I Grew Up Painting Bricks

I grew up painting bricks with water when I was younger; and, I learned to paint them with paint as I got older.  The practice of painting bricks with water began when I was five and six years old, waiting for my father to come home from work on Saturday. I was waiting for him to get done so he could take me fishing.  

The waiting was hard for me and so my father and mother devised a practice that would become a profession. It started with a Maxwell House coffee can, water, and a three inch wide brush. They would fill the can with water and tell me to go paint the brick wall on the side of the walkway up to the house.  

There was a wisdom in their prescription. By the time I would get to the end of the brick wall, the beginning of the brick wall would be dry and need water again. I would start all over again without skipping a beat.  So whether they planted an OCD pattern in me, or were simply maximizing on an OCD pattern they saw, I cannot be completely sure. But, I could not stop painting the wall with water.  It was a drive.

Later in life, when I was between careers, I had my own painting business for several years. I had painted a lot in the summer during high school and college days. But, just before our first son was born, I was painting houses in an historic borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania - and all around the county.  It was what my father did for 30 years of his life.

Painting bricks with water was the first inkling I had that there is often a natural hunger built into the work we do. A hunger that would allow us to keep going, to keep doing, until we achieve what we set out to accomplish.  A hunger that sustains itself, even as we grow weary. Some would call it an obsession.  But I think they only do that because they fear the hunger. Those who understand the hunger do not need to call it an obsession at all.  They just listen to its urgings.

Hunger can root us in our daily lives and look like habit. The learned behavior that allows us to return to the same activities day after day after day.  This hunger drives communities as well as individuals. It moves history across time. It is responsible for all the great developments we love; the culture and art and science in living itself.

It is hunger that gets me out of bed in the morning.  That calls me to hike three miles before work.  It is hunger that helps me to overcome the difficulty of working with the dying - day in and day out. And what begins me to long for the sweet creams and crepes of sleep.

Hunger is the very pulse that moves all life forward; evolving into the next way we will be.  And the next after that.  I love that longing ache to move ahead and grow.  I am enchanted and haunted by that hunger.

Collaged Gelli mono-print accompanies piece

Across the Trail

 

Across the trail of time I go

to the place I had once found 

my pace in hiking - the first

time.  Hiking the Horseshoe

Trail, each step reminds my me

where the gentle portions of my

soul had picked out the way a 

footfall feeds a heartbeat; and a

heartbeat lulls the soul to 

sleeping while yet wide awake.

The scent of the earth here is

made up of hickory bark and black

walnut shells.  The sight of humus

is fraught with worms determined 

to consume every nutrient at 

their surround.  So pebbled is the

dirt it crumbles as I pull out 

strands of Canary Grass - in

great clumps - fistfuls at a time.

How can so much from the past

be laced into my very steps today.

Does not the earth herself re-

member me from passing this way

more than once.  She must.  But still

my life has meanings here, if she does

not.  Meanings bent on giving me 

over to the grandeur of becoming 

more than a man.  But, less than a 

god.  Pure spirit, yes spirit. Hope.

After

 

After placing the final stitches                               on the denim patches of your poem,                   try it on. Wear it for a week. 

Make sure you have it on when you  

go out in public. Have it on when you hike 

the trail.   Even when you sleep.

Wear it inside out to make sure it is versatile 

and capable.  See how it looks on you when 

you wear it backward.  How about wet?

Study each stitch to see if it will bear up 

under long wear.  Are the threads showing 

integrity and truth?  Will they last? 

If your poem can bear up under such 

regular scrutiny, it may be a good one.  It 

may move people to satisfaction.

Listen to the sounds it makes as you walk.  

Try to hear its unique tones while sauntering 

in it, and then again at a full run.

Is it a pleasing tune?  Or, perhaps it is an 

alarming melody?  Does it ring true with a 

clarity that makes folks hungry for more?

After placing the final stitches  

on the denim patches of your poem,  

try it on. Wear it for a week. 

It Matters How We Do This

Stand here in the heat, in the hot and blazing heat of morning that feels as if it is ten times hotter than it should be.

Stand here in the smoke that is as dense as fog; that flies south from the Northlands which seems are all on fire. 

Stand here and hang your head in silence. Open your heart to the anguishing world that is coming undone - COMING UNDONE.

In this same space remember with joy, the countless days you have stood here with rain and foxes, and spindly legged fawns.

Times before the troubles.  But know this.  It matters how we do this.  Acknowledge the anguish; and acknowledge the joy.

For grieving goes this way.  To ignore the sharp pain of loss would not be kind to the owl, the bear, and the ginseng; nor the fireflies.

It would be an affront to the children born this day.  An outrage to all our relations.  It matters how we do this.

Start ‘Em Off Young

I can remember trying to catch

the screen door with my foot

before it would hit the aluminum 

frame and announce it’s having been 

opened and closed one more time.

For some reason, there was a rule 

about comings and goings and 

how many could occur.  Which, by 

the way, was never discussed 

with me.  But don’t cross the line.

“Tommy Medland, if you come in

from outside one more time today

you’ll be stuck inside the house

for the rest of the day.  You’ll not

be allowed to go out anymore.”

With the stalwart innovation of the 

explorers I read of at the age of seven, 

I thought it within the rules laid 

down that if I should need to pee 

that outside is where I should go.

And so, to the tallest of the poplars

I went.  It was the last of four that would 

die and need me to cut it down and

into pieces to burn.  I peed on it and as

the Ackers drove by, I waved to them.

And there was my one flaw.  As still today. 

In the social kindnesses expected and shown,  

with my right hand I did my business; with my 

left I acknowledge our neighbors driving by.  

Who knew they’d call?

Mixed messages.  Everywhere.  Waiting

to confound the logical constructs we

thought we knew.  Adult-speak always changing 

into something we never heard before.  

Neighbors betray us, as we wave.

It’s so treacherous to be so young!

WITH NO CARE

 Sometimes a morning poem emerges from behind the scenes you are seeing just this

moment, but has been simmering from a life; a lifetime.  Such was what I wrote this fine day:

"I give you the end of a golden string, 

Only wind it into a ball: 

It will lead you in at Heavens gate, 

Built in Jerusalems wall." Jerusalem, 

by William Blake

Without a care the deer

sauntered casually across

the backroad and ever so

gently into the woods - like 

through a door that did not

exist and was gone - all gone.

Like what I remember of the

crossing out of mid-life.  It’s

time to trace those steps and

see where I have been - where

we have been.  Pinsky of Dante 

was spot on: 

“Midway on our life's journey, 

I found myself in dark woods, 

the right road lost. To tell

About those woods is hard—so 

tangled and rough…”

Step back out my soul, onto

the road that was yours, before

you did what we must do to

live and survive amid the masses.

Find that golden thread and follow

it back to the ball wound up and

in the center of your you - in

your heart space, and weave the

blanket you will share and some

day leave to warm your wife and sons 

and all they bring into this world - both 

now and when you are gone.  It’s what

we do - we men - when we find our

road - again.  We weave; we wind and weave.

The Dandy-Lion

 

Billions have been

trodden under barefoot

toes, in just my humble

life alone.

Weed, weed decry

the masses of

suburbia.  Jealous

they can spread so

easily on just the wind.

Dandelion, oh the flower

of our youth.  When we were

yet able to forestall the

judgement that a thing could

itself be worthless through and

through.  This herald of glory 

picked by chubby hands. 

While toil we must from 

sun to sun to make a 

simple meager wage to 

tend the need of all our 

days we pass upon here

from cradle to grave.

Sacred flower picked endlessly

by the harbingers of whimsy

and delight.  Might I never lose

my infatuation with your downy

flower and bitter leaves; the purple 

in your stem ever the vein of joy. 

Arise each year, again and again,

and cause the miserable to grumble.