!  

There was a crystal cross on Heather's tombstone, but I never saw it.  It kept getting stolen.  It glowed pink-red at night.  How beautiful it must have been.  My friends said, yes, it was beautiful.  Who would steal something like that?  Her parents gave up on replacing it time and again.

My favorite tombstone there is of a young man who died on my birthday, May 6.  His name is Christopher, like me.  His mother and father had engraved the most compelling farewell: Our beloved Christopher, our happy thought.  Until the resurrection..."

Yes, until resurrection!  When the dogwoods are blossoming their glimmering white petals, filling the trees like a thousand stars on a green canvas, and when their neighbors peak in pink flowers, so that the whole tree is a pulsating rhythm of sweet scented Spring, then ah, the Eternal Spring will descend and raise us up and all creatures will sing and worship him, the author and giver of life, that is where I want to be, in Lake Forest Cemetery, next to Duncan's Woods. Until the resurrection.

Anxiety Attack

The corner of the counter stared at him like a knight pointing his sword amidst the glimmering armor stained with the blood of his enemies, and glaring through the narrow slit, revealing cold, shining eyes behind the protective mask.  He was filled with constant worry that some day, somehow, he or someone he loved would trip and fall and puncture their forehead on it, leaving them bleeding on the floor and dying a slow, miserable death.  As he looked around the house in twitches and fits, his flitting eyes unable to keep up with the swiveling head, he rattled off numerous other hazards and points of danger: the electric sockets whose blank looks peered at him with mouths of open horror, the pictures on the wall resting on thin, rusting nails in weak dry wall as feeble as balsa wood, and waiting to fall in splinters of pointed, exploding glass, the scalding hot iron skillet waiting to be grasped by a curious child, blistering the flesh of the hand and smothering in hot lava, the boiling food meant only to grow and nurture, but now serving as disfigurement and macabre, the gas lines, where connected may have leaks and lend themselves to explosions beyond the capacity of war, and the knives laying harmlessly on the surface of the counter...

At this, he leapt out of his chair and ran outside, hoping for the green solace of the trees and grass and flowers and blue sky.  But there was no escape from mortal danger: for outside were spiders and their waiting, watching attacks, ticks with their madness-inducing disease, power lines ready to fall and burn to singing ash, and planes overhead from which anything could fall, yea, even themselves. 

He stood, motionless, like Siddhartha, waiting for the earth to crumble beneath him and swallow him whole.  In his mind, the dogs raced around the track, chasing the hare, leaving flashes of a thousand colors and non sequiturs, memories and faces, grim and staring, looking down the nose, and some with wry, evil smiles, but only noticeable to him in his heightened, moment of punctuated frenzy.  The fear gripped him, heaving him up to the skies, casting his anchor to the abyss of self-abandonment.  In his head there were fizzy lights, flickering on and off like the bugs that crack and pop in those old electric chambers hung on the corner of the house in mid summer. 

And then he ran.

Ice Cream

The soft, inner tube fastened around his waist like a hugging, slumbering snake, and despite the bone-aching, dizzying moments of fasting, and though the cadre of laps around his oak-lined neighborhood stacked up in the win column like the pack of rice cakes his wife placed in the pantry for his late evening cravings, there it lay--the ubiquitous handles of flubber staring at him in the mirror.  A bucket of sweat eked out of him after his sunset meander of pins-in-the-knees jogging, and there the master called from its frozen abode.  It was dark chocolate and cherry, and wouldn't it satisfy the tongue, the stomach, and yes, the soul? 

After indulgence and having no semblance of remorse, his faithful bride broke out the chocolate chip cookie dough.  More.  Even then, the appetite was wont for satiation, as the chocolate pie in the fridge cried out for consumption.  This too, was a work of lust, and it was truly too much, but the overload of the sugary master won the battle, beating him into submission, and it was so good. 

Besides, he thought, I can always run some more tomorrow. 

Goodbye, Mr. Chipmunk

What a casual, mere glance out of the kitchen window toward the yard beyond the sunken deck, but upon the border of those two manipulations of man and nature did I see the most majestic bird--a great, grey falcon in classic pose standing with its head turned back over the shoulder, offering the silhouette of its downward-sloped, sharpened beak? It stood, enthroned upon its perch, portraying the melding hues of off-white, grey and blue, and raised its great, stretching wings like a king leaving his regal position to thrust by sheer power and grace into the air toward the south, past the towering, bulbous oak tree.

And in its talons I beheld with both horror and delight, the resident whom my fairy daughters had come to know and love as Mr. Chipmunk! His legs splayed out under those dagger-imbued feet lay helpless as our former friend awaited his fortuitous end. Goodbye, Mr. Chipmunk, and farewell, for by now your decimated, furry body has become the center of a great feast, and the falcon's cry screeches and calls out in regal victory, for he is the Lord of the sky and of all small, woolly creatures below. Goodbye Mr. Chipmunk--perhaps your kind and good home under our deck shall ensconce itself by the hearty nature of a new host, but I must bid you, in your ultimate demise, adieu.