The days past were blessed with
irreverence when the nights failed to bless me.
I am called Paul because one night I was chosen to be given such a
name. Now, however, I find myself in the
back seat of a car gazing out the window toward the dribbling rain and the
quietness of life. I close my eyes.
The black four door
Buick steamed down an isolated dirt road surrounded by an untold number of
trees resembling monumental grave markers.
The trees held close to one another as we passed by. Scenes of remote mountains became blurred by
the car’s increasing motion to continue onward.
Only the tormented shapes of solid black clouds high above remained
greater than the snow covered mountain tops in the distant wilderness. The shadowy clouds scorched higher as though
they were smoke pouring up and away from a burning house lost somewhere in the
immense forest.
The day was nearing evening, and
leaving a blur of shadows against the ground.
I could not see any buildings nor any other
cars passing by with their standard roars.
Behind the car a cloud of dust quickly became a tail of concealment
which hid everything that laid behind. I’m sure the only thing behind us was the
past.
The wilderness seemed to open
up. It was like it was trying to swallow
the car as the wheels moved the vehicle deeper into Nature’s fanged mouth. A chaos where man was the outsider; man
excluded from a world created specifically for him.
I remember thinking how beautiful
the world’s creations could be until my body ached. The pain coursed through my veins. It caused memories to be unleashed. Thoughts I thought I had forsaken. Images I thought I could run away from. I was not alone in the car. I was being driven to only God knew
where. In the thriving impulses of pain
I barely recalled how I came to be in that unwanted situation.
I had been on the street for
nearly six months. I lived my own way,
my own life, and faced my own problems.
It was dark except for the twilight which seeped through one broken window
in my home. The night air was dark and
cool as the breeze of midnight came in periodically.
My home was a wooden shed. As if anyone could call that place a home. Yet, it was home to me for a little over five
months. It protected me and secured me
from the outside weather for a few moments to rest. It laid behind an
old man’s house where it stood erect about eight feet and reached close to four
feet wide. It was abandoned just like
me.
The old man hardly ever came out
of his house. If he did it was to feed
the birds or to sit on his back porch to write.
Even then this would be after lunch.
By then I was a ghost only to haunt the dwellings of the shack late at
night.
I came upon the old man, one day,
when I strolled down the alley behind the back yard. I stopped and watched the old man as he wept
softly. He spoke to himself in several
sobbing mumbles. He was sitting on the
back porch on a swing made for two people.
Two wrinkled hands covered his bent head and his feet were firmly
planted in the boards of the porch. He
wore faded blue overalls and a brown flannel shirt underneath. Two black boots were worn in and were
becoming faded on his feet. Several
holes occupied the old man’s boots. No
fear passed my thoughts as I leapt the fence and started towards the gnarled
old man.
It was quiet out. Still, he did not hear me until I stood on
the steps of that old wooden porch. Even
then he did not lift his head. He probably
built the porch with his own two hands when he was young and full of vigor and
life’s wrinkle still waited for him.
He just sat there with his face
covered by his archaic hands aged by hardships that were still unknown to
me. While the birds sang and the clouds
slowly walked by in a moment of a moments pause he seemed to know who I was, a
backyard companion. However, he made no
notion in speech. So I stood there
wanting to comfort him. I wanted to tell
this stranger that it would be all right.
That was when I first realized I
had only been a lost boy in the world. I
had not yet faced the difficulties of life or nor imagined such. I spoke to the old man, interrupting his
mourning out of curiosity.
“Old man?”
I asked bravely breaking the sorrowful silence. “Why are you crying?”
His hands slowly fell from his
face revealing brown eyes that burned for pity as he began to wipe away the
tears. He replied with only two words
and departed into his house. A voice
strong and probably capable of leading great armies into battle spoke with a
brokenness I had never witnessed before. His voice still echoes within me.
“My bride,” he had
said.
His answer made my eyes
water. I was about to leave when I saw
the old man’s leather bound book gently laying next to where he once sat. Taking up the black book I took the place of
the old man in the swing. It held a
title on the cover, “Entre Nous”. I was
confused. My senses warned me to leave
but my heart persuaded me to stay.
Opening the book I noticed it was pieces of paper that obtained writings
from the owner. The quiet old man was a
poet. Flipping to each and every poem I
read them softly. I began to understand
the old man’s answer. I tore one poem
from the book after I read it. I even
committed the poem to memory over the next several years. It fascinated me of how a tough old man could
be so soft on the inside. I don’t think
I will ever forget that old man or the poem he wrote.
