Divine Infirmary

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Divine Infirmary

The Linnet’s Wings 3

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“Here amid the gloom and the dark wind, rises a land populous in parts with cottages as a city with human beings. It is a place of tiny dwellings and tiny farms. Out in the fields you see the women labouring and bringing wonder into the rocky darkness of the island with their heavy petticoats of red and blue that you will not surpass for colour in a Titian.

The men dig the earth into strange shapes - furrows and ridges that you would conceive might be dug blindly by night. The social spirit is here, however, making continual war on the hungry bareness of things. The people delight in dancing and song and old men scrape a living from twittering fiddles on the earthen cottage floors in the evenings.” (from ‘Home Life in Ireland’, quoted in Mary Cosgove, ‘Paul Henry and Achill Island’, in Ullrich Kockel (Ed), ‘Landscape, Heritage and Identity’, pub. Liverpool University Press, 1995)

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The Lion & the Mouse A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion's nose. Roused from his nap, the Lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her.

"Spare me!" begged the poor Mouse. "Please let me go and some day I will surely repay you."

The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. But he was generous and finally let the Mouse go.

Some days later, while stalking his prey in the forest, the Lion was caught in the toils of a hunter's net. Unable to free himself, he filled the forest with his angry roaring. The Mouse knew the voice and quickly found the Lion struggling in the net. Running to one of the great ropes that bound him, she gnawed it until it parted, and soon the Lion was free.

"You laughed when I said I would repay you," said the Mouse. "Now you see that even a Mouse can help a Lion."

A kindness is never wasted.

Aesop

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Lion by Albrecht Durer, Date: 1494, Style: Northern Renaissance, Genre: animal painting

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How Jack Found that Beans May Go Back On a Chap

by Guy Wetmore Carryl (1873–1904)

Without the slightest basis For hypochondriasis A widow had forebodings which a cloud around her flung, And with an expression cynical For half the day a clinical A thermometer she held beneath her tongue.

Whene'er she read the papers She suffered from the vapors, At every tale of malady or accident she'd groan; In every new and smart disease, From housemaid's knee to heart disease, She recognized the symptoms as her own!

She had a yearning chronic To try each novel tonic, Elixir, panacea, lotion, opiate, and balm; And from a homeopathist Would change to an hydropathist, And back again, with stupefying calm!

She was nervous, cataleptic, And anemic, and dyspeptic: 10

Though not convinced of apoplexy, yet she had her fears.

She dwelt with force fanatical Upon a twinge rheumatical, And said she had a buzzing in her ears!

Now all of this bemoaning And this grumbling and this groaning The mind of Jack, her son and heir, unconscionably bored.

His heart completely hardening, He gave his time to gardening, For raising beans was something he adored.

touching was her talk.

She never fussed or flurried him, The only thing that worried him Was when no bean-pods grew upon the stalk!

But then he wabbled loosely His head, and wept profusely, And, taking out his handkerchief to mop away his tears, Exclaimed: "It hasn't got any!"

He found this blow to botany Was sadder than were all his mother's fears.

Each hour in accents morbid This limp maternal bore bid Her callous son affectionate and lachrymose good-bys.

She never granted Jack a day Without some long "Alackaday!"

Accompanied by rolling of the eyes.

The Moral is that gardeners pine Whene'er no pods adorn the vine.

Of all sad words experience gleans The saddest are: "It might have beans."

(I did not make this up myself: 'Twas in a book upon my shelf.

It's witty, but I don't deny It's rather Whittier than I!)

But Jack, no panic showing, Just watched his beanstalk growing, And twined with tender fingers the tendrils up the pole.

At all her words funereal He smiled a smile ethereal, Or sighed an absent-minded "Bless my soul!"

from “Grimm Tales Made Gay” (1902)

That hollow-hearted creature Would never change a feature: No tear bedimmed his eye, however

Guy Wetmore Carryl was an American humoris and poet.

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Frontispiece, The West Awake, Following Paul Henry, Mari, 2020

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All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including, photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, mail the publisher at: thelinnetswings@gmail.com Design @Mari, 2021 ISBN: 978-1-9164622-4-3 Published by The Linnet’s Wings, 2021

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Table of Contents Prologue The Night Makes Stars 14

ESSAY Face to Face with Moses by Stephen Zelnick 20

CNF Drawing the Line by Oonah V Joslin 36

SHORT STORY Everyone an Orphan by Erik Svehaug 40 A Giant Step Forward by Harry Stone 53 The Courtship of Alma by Bill Frank Robinson 60 Hey, America by Tom Sheehan 64 The Sky by Marie Fitzpatrick 67 Chornby and Leo the Blind Man by Tom Sheehan 72

CLASSIC The Faithful Light by Rosa Mulholland 18

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Art Collage, Mari

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The Night Makes Stars The earth is round, the grid is flat The shift between the two Allows for waves to shrink, expand To move the dream forward As the maker planned.

Meadows of gold that were bordered with lively ditches ran down the hills and onto the river bank.

100 square miles of mixed arable and scrub land was layered with a grid which was a measuring rule for Rain-Rein, the Pooka King who oversaw the area.

A grid that fell from the sky on a silver chord was positioned equally between its borders to hold an invisible mist-like-presence so his workers had guidance to help pin voice and measure proceedings The tribe of faeries were referred to as ‘The TC.’ Each one was responsible for the care of a square inch of land. Their primary description was to refill the weather verse with hearty fun and true intention.To 16

help maintain an environmental balance they mined the human aura by syphoning off copies of all good thoughts with the purpose of using them to furnish the land with valuable jewelled seams that nourished and conditioned the soil with strength and vigour allowing it to thrive under all conditions.

Each day they seeded the cloud with copies of beautiful work before it passed out of the aura and became ravelled with the raw matter that infiltrates all human form. And each dawn they watched the meld happen, when just before sunrise the mix fell into the borderlands that separated the spirit and the real; into the space where constitutions are build and memories made.

But now there is a shift, the grid is moving off centre and the tribe are losing work to the changelings Angry storm-heads are moving in and uprooting the good that has been propagated.

It is time for action: Time to manifest more beautiful language. More kind words, deeds, actions, more forgiveness and peace. To manufacture golden tomes to add to the loveliness that’s found all around So that when day makes ground night makes stars. ***

Art: Under the Dock Leaves by Richard Doyle Where Elves and Faeries Dance

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The Linnet’s Wings

The Faithful Light

By Rosa Mulholland (Lady Gilbert)

Art: Collage The Watcher Mari 2021

There a light in the cottage window-It shines far over the vale; The sun is gone and the day is done And the stars are few and pale.

Only a farthing rushlight, With a feeble flickering ray-‘Twill gleam and wane in that window-pane Till wears the night away.

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Storyman

A woman sits in the cottage, And weeps and tends the light; Her loving care has placed her there To glimmer that livelong night.

For one to sea went sailing And one will sure come back; That light must burn till he returns By the lonely beaten track.

He comes not over the mountain, He comes not across the vale; The beacon-light keeps burning bright, Though the woman’s face is pale.

He lies deep down in the oceanBut others cross the plain, And hearts beat high when passing nigh that light in the window-pane.

They bless the faithful watcherThe heart that will not break, The friendly light in the darksome night That burns for another’s sake Her face grows paler and palerBut wanderers reach their home; Her loving pain is not in vain Though one will never come.

Rosa Mulholland (Lady Gilbert) 21

The Linnet’s Wings

[Michelangelo’s “Moses”, church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. Muscular, commanding, poised for action. His horns result from a mistaken translation of “shining rays” in Exodus 34.]

Face to Face with Moses Stephen Zelnick (Moses) and Ronald Kostar (Interviewer) [1] A Radio Play supported by the Roosevelt Arts Project Roosevelt, New Jersey

Interviewer: I am delighted to be face-to-face with Moses, the great liberator of the Jewish people, author of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible … a man who talked with God. Moses: Thank you, but you praise me for what belongs to God alone. I was imperfect. I don’t know who my parents were … likely I was born a Hebrew. Some say my name means “recovered from the waters” – and fits the tale of Pharaoh’s daughter fishing me from the river. I was raised in Pharaoh’s household … grew up an undisciplined playboy, enjoying my accidental royalty. And then, in anger, I killed a man and was banished. [2] Interviewer: It is strange to think of you as a person with faults.

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Storyman

[Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) “The Finding of Moses, 1904. Cast adrift by his Hebrew mother, Moses was found by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as a prince in Phraoh’s court.]

Moses: It’s all right there in Exodus -- I was easily frustrated. In my youth, life was easy. Later, when God called on me to serve Him, I was impatient … overwhelmed by what he asked me to do. I lacked experience, lacked intelligence; and at times I wavered in my faith.

Interviewer: This doesn’t sound like the Moses I have heard about.

Moses: Look … I beat a man to death and ran off into the wilderness. There I met my beloved Zipporah, married her and retreated to a shepherd’s life. When the Lord awakened me from my slumber to be His champion, I tried with all my might to convince Him I was unworthy … an insignificant person. How poor a speaker I was …. I needed my Brother Aaron’s help even to speak to Pharaoh … along with shabby magic tricks – sticks and snakes, and such nonsense. Later, in the desert, I all but gave in to my people’s complaints. I fomented a civil war that killed many Israelites. I treated my people’s enemies harshly. In the end, for my faults, God denied me entry to the Promised Land. He demands so much. [3] Interviewer: But I see you heroic, your staff upraised, parting the Red Sea. Moses: You’re thinking of Charlton Heston … Exodus describes a people’s liberation. But it is also my story of how I grew into my destiny as a leader. My life was difficult … my heroism imperfect.

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The Linnet’s Wings

[Cecil B. DeMille’s film (1956). DeMille chose Heston for his resemblance to Moses statuary. Yul Brynner provided an excellent Ramses II.]

You claim I wrote the first five books of the Bible. How absurd! Where and when could I have written them? … stories of my death and later events? Rather praise clever scribes in Babylon, collecting folktales, centuries after my time.

Interviewer: For what, then, can you take credit?

Moses: I killed an Egyptian. He was beating a poor slave, and my sense of justice drove me to it. Injustice infuriates me. I am passionate, quick to act against evil. Would a liberator be anything else? Though slow of speech, I spoke up to Pharaoh and hardened his heart against my people. Though I trembled and begged God to find another to serve Him … I carried out His commands.

Interviewer: But overcoming fears shows a greater fortitude.

Moses: Yes, that’s true. But a passionate man makes mistakes, wanders into wrong paths, arriving only later in life at his best self. That’s my Exodus story. I was angry, sometimes confused, but always whole-hearted. Hunger for life showed me the way. When I stopped to drink at a desert well, I was set upon by ruffians and beat them bloody. I was a rough fellow, angry, and capable of violence. You can’t make battle armor out of silk.

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Storyman

[Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1540). Moses confronts the shepherds, who deny access to the well to Jethro’s daughters, and pounds them into submission.]

And there I met Zipporah and followed my heart into her clan, a free people, living simply. Jethro, my father-inlaw, taught me to lead an honorable life, based upon family affection … lessons I could not have learned from the haughty Egyptians or the disheartened Israelites. Even now, I feel Zipporah in my arms, her dark eyes aglow, her heart swelling with desire. These affections attached me to the glory of creation and to God’s endless blessings.

Interviewer: Yet you left all that when God appeared to you in the burning bush.

Moses: I was stunned; who wouldn’t be – a burning bush, God speaking to you directly?

Interviewer: You boldly asked Him his name.

Moses: Yet, listen closely, and you’ll hear my uncertainty. In thunderous voice, He answered me: “I am, that I am”! Some think this mockery. But He was saying “I am what Is” – the bedrock of reality – whatever is truthful, enduring, and feeds life at its roots. Leaving my beloved wife and children, and my father-in-law’s wise counsel, could only be at the call of ultimate reality.

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The Linnet’s Wings

[Pietro Perugino (1446-1523). In this scene, Zipporah leads her children away after Moses has departed to answer the call of God.]

Interviewer: And how resolute you were! You’re associated with death and slaughter – including the killing of Egypt’s First-born.

Moses: And this offends you? Does your world get on without blood-letting? Tell me when your nation hasn’t armies in the field, slaughtering enemies. Tell the story … without blood and suffering … of the founding of your nation. History is a cluttered and winding path towards Peace and Human Dignity.

Interviewer: Still, all those children slaughtered by God’s Angel of Death!

Moses: Oh, terrible, but unavoidable. If only Pharaoh had been a sensible Tyrant! But tyrants never are, and the people pay a terrible price.

Interviewer: Let me speak frankly … God’s regime is far from liberal and free.

Moses: Yes, I have heard, over and again, these arguments against God --- He lays down laws – 613 of them – and threatens to exterminate all who disobey. At Mt. Sinai, God’s presence so terrifies the people, they cover their ears in horror. Here is the account in Exodus, chapter 19: And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people in the camp trembled.

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And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.

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And mount Sinai was enveloped in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

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How well I remember!

Yahweh warns He is a jealous God and demands stern morality and exacting rituals. God seems the ultimate tyrant … unyielding and greedy for power.

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Storyman

[Balustrade statue in the Main Reading Room of the US Library of Congress. Note the bulk and power of Moses, bearing the tablets of the laws.]

Interviewer: Exactly …

Moses: But we need to understand how God operates. Recall … the Hebrews had lived in Egypt 430 years. They had become accustomed to being slaves … and slavery does terrible things to people. The Jews worked, ate, and mated – like animals. They lost all memory of themselves as a nation, a people blessed with the sacred Covenants He had made with their ancestors.

Interviewer: You would think the Israelites would embrace their liberty.

Moses: And you would be wrong. A slave follows his appetites … prefers Egyptian “flesh pots” to the hard road to freedom. The slave does his work carelessly. He complains of his helplessness … prefers grumbling to action … lives in the moment, without past ideals weighing on him, or dreams of the future driving him forward.

Interviewer: It sounds like people I know -- and on bad days … like myself.

Moses: Without God, without “What is, and must be so”, we are enslaved to lives unworthy of us. We lose our way … the path where God leads us.

Interviewer: How grim this is … Where’s the fun? God gave us bodies -- to savor delicacies, to dance, to create heavenly music, embrace in passion, enjoy good fellowship … and, sometimes -- most delicious -- to rest and do nothing at all.

Moses: If only we could keep this in perspective! But these delights often lead to destruction, as the Israelites demonstrated, journeying to the Promised Land.

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The Linnet’s Wings

[Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Julius, 1794-1872, “Miriam’s Song”, bible engraving, 1860. The sister of Moses, Miriam, celebrated God’s victory over Pharaoh’s legions at the Red Sea in song.]

Interviewer: But why judge them harshly -- in Sinai’s desert, they were hungry and thirsty … fearful, lost … not knowing where they were, or whether they would survive.

Moses: But the Almighty was by their side, answering every need … Recall the miracles – parting the Red Sea, drowning Pharaoh’s legions; providing pillars of cloud by day and fire by night; bringing forth water from rocks; raining Manna from heaven. Wouldn’t these prove God’s fatherly care? Still, they whined and complained … day to day, forgetting what God had done for them.

[Famed for portraying mobsters, Edward G. Robinson played Dathan, a demagogue, who railed against God and Moses in DeMille’s 1956 “The Ten Commandments“.]

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Storyman

Interviewer: But they were wandering in a hostile desert, fearful and hungry. This hardly seems a fair test for human nature.

Moses: Look … This was not a test – God isn’t petty. His purpose was to move humanity forward and establish a holy nation … an example for all, to show what following God’s law could achieve. The “Chosen People” would show God’s power to all nations. As He explained to me in Exodus 19: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself.

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Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a special treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:

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And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.

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Interviewer: What else should we know about God? God seems always to be angry and threatening … jealous and intemperate.

Moses: Such nonsense! Yahweh a “jealous God”? Of whom would He be jealous? Other gods? – that motley collection of hallucinations? How would God be diminished when ignorant people worship a fish or a bull … or now-a-days, a rock star, an estate in the Hamptons or Hollywood’s hills, a luxury sports car?

Interviewer: Yet God appears enraged, ready to punish the Jews for ingratitude? God boasts of his anger and of terrible punishments for those who disobey.

Moses: He presented Himself to them as a betrayed lover, hungry for vengeance; an angry father threatening his children; a brutal taskmaster. It’s right there in Exodus 20: Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

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Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

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Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I -- the Lord thy God -- am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon their children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

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These are threatening words. But consider … to whom is He speaking? and how could He make Himself be listened to? We would prefer, no doubt, a calm, celestial reasoner. But in Exodus, God is speaking to a lowminded rabble, accustomed to obeying the man holding the whip.

Tell me, how would you have spoken to them? What disguises do your leaders put on to address their people?

What success awaits the leader who speaks simple truths, explaining patiently? … God Almighty is a master rhetorician; He adapts Himself to His audience. He addressed them harshly for their good and not for His glory.

God doesn’t need our approval. God doesn’t need to be loved.

Interviewer: Still, God’s Ten Commandments put Him first. Why doesn’t “Thou Shalt not Kill” come first, instead of our obedience? Does God’s authority eclipse all else? And your own style of leadership rejects democracy.

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Moses: Democracy? … democracy provides a weak foundation. The events of Mt. Sinai show this. God asked the Israelites to enter into a contract with Him. He would make them a Holy Nation and “bear them on eagle’s wings”, if only they obeyed His laws. He promised them perfection if only they agreed to do merely that which was best for themselves.

And as with Eden’s Garden, humankind betrays God’s trust. Remember their promises … and then the apple and their pitiful lies? And here, again, the Israelites agree to have no other gods, but break their promise first chance they get. [4]

[Nicolas Poussin, “Adoration of the Golden Calf ” (1634). Here the Israelites revel around the fertility god, led by Moses’ brother Aaron, a leader compliant with the wishes of his people.]

Interviewer: Remind me, how did that happen?

Moses: Ascending Mt. Sinai to meet with God, I had left my brother Aaron in charge. They came to Aaron demanding a Golden Calf, and what did this politician do? He let them revel around this fertility god. They danced, they sang, got drunk, fornicated. They abandoned God -- the only reality that matters … God, whose laws would lead them to holiness, self-respect, and national honor. But Aaron, my esteemed brother, is the democratic leader – his wisdom? … give the people what they want so they will like you … and rally round you.

Democracy and slavery – are they opposite, or sometimes the same thing?

Interviewer: But suppose we followed the lessons necessary for a holy nation. Wouldn’t we then need democracy to emerge from enslavement to the appetites and to false leaders?

Moses: If only we weren’t sunk in sin. Enlightenment Philosophers could imagine otherwise … but look around you, what do you see? – greed and hatred; contempt for reason, for God’s creation, and for fellow feeling. In some essential ways, we wander still in a desert of blank confusion.

Interviewer: But I can’t get passed the harshness of your actions … you started a civil war, and thousands perished. Why punish your own people for following natural desires?

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Storyman

[From DeMille’s 1923 “Ten Commandments”. The Israelites set out for the Promised Land. Forty years later, Moses views Canaan but cannot enter “the land of milk and honey.”]

Moses: Natural desires?! All would have been lost that way … the people doing as they pleased … while the brutal desert and savage enemies destroyed them!

[Rembrandt, “Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law” (1659) Moses, twisted in rage and sorrow, smashes the two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments.]

Interviewer: Something else puzzles me. God looks down 31 and sees them dancing around the Golden Calf …

The Linnet’s Wings

and decides to kill them all, but you, a mere mortal, calm His wrath. You remind God of His Covenant, and then offer Him a lesson in politics. It’s there in Exodus: And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

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Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

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And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?

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“Look here, God,” you say … as if to tutor Him … “destroying the Israelites will frighten other nations and defeat your plan to reclaim humankind.” Did God need you to explain political reality?

Moses: Think beyond the words, my friend. God does not forget His commitments and needs no lessons from me … God maneuvered me to take command in order to prove … to me … that I could. Recall, Exodus is the story of creating a nation, but also of shaping a leader. At the start, I was unworthy … but God made me understand what history requires. God forced me to accept my responsibility for this wayward people. Once I herded sheep … now I was the shepherd of my people, enforcing God’s law with threats of punishment and with guile … the “rod and staff ” of the 23rd Psalm. [5] Interviewer: So you descended Mt. Sinai, embarrassed Aaron for his weakness, and proposed a ghastly choice to the people.

Moses: To be precise, I required the faithful to go forth and slaughter those who broke the Covenant … brothers, wives, fathers, sons … thousands died that day.

Interviewer: You imposed God’s deadly law upon them.

Moses: Read closely … I told the people God had ordered me to tell them to kill family members and neighbors -- when in fact He had not … The hard truth is, God left it for me to do. When Machiavelli – that astute political scientist -- praised the politically able representatives of God, whom he called “armed prophets” -- he mentioned me, in particular, and first of all.

Interviewer: I am shocked. How justify this great lie and thousands of deaths?

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Storyman

[“Victory O Lord!” (1871) by John Everett Millais (1829-1896). So long as Moses holds aloft the staff of the Lord, the Israelites prevail against the Amalekites. With the help of Aaron and Hur, Moses’ failing strength insures the victory.]

Moses: Think … God didn’t have to do anything to destroy them. Without discipline, this rabble -- wandering a brutal desert and surrounded by enemies -- would surely have perished. Cleansing the community of the weak and troublesome avoided destroying the entire Jewish nation … forever. With that bloody civil war, I preserved the chance to place not only the Israelites but all humanity on the right path. The survival of humankind required it.

Interviewer: I am shocked.

Moses: Shocked, are you? Regard your own tortured history. Lincoln, like me, a liberator, also had his political moment with God … he chose to do what I did and with far greater slaughter. And where would your nation be, and the world that depends upon your nation for a model of righteousness, if Lincoln had chosen instead to preserve peace at any cost?

Interviewer: I have one final question. Exodus is a mix of adventures, miracles, and wonders … and long passages so tedious you could lose your mind.

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The Linnet’s Wings

Moses: You refer no doubt to the precise details for constructing the Tabernacle that Yahweh demanded His people build for Him. Just to recall, here is a taste of this tedium, in the words of Exodus, chapter 26: Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.

The length of one curtain shall be eight and twenty cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: and every one of the curtains shall have one measure.

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The five curtains shall be coupled together one to another; and other five curtains shall be coupled one to another.

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And thou shalt make loops of blue upon the edge of the one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling; and likewise shalt thou make in the uttermost edge of another curtain, in the coupling of the second.

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Fifty loops shalt thou make in the one curtain, and fifty loops shalt thou make in the edge of the curtain that is in the coupling of the second; that the loops may take hold one of another.

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And thou shalt make fifty taches of gold, and couple the curtains together with the taches: and it shall be one tabernacle.

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And on it goes, like this, for 35 more dreary verses, and continuing in this exacting manner from Exodus 26 34

Storyman

through four additional chapters, of approximately 40 mind-numbing verses each.

And to burden the reader more, these instructions are repeated at Exodus 36-40 … as if you weren’t sufficiently bored the first time. Look how clever the Bible is!! Let me explain: Exodus asks the Israelites but also the bible’s readers to stay awake and pay attention to details … serving God requires precision and care … making the specifications so precise, and telling them in so exhausting a way, reminds us – just as careless as our ancestors -- of the close attention God requires of us.

These specifics are not about what God needs. God needs nothing. It’s we who need to learn precision and determination. Serving history requires attention to detail, things done right; humans working at the finest level of their capability. Without that, we are lost to inner turmoil – to nature’s challenge, false leaders, and the brutality of one another. Good work done with care -- as if God Himself had to be pleased with the result – that is the grounding of human dignity.

Interviewer: Our discussion has caused me to think about things I thought I understood … how to thank you?

Moses: As in all things, thank God. ---

Facing Page Art: Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), “The Trials of Moses” (fresco, Sistine Chapel). Moses, figure in orange, kills the taskmaster (lower right), flees, subdues the shepherds, assists Jethro’s daughters, approaches the burning bush, receives God’s commission, and leads his people from Egypt.

NOTES: [1] Stephen Zelnick, Emeritus Professor (English Literature), Temple University, is former director of the Temple’s Intellectual Heritage Program. He is co-founder of the Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC) and currently resides in Santa Cruz, California.

Ronald Kostar, was a member of the Intellectual Heritage Faculty for several years. He is an artist and musician in Roosevelt New Jersey, and a Board Member of the Roosevelt Arts Project.

[2] “Moses”, or some variant of “m_s”, is a familiar indication of “brought forth from” at that time and place. “Ramses”, the Pharaoh in Exodus, means “brought forth from Ra”, the central Egyptian deity of that era. “Moses” has been taken to mean “brought forth from the waters” but might instead mean, “from the unnamable”.

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The Linnet’s Wings [3] Thomas Paine, English friend to the US Revolution, Enlightenment pamphleteer and author of Common Sense (1791), despised the figure of Moses, and wrote as follows: “The character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is the most horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be true, he was the wretch that first began and carried on wars on the score or on the pretence of religion; and under that mask, or that infatuation, committed the most unexampled atrocities that are to be found in the history of any nation. Of which I will state only one instance: When the Jewish army returned from one of their plundering and murdering excursions, the account goes on as follows (Numbers xxxi. 13): ‘And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, ‘Have ye saved all the women alive?’ behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, ‘kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women- children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for Yourselves.’

[4] The bible offers several moments of unexpected comedy. When Moses commands Aaron to explain the Israelites turning against God’s First Commandment, Aaron resorts to a ridiculous, politician’s evasiveness: “ For they said unto me, ‘Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.’ And I said unto them, ‘Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off.’ So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf ” (Exodus 32: 21-22).

Aaron’s childish lawyering recalls God confronting Adam for eating the apple: “And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, ‘Where art thou?’ And he said, ‘I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ And he said, ‘Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?’ And the man said, ‘The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.’” (Genesis 3: 9-12).

[5] Aaron Wildavsky, The Nursing Father: Moses as a Political Leader, University of Alabama Press (1984), a full-length study of Moses and his politics, with different interests and conclusions from this interview.

***

36

Storyman

English wonders, Boris Kustodiev, Date: 1926 Style: Art Nouveau (Modern), Genre: Design

37

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ADVERT

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree The Magical Island of the Free

38

Storyman

BLACKBIRD DOCK https://www.amazon.com/dp/1723303941 “Just like the poets and the painters We all are creators”

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Falling Leaves by Vincent van Gogh

40

Storyman

Drawing the Line by

Oonah V Joslin

Mrs Manderson lived beside a divide, not an interface. There was no gate nearby. Some of the wall was makeshift. She’ d shown me the section of peace line that ran alongside her garden as soon as I arrived for my two week stay. Her side was covered in red, white and blue paint but some bastard had climbed up and spilt green paint down it, so she kept having to repaint her union jack. The only way across from the Shankill was by Lanark and then down a series of little backstreets and alleyways that avoided the Springfield altogether. Still a fair number from the Falls managed to attend the coffee bar for peace on the Shankill. Everyone was welcome.

Saturday night. Word was, trouble at the Divis end so the Sunday school superintendent disgorged me from his car with instruction to ‘ go straight down there and don’t luk sideways if I was you.’ Then he turned the car by means of a three pointer in the back lane, and away.

It was close to midnight—maybe just the other side and the alley wasn’t that well lit. I didn’t have any option so I took his advice but I didn’t like what I was hearing. Angry shouts burst into the August air with an accompaniment of beats on makeshift drums.

I thought it wise to peer round the corner before committing myself to whatever tribal drama was 41

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playing out on The Springfield Road. I looked to the left. About thirty paces away around fifty people had gathered, bin lids in hands, missiles at the ready, some bottles. Men, women, I didn’t look for detail.

To my right a line of British soldiers, riot shields at the ready; guns at the ready; a few bricks lying on the road between me and them. They didn’t look any friendlier than the crowd to the left but still I knew… I knew which side I was on.

And so I slung my shoulder bag across me and from the shadows I stepped out with my hands held high and my back to the mob. I walked towards the nearest soldier who pointed his weapon at my heart and took a step towards me. I kept to the wall until we were close enough to speak. “ I have to go up there,” I said, indicating with a nod the Springfield Road beyond him, Bombay Street.

He motioned with his gun that I go ahead. Which I was more aware of, I cannot recall—the rifle pointed at the ground behind me or the potential Molotov cocktails in the crowd. I looked straight ahead, answered the questions that were fired at me and I never looked back at the tall young man behind, nor at the ugly crowd. Once past the front line, his voice became less tense.

“I have I.D. in my bag,”I offered.

“No!” he warned.

My hands stayed in the air.

I opened the garden gate, walked down the path and rang the doorbell. He wouldn’t let me use the key.

I’ d have to get it from my bag.

Mrs. Manderson shouted through the closed door, ‘ Who is it?’

“It’s me,’ Mrs Manderson,’ I shouted. ‘ There’s a soldier with me and a gun at my back.’ She opened the door a crack. Her curlers and dressing gown seemed out of place.

“Do you know this person?’ asked the soldier. ‘“Aye, she’s staying with a few weeks - from the church.”

I stumbled gladly into the light and heat and warmth of Mrs Manderson’s wee house and burst into tears. The next day I went home.

“Tell them people at the church,”I said, “to shove it!” ***

42

Storyman

Twilight in the Wilderness by Frederic Edwin Church Date: 1860, Style: Luminism Genre: cloudscape

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Embroidering Life

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-linnets-wings-contributors/1137095299;jsessionid=6715DB63651F2DE58C01BD61BD986D4C.prodny_store01-atgap03?ean=9781916462250

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1916462251

STORYMAN

@

THE LINNET’S WINGS 45

The Straw Manikin by Francisco Goya,Date: 1791 - 1792, Style: Romanticism, Genre: genre painting, Media: oil, canvas, Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, Dimensions: 97 x 160 cm

The Linnet’s Wings

EVERYONE AN ORPHAN

By Erik Svehaug

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Ray stared at a heavy-looking cross twice his height, convinced if he touched it, he might topple the whole row. The inventory of crosses leaned against the old church’s high stone wall, rough-hewn models alongside others of thinner wood, twenty, thirty, forty pounds lighter. Some were hollow facsimiles.

How heavy should I go? Maybe he could find Christ-connectedness here, but he didn’t want to kill himself in the attempt.

To his left, a ‘Geschlossen/Closed’ sign hung from an iron nail on the door of the rugged limestone kiosk.

The sign board of the attached Chapel of Renewal advertised “Kreuze Vermietet/Crosses Rented: 9:00-15:00. He glanced at his watch. 9:10. Quiet/ Innsdorf. Probably should have left my watch in the hotel room.

The shutters of the kiosk jumped open. The female attendant, in a form-fitting black sweater, leaned across the counter and studiously engaged the shutter dogs with long, thin fingers. Her black hair, streaked with threads of grey, swung like a horse’s tail when she turned and bounced when she briskly nodded toward him. She had startling ice blue eyes and black eyebrows. As though satisfied that the tray of brochures had been pushed to the leading edge of the counter, she smiled at Ray with even, yellow-ivory teeth. She was almost Ray’s height.

“Good morning. I’m Marianna,” she said, clearly having placed him as an American. “Have you rented with us before? Have you picked out a cross you would like to try?”

“Hello.” Thank God I don’t have to rely on High School German. “Yes, well, I have no idea how much weight I should carry or how long it takes. I really am completely new to this.” He hoped she appreciated that he was admitting this openly.

She wrinkled one eyebrow. Did she see the deep sadness he carried beneath his interest in renting a cross from her?

“Very normal hesitation, I assure you.” She nodded. “It’s always best to start out easy and work your way up, assuming you have time to come back more than once. Can you step over here for a moment?” She stood framed in the doorway and indicated the corner of the kiosk.

Ray obliged.

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“Please raise your hand and touch the highest mark you can reach.”

Neat lines of black paint tracked up the back edge of the stones that made up the corner of the kiosk.

Colored labels in ten-centimeter increments stopped just below the roof of the kiosk at three meters plus four more marks. Ray’s fingers touched a blue mark labelled “2 M 50 cm”.

“You are tall, so you’ll want one of the larger models; one with a blue sticker on the base, about fifteen stone. They’re clearly marked in kilos, so about ninety kilos should be comfortable, I think.”

Ray struggled with the relative weight of stones and kilos and carrying a comfortable cross. He flinched at a mental image of Christ carrying a cross marked with a bar code and colored label. “I don’t want comfort as a starting point. I mean, in your experience…?”

She smiled. “You will find ninety kilos for a kilometer will be uncomfortable enough without adding anything extra. That’s once around the building and grounds, following the white line.”

“And the rates?”

“One price of twenty euros covers any cross you choose no matter how long you keep it out, as long as you have it back before we close the shop.” She frowned slightly. “If we have to come get you, it will be an additional ten euros.”

Ray turned his face away.

“Only a very few customers ever need rescuing.” Her voice was gentle.

Ray tapped his Visa card on the reader, signed the release of liability and turned toward the line of crosses with just the tiniest bit of vertigo. He recognized this nausea from telling lies, dating someone new, talking about his feelings.

How could doing a parody of a long-ago Jesus do anything to fix a life like his, a love-thirsty, adulterous offspring of his detached parents, careening from one relationship to another? It should take a lot more than orbiting around this church dragging a piece of lumber. But he’d already burned through three marriages, put in five years of weekly support meetings, done two sets of Twelve Steps and spent way too much money and time with counselors.

Ray surveyed the crosses and found the blue section. He was distracted by the clerk’s svelte figure, but managed to absorb most of what she had said.

He stroked the side of a tall, smooth Model 90, like a rider gentling a horse.

Jesus, thank you for the courage to go deeper into my hurt and fear. Help me face the feelings I find there.

Twice, during his Fourth Steps, he had catalogued his failed relationships that started in third grade and led inexorably through a score of women to his second and third marriages and now to martyred celibacy. He’d apologized to as many of the women on his list as he could, except when he thought it would hurt them. He had promised never to lie or flirt or sneak around again. Again.

Carefully placing his hands under the cross beam of solid cedar and hoisting upwards, he brought the unit away from the wall and onto the gravel path, still completely vertical. He walked his hands up towards the top allowing the cross to descend onto the triple-folded towel draped across his right shoulder.

Ray flinched from the sharp pressure against his neck. His body sagged to the right as though a heavy 48

Storyman

hand was pushing him to his knees. Starting out light? Doing this more than once? He pushed the wood up and shifted his neck away from direct pain, rebalancing his load. He commanded his back and knees to carry him erect.

Focus, Ray. Focus.

He leaned away from the church and dragged his new burden with him until he was fairly centered over the white line in the village street. The designated cobbles circled the cemetery and Chapel, and he trudged along them, counterclockwise per instruction.

Only three pedestrians and a couple of Vespas went by but they ignored him. Ray discovered he had brought his own crowd of witnesses, each with their own criticisms.

He made out Pastor Kevin, who shot barbed-arrow Bible verses at him from the pulpit and in the classroom to infect him with holy character.

There was Miss Stephens in her tight, low-cut sweaters who fed the class sweet-pastry love poetry while strolling between the desks, allowing her delicate hand to graze the shoulders of the boys in the room.

Ray’s father watched, eyebrows raised, as though curious to see if he could fulfill his mission this once; his mother glowered, clearly certain he could not.

Leaning over the railings of the balconies above the street, the Fourth Step girls Ray had wrestled, cuddled, or coerced in the past eyed him dispassionately as he labored slowly past.

His ex-wives shared a table at street-level, gazing at his hunched form and uneven progress, not invested in his success or failure, just watching. He looked for Laurie’s face, looking for her rejection, his bitterest defeat, as well as his latest, last and longest temporary marriage. Her sister, you idiot. Her little sister! You just couldn’t resist, could you? She was there, too! Neither registered interest in his labor. All that screaming, all that pain.

Now, nothing? He felt the screen door slam on his hand again, bloodying his knuckles. She was right, of course. I had no right marrying. I know I’m sick.

Each footstep carried a suggestion from his shoulder to put his load down.

Cut it out! Get out of my head!

He must look like one more pudgy American tourist with a ‘sucker’ sign on his back, staggering along.

One of the local teenagers could probably carry this much while jogging and carrying on a conversation.

No judging! Focus. This is how I put judging to death. It’s okay to feel a little feeble. Are you going to help me through this, Lord? If you’re still with me, help me to follow through. Show me how to learn what I’m supposed to learn here. Give my body the strength to keep going until my mind is clear and my heart is clean.

I’ve got to get this right. Not me. You. It’s your grace. I don’t care how this looks to others.

Ray’s head was down and counting five white crumble-cornered cobbles ahead. And then the next five.

And then the next. He started to smell his sour-compost armpit sweat and, hovering over that, the open-door, wind-off-the-lake, herb smell of cedar, activated by sweat from his neck.

The cobbles were spaced out ahead of him like stops on a slow bus route. No. Focus on why you’re here.

I long for you, Jesus. And I’m scared of you. I’m lonely. I’m almost paralyzed. Help me look at the things 49

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that scare me.

He had chosen the off-season to carry his cross and avoid the press of the Pilgrim crowds of nearby Alt Ötting before Easter. He couldn’t afford any of it, so he had charged this trip. He had allowed himself three weeks: a week in Munich touring Neuschwanstein Castle and surrounding Bavaria, a week in Innsdorf to try to pray and reenact the cross experience, then a week in London at his cousin’s place.

Focus. Why am I here? The prayer. Two things. Let me be happy with who I am. Forgive me for failing.

Peel away all the church words and I only want to know why I can’t have a single successful relationship with a woman without wanting another one? Why am I perpetually uncomfortable? Why does life suck? Show me it doesn’t have to.

He tried not to lurch. Don’t lunge. Pick your foot up and put it out front. Now put your weight over it.

Repeat. Should I switch shoulders? Wait till at least halfway around. Where’s halfway? Relax about that. Settle into it. Pretend it’s forever. That’s crazy. That’s the point. What’s the point? Stop that! Focus.

The real Neuschwanstein Castle had been disappointingly artificial. She was Mae West with bright red lipstick and he would have preferred Katherine Hepburn. He’d hiked the hill to the castle and followed a group through rooms that were like a Mafioso’s idea of real class. He had drifted alone among the crowds of couples and families bulging the tour busses, boats, and paths throughout the area. Every glimpse of female curve and skin, swish of skirt and giggle of laugh had challenged his healthy resolve, while his mind continually played images of his impending cross rental like an alarming, squawking, urgent Amber Alert.

Now, a white ball caromed off Ray’s shin and he stopped.

The players of a street-soccer game swirled around him like a school of herring just out of reach of a seal.

As Ray moved forward again, the ball flew past his left cheek, whoosh, then reappeared on his right, now kicked hard by a lanky teenage boy in blue shorts, and the crowd of yelling kids surged left to follow it. One or two jumped the end of the cross. Another player planted herself in front of Ray and he almost fell across her.

“Hierher!” yelled the rosy-cheeked obstacle, waving her arms and jumping up and down. Her shirt was untucked. She wore old leather shoes.

Ray came to a dead stop and barely kept the cross from tipping over, though its weight was entirely transferred to the street. Girls and boys. Running. Playing. Together. Totally oblivious.

The ball flew near his face and he batted it away with his left hand, overbalancing to his right. The cross leaned irresistibly away from him. He ducked his shoulder out from under it and yelled: “Watch out!” Kids scattered and the cross thudded to the street, vibrating the soles of his feet.

No one got squished! Those out-of-control brats! Ray quickly inspected the cross. It didn’t appear to be damaged. Had he signed for insurance?

He fumed as he tried to hoist the dead-weight off the cobbles with both hands, struggling to bend his knees, lift with his legs. Two hands joined him to rectify the load. A slender, olive-skinned, mustachioed shopkeeper from the Bäkerei, still in his white apron, steadied the cross while Ray aligned the towel on his left 50

Storyman

shoulder and inserted himself under his burden again.

Ray nodded. “Gracias. Excuse me, Dankeshchön.”

The smaller man smiled and said something in German. Ray didn’t understand the man’s reply but sensed tolerance for his mishap.

Ray nodded again, returned the smile and looked up the street for the soccer players. Nowhere to be found.

He returned to his journey around the Chapel, now with the distilled ambition of simply returning the cross. His left shoulder reported immediate anguish and his lower back and calves were complaining.

“Are you collecting love?” His sponsor had wanted to know. “One is never enough, is it? What if six women or sixteen or sixty loved you? No? It isn’t about quantity? You just need the right one? Maybe if you got that certain right one to love you, that would do it. Right? No? I don’t think so either.”

He followed the white cobbles. He created a mantra of ‘no two alike’ to distract his mind by comparing each cobble to the next as he pushed against the inertia of physical objects and his home-grown incapacity. Each bump of the cross on the stones behind him shuddered him from shoulder to shin.

A week-long hour later, he halted alongside the row of crosses. From the pattern, his big cedar appeared to be the only one in use.

Grimacing helped somehow as he extracted himself from under his load and hefted the beast back into the lineup. He felt so much lighter, he seemed to float.

Ray had intended to drink an entire pitcher of beer, eat pork chops, sauerkraut and potatoes in the neighboring Gasthaus while he journaled his experience. He got as far as his room, thinking to wash up, when he collapsed onto the bed fully clothed. It occurred to him distantly that he had actually completed the circuit.

And then it was morning.

He woke up ravenous. At the bistro, he ordered an oven-fresh roll, a sausage, a couple of eggs, skillet fried potatoes with onions and black coffee. He brushed aside the notion that he shouldn’t load his stomach before today’s workout; his appetite demanded volume.

As he waited for his order, he prayed: Thank you for bringing me to this spot at this time, Lord. Show me what you want from me. Bless my attempts to be open. Heal me.

Ray pulled a card from his vest pocket and read the handwritten verse: You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you.

I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land, where there is no water.

He arrived at the shop as Marianna was opening the shutters at the counter. She wore a snug blue blouse with a V-neck that highlighted a lapis pendant. Her long hair was loose over one shoulder. Looking steadfastly at the desk, he said a perfunctory: “Good morning.”

He waved aside the safety reminder, tapped the Visa reader once more with his credit card, and strode 51

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immediately to his familiar burden darkened with yesterday’s sweat and lifted it upon himself.

“Meet me here, Lord,” he said audibly. “Come with me.”

For an hour, Ray’s legs, shoulders, back, and neck cooperated to pull the ancient form through the narrow streets without excessive complaint. Each bounce of the cross against a cobble returned his thoughts to his desire to overcome the past.

After the first hour, he felt his knees bowing; he was gritting his teeth. Sweat ran down his cheek and neck into his open collar. He had never smelled as rank.

A raucous wave of children poured out of the side street. He recognized several: the tall red-head, the blond stick-figure, the rosy-cheeked girl from yesterday’s game. Now, the group split in half and flowed up both sides of the street, each child waving a small colored flag. They rushed away around the curving main street. A tiny car came toward Ray, and passed him, as if in exchange for the children.

You’re safe. Suck it up. Keep moving.

He told his legs to drive forward and his neck to ignore the white-hot pain. A memory of his father double-digging the garden. “Ray! Get on that shovel,” Dad shouted. “Whose kid are you?” Six-year-old Ray struggled with the square-bladed tool with its long straight handle. “Dirt doesn’t get any softer than this! Put some muscle into it. When are you going to grow up?”

Under his load and already close to tears from the pain in his shoulder and neck, Ray stifled a sob.

Failing.

Then he realized that the memory was a piece of his puzzle. His sudden gasp attracted the stare of an elder townsman with a straw broom. Ray rested one end of the crossbar on the cobbles. Incompetence—just one of the seeds Pop planted along with the vegetables, Ray reassured his younger self.

He picked up the load again. With a smile, he remembered the white-aproned baker stepping in to help him right the cross yesterday. There was a gentler way.

He flew to his childhood kitchen, heard his mother’s voice: “Ray? Give me that. Do I have to do everything for you? Can’t you ever learn? What’s wrong with you?”

His cheeks burned red. “When are you going to grow up?”

Mom’s shaming.

“What did I say about leaving the yard? His cousins snickered. “Are those your good pants?” Someone laughed out loud. Interrupting his phone call, she said: “I think it’s time you say goodnight.” Then: “You think you’re in love, do you? You are unbelievable! You are so immature!”

You don’t have to live with it, Ray told himself. No one starts by knowing how.

Shoulder pain flashed lightning through his body. A jolt of anxiety about his Visa balance rocked his focus. Though yesterday’s cross seemed heavier, today’s burden suddenly became a grinding futility that reminded him of home. He had started out thinking he would complete three circuits of the grounds today, but he was only halfway around the first circuit. Damned if I have to prove anything. He lowered the end of the 52

Storyman

crossbeam to the street and leaned the cross against a lamppost.

“I’m so sorry,” he told Marianna. “I left my cross by the round-a-bout near the Metzgerei. I just couldn’t go another step.” He blushed. “Actually, as I say this, I’m better now. I’ll go get it. Never mind.”

“Don’t be at all concerned,” she said. “It happens all the time. I will have one of the fellows bring it back with the cart. It’s so heavy.” She smiled as though she had carried that cross once herself. Ray mumbled sheepish acquiescence. It cost him ten euros.

He returned to his room, heart aching. He kicked off a shoe and it bounced against the plaster wall. He longed to realize a truth he hadn’t yet discovered, to hear loving reassurance in a language he had never learned.

That was impossible, wasn’t it? What had possessed him? What did his parents’ impatience mean for his healing? He didn’t leave his room for dinner. He cried in the night. He was running out of vacation, slept fitfully.

He woke near dawn. “Have mercy, Lord,” he prayed. “See through my mistakes and my grasping at every possible love and my doubts and my ignorance.” He breathed shallowly while a series of his failed relationships flowed through his awareness. Images of Laurie and Carole, Janice, Pam, Sidney glided past, each in a window seen from his mind’s moving train. He couldn’t cry out to them.

Faint sunlight illuminated the worn bureau in his tiny room and reflected a bit of sunrise in its mirror.

Ray crossed the cobbles to the tiny café opposite the kiosk and approached the only patron, a white-wispy bearded gentleman in a long, gray, wool overcoat who might have been there for days sipping espresso at a tiny green bistro table. Strands of white hair protruded from under a blue felt fedora.

“Can I sit here?” He thirsted for human contact and had no idea how to take it in or what to offer in return.

He only knew tricks of appealing, or ingratiating. He wanted another way.

The gentleman nodded him to the empty chair across from his.

In his haste to bridge the awkwardness of meeting Ray almost asked, Do you come here a lot? He sensed sadness or loss, so he remained still, after all. He dismissed the idea of food.

The little chair was of wrought iron and very hard on his buttocks. His companion looked physically very comfortable on a similar chair, almost languid. “You might fold up your coat and sit on it if you intend to stay a while,” he said, in measured British English.

“Thanks,” Ray said. I must be transparently tender. As he stood to take off and fold his coat, he said: “Do you think the booth will open on time?”

The old man looked into his cup as though into a well of thoughts. “Patience.”

Ray tried to not to squirm.

Bicyclists rode by on their way uptown towards the market. A man in a suit drove his moped past the church toward the Inn River bridge. A horse and driver pulled a cart from the direction of the bridge carrying an abundance of orange and yellow squash cushioned in hay.

“Where are all the children today?” Ray scanned to left and right. “The streets are so quiet. Yesterday, they were everywhere.”

“I believe they are being interviewed by interested couples today. They are all on their best behavior at the Home.” When Ray looked blank, his table mate added: “I think you call it orphanage.”

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“I had no idea,” Ray said. “Yes, orphanage.”

Are they all orphans? he thought. They seemed so happy.

As he compared his quotient of childhood joy to theirs, Marianna of the kiosk emerged with difficulty from an old blue Volvo. The car drove off while she settled a pair of crutches into the armpits of her light jacket and swung across the gravel to the door of the kiosk.

Ray’s forehead furrowed deeply, and his lips pursed in concern for this attractive woman. She was hurt.

“You have met my niece?” asked the old man.

“Why, yes,” stumbled Ray. “She’s very helpful, knowledgeable, over at the church, the cross rental.” He felt exposed, as though he had been caught with pornography. He blushed. “I didn’t realize she’d been injured.”

“It’s a disease, not an injury. She’s slowly losing the muscle tone in her body. Soon, she will lose the arm strength to hold herself upright on the sticks.”

“That’s terrible.” Ray’s eyes winced closed. “She’s so lovely. Isn’t there a cure?”

“No.” The answer tolled like a bell that vibrated for long seconds.

“Eventually, her lungs will not have the strength to breathe.” His voice revealed no emotion. “It is genetic.

My sister had it. Her mother. Marianna’s daughter has it.” He took a tiny sip from his espresso.

“She’s married? And they continue to have children?” Ray’s voice hit a higher octave. “They are passing on this …?” Curse? he thought “We will all die, Ami. She has a better idea than most of us how she will go.”

Ray leaned forward looking at his laced fingers, elbows on his knees. He considered the consequences of knowing how he would die and roughly how long he had. What would he have done differently? I would probably be curled up in a ball of self-pity.

After a few moments, he stood. “The stall is open. Thank you for sharing your table.”

When Ray reached the stone booth, the bottom half of the door was latched, but the top was open.

Marianna glanced up when his hands rested on the door partition. “Greetings. Another rental?”

He thought he had wanted to try again and almost agreed that he would. Instead, he froze.

She was so much herself, needing nothing, open to the new day. In her place, he would have been demanding a cure, empathy. Pity? He had never known anyone with such serenity in the face of a trial such as hers.

Her lack of pretense was piercingly lovely. He sensed she was raising her children joyfully, allowing them to have their own chance to find enrichment in life.

Ray was overcome by her, admired her. He didn’t want her, didn’t need to have her. She was attractive, yes, but he wasn’t feeling sexual or needy. It fed him just to know she existed, that she was part of his world. He hoped she had married her equal. He suddenly loved this stranger and her confidence more deeply than he had ever loved anyone.

Watching her eyes, he said: “I have a couple of questions.” Her tranquil expression and demeanor gave him permission to continue. “Have you worked here long?”

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She looked puzzled.

He said quickly: “I wonder if you know anything about the experience that customers have when they rent from you.”

“Well, yes, I think so,” she said. “Though it is different for everyone.”

“I have used the cross two days now,” Ray said. “Each time I find myself disappointed.”

“Do you know what you want?”

He hesitated, dropping his eyes. “Some sign, I guess. Maybe a meaningful experience? A vivid dream? I want a moment that changes my life.” The last bit slipped out unexpectedly.

“From what to what?” she asked.

He had never asked himself this, exactly. He suddenly remembered none of the prayers that accompanied him while he had plodded around the church with two hundred pounds of wood on his shoulder. Now, he had let a stranger in.

“I want more than I see. More than I have. Not selfishly,” he added. “I just ... I don’t want more nothing.

Does that make any sense to you?”

“Instead of circling it, maybe you should go inside,” she said, with a gentle smile.

“Inside? The Chapel? There’s no access.” He had seen every inch of the building over the last couple of days with his head twisted to one side and a cross on his aching shoulder.

She handed him a brochure of the building. “Forgive me, but if you are not renting today and since no one else seems to be waiting, I’ll go over to the home and lend them a hand. They are very busy with interviews today. Will there be anything else?”

He shook his head no.

She released one of the shutter dogs and pulled the shutter towards her.

“I’ll walk you there.” His own voice sounded strange to him and he felt that risk-taking vertigo that signaled unknown consequences. Was the answer with her? He didn’t want time to pass, the space to shift, the feeling to fade.

“Thank you. No. Besides, you have a full day ahead.” She smiled and closed the remaining shutter between them.

Mystified at her response, he turned away. What about me? I’m an orphan. “Thank you,” he murmured.

He heard her gather the crutches with a clack.

Over a nearby coffee, he read the entire brochure, which confirmed that every doorway and window well had been blocked with stone and mortar to defend against Napoleonic depredations. Then, he saw what she had no doubt intended him to see: the stone rental kiosk was not in the picture at all. Its current physical location abutted a spot on the south wall of the church where one of the blocked doorways was pictured. That door led to the narthex of the interior.

Ray turned back to the kiosk to find it dark and the “Geschlossen/Closed” sign on the iron nail of the door. He approached. He turned the doorknob on impulse. The door opened. From inside, the heavier plank door at the back was obvious. On the desk sat a large iron key which Marianna must have left for him. He 55

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inserted the key and unlocked a door that squeaked as though it had remained shut for two hundred years.

The air was still and cool and sweet. With a warble and smack and echo of flapping wings, a pigeon swooped across the space and perched on a carved finial. Colored light from a ceiling of brilliant stained-glass windows streamed a path through motes of dust floating in the air. Gray stone walls, mottled black with years of candle soot, were bare of decoration and detail. A round stone structure with a figure-covered copper lid, green with age, stood in the center of the floor. Below a simple Crucifix, a bare wooden altar anchored the far end of the Chapel.

The pamphlet said that the windows above his head represented the Icons of the Church, triumphing in the face of the impossible. With a hand on the lid of the font in the center, Ray surveyed the windows, one by one. From old preschool stories, he made out images of Noah, Samson, Moses, Daniel and other pillars of faith.

The movie stars of the Old Testament.

A knowing filled him. He suddenly realized he had the cart before the horse. Hah! Renting crosses to find faith. He might as well have jumped into a den of lions. Or challenged a giant. Not one of these All-Stars had a template to follow. Each was unique. Each of them had a bedrock Higher Power experience so powerful it translated into knowledge and took over his physical life. Fresh from living, facing their specific circumstances, not imitating anyone. Love. They experienced the personal love of a Creator who found no fault in them; He allied Himself with them. Once they felt that love, their soul could hear His whispered instructions, leading His children through thick and thin. Part the Red Sea. Kill a giant. Quiet the lions. Ray had his own lions.

Ray smiled at the brilliantly colored light above him. Contentment washed over him and the perfection of being himself right then swept his mind of other thoughts. Without explaining to me how or why, You led me here gently. Gratitude flooded his entire system with a wash of heat. You love me.

A quiet impulse.

He found he could lift the old copper covering on the stone structure in the center of the room. The stones surrounded a well-head, a single baptismal bath with worn stone steps, that held clear water reflecting back the blues and reds of the incredible ceiling. The water’s surface rippled gently.

With deep calm and a glance over each shoulder, Ray took off his shirt and shoes, his watch, his pants.

Within moments, he was naked in the well-spring. The water was cool, not cold. He laid his head back on the stone edge and breathed in the aroma of the old dust and incense and the warmth of the morning sun, the damp stones and the shadows. He sighed from deep within. For an hour, he did nothing but breathe.

He imagined his dad selecting a sixteen-foot-tall oak cross and staggering with it through the streets.

Ray’s mom followed him with a varnished pine model about her own height. Then, within the same daydream, he pictured himself, the Ray of a few hours ago, trying to shoulder their crosses in sympathy as though his shoulders were broad enough. Impossible. And wrong-minded.

Each of his missteps had been a rung of the ladder that led him to this moment. Each person he thought he had injured through selfishness, longing, loneliness, lust, vanity, dissatisfaction could claim victory for their part in his healing. His fear and guilt and confusion about them had led him here.

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YOU led me here! The original internet link, Mariana and her crutches, the soccer ball in the shin, the old soldier, the iron key, the well in the church, that was all YOU! Ray cried.

His tears joined the waters. ***

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Way of giants by Nicholas Roerich, Date: 1914, Style: Symbolism, Genre: Symbolic Painting Location: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia

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A Giant Step Forward By

Harry Stone See the wind blow across a large expanse of water, it creates a friction between the air and surface causing a wave to lift, roll and break, to send spray spiralling and rising, rushing and dropping. In the same fashion any change that disturbs the structure of world thoughts also disturbs the surface of human consciousness, whether it is of a physical nature like a tsunami, or of a non-physical nature when a mind is impressed by trauma.

When the flood of social media stirred forces it produced mind swells and people were pushed; some struggled and went into drive overload with the same images rolling and spinning like daily pop ups that sat on top of their subconscious blocking their entry into a life of ease and loveliness one that they knew well, but that they now felt was outside their reach.

They had joined the social media sites to play, converse, interact with others, but instead they became victims of bullies and from that basis they became a number: A person noted as being at risk on a government social register, Woman Number 10987, or Man Number 58473: Men and women who never had issues, who had no history or suggestion of mental health worries were now obsessing.

The enquiries into the increase in the numbers suffering from mental health problems had created a demand for something more; in other times a government task force would have been given a budget and assigned a project, but in these days of renewable energy there were other options: A machine had been designed and developed for mass production that could break down, print out, and shred stored thought energy.

Before the international launch, the parent company had earmarked several areas for research purposes and a few small towns throughout Ireland were chosen for trials.

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The machines would be placed in photography and beauty shops, the usual models that were found on most high streets in medium sized towns. Several owner/managers had been asked to take part in a research program.

They were encouraged to offer the product at a 50% price discount to clients who were prepared to answer research questions at the end of the process. The process itself consisted of 7 sessions and the proprietors were given two forms to fill in and email back to their product consultant. The advertising poster that was placed in the shop window read: A Giant Step Forward Dump excess mind weight, Sift healthy thoughts from the unhealthy Kill bad memory instantly.

No psychology sessions required No emotional gutting Phone for more details 099886876

# Sky Rosan ran a beauty salon on Upper Broadway on the main drag in Errisbeg, one of the towns in the greater Dublin area that had been earmarked as a research zone. When she was approached to test-run the machine she decided to offer the discount to her clients and fill in the research forms for the company.

Sky had trained as a beauty therapist and when she finished college she spent a couple of years teaching within the sector while she saved a down payment to buy her own shop. She was excited about this new development in the field as she believed that real beauty was born and driven from within: Her own mantra was that all people were beautiful if they only knew it and knew how to approach the subject that was made up of a number of qualities that combined to please the aesthetic.

Sky had a spare room, a space beside the hairdressing room where she set up the desk, a few comfortable armchairs, tables and shelving. The machine itself looked a little like a lie detector, like the ones on the TV detective shows. It was centred on a table, between two chairs and the printer that was just an over the counter regular make that was attached to the thought form machine by a USB cable, and was placed on a low shelf on the overhead wall. A company representative installed the machine and gave her a tutorial on the method and applications. She was confident in her ability to run the system; it was no different than a lot of the new beauty products that had been introduced into the marketplace in recent years.

The day after she advertised the program, Hail, one of her favourite clients, signed up for herself and her partner, Sean: 350Euros for the 7 sessions, 700, for the two of them, and that was with the 50% discount supplied.

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it was not a cheap product, but Hail agreed that it had priceless advantages if it did the job. The Felizs, Hail and Sean were locals, being third generation in a town that was founded in the last 100 years, their roots ran deep and the word of mouth advertising from a successful session with both couldn’t be bought.

Hail had convinced Sean of the benefits by using the new mental health social media drive projects as an example of how easy it is to slip into fear or depressed based memory, so she booked their first appointments for the first Friday of the month, one for 2PM, and the other immediately afterwards for 3.30PM. # Sean worked as a psychologist. He knew that humans have total control over the information that enters the subconscious mind through the five senses, and that few used this power to their best advantage. With all his training and knowledge he found it incredible that he had been thrown to the wolves. He had found himself embroiled in a few discussions in social media and his background in ethics did him no favours, particularly as he now knew he had been arguing with drones. He had been knocked back and he was the first to admit that he had felt like a fool, he should have known better, so he was ready for a bit of self care, but aside from that he was curious as well. He wanted to know how this new machine worked. He had use for it in his own practice if it showed results.

“Hail! who’s on first here?” He enquired laughing, as he parked the car in the underground garage in the shopping centre nearest their destination.

“I’ll shop, you go,” she replied, “Come on, you are more in tune with this stuff. You can test it out for me.”

She teased.

“Okay, I’ll go first. You try and get in for 3.15 p.m. we don’t want to be hanging around all day”.

“I will,” she replied. # Sean was Sky’s first client.

“So, what’s the story, Sky?” he asked, rubbing his hands together, totally out of his comfort zone as he stood in the reception where a few ladies waited on their hair appointments ...

“Follow me.” She replied as she took him through the side door, Standing just inside the room with his back to the closed door, his gaze swept the scene as he asked, “What’s happening here?” walking across to the table he hundered down to get a closer look at the machine that had electrodes and usb’s running out of its centre.

“It’s good to see you, too, Sean” she laughed “Now let’s do this?”

“Sit there,” Sky pointed to the chair nearest the machine, “I’m going to hook you up to the brain wave interface, I have 4 electrodes, and I am going to attach two to your forehead and two behind your ears, this will 61

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give us both a readout of a wave parameter, and then I will print off your NOW reading. Here take the handout.

I know you know this information as it’s your game. But I am oblidged to tell you what is going to happen it’s part of my contract with the company. As you can see here on the brochure information Sean, low-frequency ‘alpha’ waves indicate a relaxed state--this will show up as “green” on the printed sheet; higher-frequency “beta’” or “gamma” waves indicate a busy or concentrating mind, it will show up as “red.’ And red is the first colour code for the thought holder, but it’s just a coincidence it has no other connections.” she said.

Sean threw his hands up in the air in a form of submission, but she continued: “No let me finish please!

Your focus, what you concentrate on or ponder about brings the thoughts that you want to delete to the surface of your mind, and when you have them there and I have the reading, we can copy them and save them to a folder on the printer, and by saving the path in this fashion the thought can be re-uploaded and placed directly back to where we took it from, that is if you don’t want to lose it, so basicallymwhat I am saying is that we have the address file of you specific emotional event. ” Sky took a breath and smiled, and Sean waited.

“Right,” she continued, “Before we start, I want to run a quick “TH” test to make sure you are synced in with the machine. Can you focus your mind into a bad memory in your past to give me a reading, please? something that caused you shame, guilt, or embarrassment, I don’t want to know your business, this is your private memory. I just need to get a reading for my delete order. I am going to attach the leads now. When you are ready, please give me a thumbs up.”

“A TH, Sky?” He repeated, “what the heck?”

“Yeah, your memory will be placed into your own “’Palabra File” and then added to your “Thought Holder,” which is a personal folder assigned to you that will be saved onto the hard drive,. Well now, Sean, this is just the label that I have given the folder on the system.” She said,. And he laughed as he said, “a thought holder folder, it rhymes, Sky” and she smiled back at him and without taken a breath continued: “Let us just do it and see how it goes. It works best in the doing, and as it’s error corrected all is good. I tried myself and it worked for me. I am still here.”

Sean focused on his thoughts as Sky attached the electrodes.

This was all very new to him, purposely pulling a bad memory to the surface went against his positive living principles, but then he had fallen between two-stools on social media. Not that he considered social media all that important, but it was everywhere, and it was a case of keep up or fall behind. His phone number was like a skin tattoo.

He went back to an old school memory where he was bullied on the football pitch. It was as if he was outside himself looking at the scene again. Seeing the mud on his lily-white togs and the tears breaking behind his eyes. Lost in thought, it took a minute for Sky’s voice to register.

“Are you ready to go, Sean?”

He gave her a thumbs up and before two minutes had passed the printer was chugging out the page.

“You got a red jagged line,” she said, “That means we are ready to go.”

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“Okay, let’s do it!” Skye handed Sean a red headband that had electrodes built in, “Can you put this on please, it has a special Bluetooth device that will pick up the styled brain wave that your thought produced, just that one, no other and it will print a read out, It won’t delete anything yet, but you should feel an energy boost when it happens, a small spine-tingling charge will rush through your body. This means that the old miserable energy has been moved from the mainstay (your memory) into the folder.”

“Can I move it back out of the folder,” Sean asked.

“You can, remember it’s routed to its parameters” Sky replied. “You still have an opportunity to allow it to be part of your life, but when it’s shredded it’s gone. Can I ask why you might want to keep it?”

“One gets comfortable Sky, my mind like yours and everyones is full of memory, bad, good inbetween makes up the whole, each day one takes it all in, the memory is the “I am,” even as we are building more, I sometimes think it should be ‘Y’am’ not ‘I am. “We all are part of yesterday’s I am, so when you cut memory away what’s left? do I need something to fill up the space, to replace the block of thought.?”

“How do you mean, Sean? “ “Okay, if I lose memory, bad or good, won’t it change my make-up, make me into a new person?”

“I don’t know,” Skye answered. “That’is your area. You tell me. I am just the machine operator. Do you want to continue, surely an opportunity to dump the bad stuff is a good thing?” she asked.

“Honestly, Sky, I need more time to think about this. I would normally say yes, but if it’s been dealt with! Will it matter. The idea is exceptionally fine, I enrolled because I was being rattled on social media, being dragged out and dragged down by the negative conversations. I was becoming a mental health casualty for no other reason than that I was allowing strangers to affect my thought process, so in a way I had become a victim to bullying, just a different type than what I might have been aware of in the past. I am not sure what I was expecting, but I don’t know if I want to lose a memory, even a stressful one if I have it under control. I am my memories.”

“That’s fine,” she replied. “What about, Hail?”

“Well, she’s her own person. She should be here now. She’ll let you know!” # Hail was waiting when Sean came out, “I’ll be in the car” he said, “There’s no rush now, I have my kindle with me and I’ll tell you later!” he laughed as he sidestepped her questions ...letting her “buts...” ring out behind him.

Hail was smiling as she went into the side room. She remembered it as the “Tanning Room.”

Skye took her through her paces and she got the red-line readout. Hail was so used to working 63

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with the facial machine that measured skin quality and with hair colouring machines that matched every part of the hair down to the root follicle that she didn’t have any worries about the product and there were a couple of bad, icky, memories that she wanted to dump.

When Skye told her about the “Thought Holder,” the folder that sat on the hard drive, she thought it was the best idea she had heard in her whole 35 years.

“Afterall why would anyone want to keep hold of bad times when they had an opportunity to shift them and their supporters.” She said, and when Skye gave her the headband she wore it gladly. Skye then showed her the printed line. “ Hail, this is what the program will collect, and you will feel lighter, but rather than me telling you how you might feel you can tell me.” Sky had rethought her pitch. # With the headband in place, Sky lit-up the monitor and sent the instruction to collect all lines that had similar parameters or were on the same wave pattern as the one that had been printed out. It only took five minutes for the miserable memory to download. It took longer to process and as it was processing Hail felt the spine tingle sign of the good times resurface.

“Wow” was all she said at the end as she laughingly asked. “Was it good for you too?”

“I’m assuming you are happy to shred! then?” Skye asked.

“I am, indeed.” She replied and she and Skye watched the bad memory pages fritter into the waste bin.

The session was completed in less than an hour, the shredding was the real earthed visual proof that the memory was gone.

Before Sky had a chance to ask if she happy, Hail was asking her about her next appointment, “So what’s next?”

“What I am doing is searching the energetic mind rainbow for the bad stuff. That might be more detail that you want to hear.” She laughed.

“So it’s yellow next week, then.”

“That’s right. you know your rainbow line?”

“I do, I got a new dress collection arriving soon under a “Rainbow” fashion label, You should pop in? Our clothes help make us,” Hail said.

“That’s what Sean said about memories.” Sky replied. # By the time Hail completed her shopping and joined Sean in the car for the ride home it was 6 p.m.

That evening they fell into their regular routine; Hail prepared the food while Sean showered. Then he put the Friday chicken in the oven and laid the table while she showered and prepared her Saturday 64

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diary; they both served up and as they sat down to eat the 9 o clock news came on TV and aside from one or two comments about the sessions there was no space to discuss anything in detail.

Friday was always busy with preparations as Saturday was one of Hail’s busiest days in the shop, and as Sean was on a restday, she went up to bed ahead of him.

He poured a whiskey and relaxed in his recliner; the TV was on only for background noise, his mind was running back over his session: he saw the electrodes and the printout; he chuckled over the “TH” folder.

It was awe inspiring in so many ways and in his mind he travelled down the “shoulda coulda “route and then thought, maybe! next time. There was no rush, he could wait and see how things developed. He poured a second Friday night whiskey, watched some of the ‘Late Show’ before retiring. # The bedroom was lit by soft summer tones. The furnishings and the wall coverings blended with the full moon and streetlights to throw out a misty infusion. Hail was breathing softly and he moved her over to make a little bit more room on his side. Going over to the window he checked the street. Just habit; they lived in a built-up area and he always looked through the curtains before undressing and climbing into bed. He smiled as he saw the outline of Sky’s advertising folder pasted onto the telegraph pole; wondered if she needed a licence to paste.

A few minutes later, as he lay on his back he slipped into the hypnagogic stage--the between sleep and wakefulness arena: His reactivation of the memory had done him no favours, and as he lay there he saw the bullying replayed in the bedroom, literally in front of him the form was impressed on the air and the incident replayed. He was there again, he felt the shame of breaking down and crying on the pitch, and once again he experienced his hatred for his antagonizers. Coming to, he switched on the bedside lamp. Well versed in the workings of the brain he knew the light would break the connection.

Shook by the experience, he got out of bed and went into the bathroom and washed his face, he was white and perspiring, his hands trembled as he dried himself off. With all his psychological work, his experience, his knowledge about after effects he had considered that he might have been immune. But emotions are the very devil, they wait their time and then they rise like air.

Sean remembered that Hail had said next week was going to be a “yellow line week,” he decided there and then to keep his appointment. He’d have a chat with Sky about adding a date at the end of the sessions to see if he could re-visit red, after he deleted yellow.

Getting up, he went downstairs, poured himself another drink, relaxed his mind, and toasted his ability to know how to trap the wind and make good decisions. ***

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Alma Mater by Edvard Munch, Date: 1911 - 1916, Style: Expressionism, Period: Late works, Genre: genre painting, Media: oil, canvas, Location: University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

THE COURTSHIP OF ALMA

by Bill Frank Robinson

It's dark when we leave the cookhouse and walk back to the bunkhouse. All the guys are outside, sitting around a roaring fire. Oscar and Buck, Oscar's sidekick, move over on the bench. Dad and me sit down.

Sandy, Dad's foreman,says, "Howdy Billy. Howdy Frank."

Sandy is sitting on an old wooden barrel, poking at the fire with a stick. He lights his pipe. The smoke curls up and disappears into the blackness. I look around and most everybody is smoking a cigarette or pipe. Someday I'm gonna smoke a pipe: that's what a real man smokes. Everybody is watching Sandy so he starts talking. "Before anybody starts telling us a bear story there's something that needs to be cleared up."

Done Gone Broke Charlie asks, "What's that?"

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Sandy smiles, “Frank has gotta tell us how he met up with Alma and married her.”

Everybody is laughing now and a voice from the other side of the fire says, “Yeah, Frank, how did a broken-down old stiff like you get hooked up with a beauty like Alma?"

We all look at Dad. He's got a gleam in his eyes: he's got something to pull. He stands up and says, "Well, I'll tell ya. She chased me all over the country and when I got sick in bed and couldn't run no more, she caught me."

Nobody laughs and Sandy says, "Come on, Frank. You gotta do better than that."

"All right. All right. I'll tell ya all about how it all happened."

My ears jump straight up in the air: I always wanted to know how Dad and Mom met.

"It was back in '28. I was building a railroad through the Oklahoma Panhandle, a real God-forsaken country back in those days. Guyman was the only town in that neck of the woods and it weren't much. One Sunday I decided to go look for water. I throwed the water barrel in the back of my truck and took off. I must of drove 20 miles before I saw a windmill. I left the paved road and followed an old dirt road back up to the farmhouse.

That was the sorriest spread I ever saw in my life. It had a broken down old house with boards running from the roof to the ground, giving it a lean-to effect on the side—probably the kids bedroom. The granary was clapboard and not high enough for a little kid to walk in standing straight up. The barn was rotting. The corral was falling apart. One thing, the old farmer had lots of kids and a few chickens. Him and all the kids come out to meet me.

Must have been 7 or 8 little kids."

Dad walks over and sits on the bunkhouse steps. We all shift in our seats to face him. "I asked the old farmer if I could fill my barrel from his well. He said he would be pleased if I did. I asked him how long he lived there. He said he come down from Illinois in '05, homesteaded the place and had about 7 good years. Then the drought hit. When the rains started up again the hail wiped out one year's crop and the locust got another. All his cattle died from some disease that nobody could name. Just one thing after another hit him. Now he was feeding his kids on sowbellies and other government surpluses. He wanted to go to California but didn't have the means to do so. He had the saddest tale I ever heard. Finally, his wife called him into the house. The kids all watched me pump water into my barrel."

Dad stopped talking and lit up a cigarette. He blew out a cloud of smoke and continued his story. "After I filled my barrel I stood up and looked around. There was this boy standing on the other side of the corral. He'd been standing there ever since I been there. He had on a pair of old raggedy bib overalls, a dirty work shirt, tore-up work hat, and he was barefoot. He was skinny as a rail, all his clothes was three sizes too big. I figured he was 12 or so, much older than the other kids. He never said a word he just stood there. I decided to see if he had a tongue. I pointed over to the cooling cages and asked what the cages was for. When he told me that those was monkey cages my chin dropped down and bounced off my chest; that weren't no boy, that was a woman, a woman with a smart-aleck mouth. Well I couldn't think of nothing else to say so I rolled my barrel over to the truck, loaded up, and drove back to camp."

Oscar asks, "Was that boy Alma?"

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"Yep, although I didn't know her name at the time. The next Sunday I pulled my truck around to the cookhouse and loaded up with foodstuffs. When that old farmer, his name was Bill Hager, saw what I brung he invited me to dinner. Well, over the next couple of months I got to know Bill Hager real well. He grew up on an old wore-out farm up near Moline. He worked and starved on that old farm until the bank repossessed it. Then he went to Moline and got a job in a foundry. That job was pure hell. He worked pouring molten metal into casts sixteen hours a day. The heat was terrible and took all the hide off a man. The sons of bitches that owned the place worked everybody to death in a few years and never paid enough to live on.

"Well, Old Bill met a woman who just come over from Ireland. She worked for a rich family taking care of their kids. They worked her night and day and never give her enough money for shoes. Both Bill and that Irish woman was in the same boat—having their life's blood being sucked out of them by the rich sons of bitches that run this country. I tell you some day the working man is gonna rise up and ..."

Sandy interrupts, "Frank, tell us about Alma!"

"Oh, yeah. Well anyway Bill and Anna Riley, that was her name, heard about land free for the taking down in Oklahoma. So one day they packed up their belongings and left Moline without a backward glance. They homesteaded and built the farm, buildings and all, their selves. Alma was born in 1910. She was the boy on the farm because the boys weren't no good. She worked with Old Bill just like a man would."

Dad gets up and walks over to the fire. He looks into the fire and thrusts his hands into his pockets. Our eyes follow him. "One Sunday I went over and told the family that my job was finished and I was leaving for a new job up in Wyoming. I wasn't ready for the sorrow I caused. The whole family, little kids and all started moaning and crying. Even Old Bill got tears in his eyes. I couldn't take no more so I walked out to my car. Alma followed me. I never talked to her after the time about the cooling cages. Now she was following me with tears in her eyes. I didn't know what to do so I asked her if she wanted to go with me. She said yes so I told her that I would ask her daddy's permission. She told me she already had his permission. We drove to Guyman, found a justice of the peace, and got married that night." ***

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The children were playing at marriage-by-capture by N.C. Wyeth Style: Romanticism 69

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Hey, America Tom Sheehan Hey, America, what’s happening? Have you forgotten how to spread? You’ve got to learn to sprawl all over again, America. You’ve got to learn how to relax and blow off some steam after you get good habits back.

Hey, my America. Remember being the young kid on the block, kid brother to the world, how you could spread them out even as you threw a continent over your shoulders and hauled it out of the woods, vales and valleys. Remember how you got your hands dirty, how your sleeves were rolled half way up and your arms hung out rugged as crowbars.

Now you’ve got so much high technology you forget to get your hands dirty; those dirty hands still count. Remember being a kid running like there was no tomorrow into every new task, how rails parted at your hands or were joined because of them.

Remember your shirt rippling where your muscles were, how you felt after a day in the mill, a day at chipping bricks, a day on horse or behind the plow, a day of sweat you know you earned.

What’s going on, America?

You’ve got to be a kid again, a kid on the block, stepping out front of all the others on the block, shaking dust out of yesterday’s ruts, running hard, working hard, sprawling with the Rockies at your back.

Oh, boy, America! Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

What have you got going now, America ? A case of nerves, some tattered dreams, a rip in your denims, someone calling you names down a whole ocean? Someone speaks of the Gross National Product or product output or questions what a craft is or what a craftsman is. It’s like he can’t remember. Are your hands that lily white?

I’ll tell you, America, you’ve got two things going for you right now; you’ve got love and energy, what you came with. That’s all you’ve got to spend, love and energy, so get on with being a kid again.

Hustle, America, run, and scratch and dig and sprawl. Be in love and work your butt off again. It’s all you got.

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Elephant and Whale (diptych) Ito Jakuchu 72

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THE SKY By

Marie Fitzpatrick Flora and The Storm An arpeggio splits: chords trip through clouds. As lightning cracks it stirs the wind that rises fast, and faster still when storm falls in to shake the rain that springs to join the artifice:, the sky electrifies what’s put in place, it flits across the scripted lines then runs a spiral through the space: To play a sound, to etch a sense, to stroke an image on a layer, to loose a line that flies through time, an everlasting fishing tine: On land the storm sweeps up the strand.

One made by beautiful human hands.

That brought fauna, flora and trees together, To create a place for humans, nature, and wild wild weather.

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Flora mounts the bucking steed. To harvest power she races wind. She collect the muse; to make the tales to throw design, to tone and type. subtracting, adding, echoing through fantastic tides that never own a minute’s space.

She builds the tiffs and adds the scores: just information saved in light. Here all’s at rest in “Spirit Base” as guides prepare that old four-four time metier, the one that dusts the stars and fuels the air.

Where Flora Lives Flora lives in an extended version of reality, she sees humans in the same way that humans see TV, for her the Earth is a big screen she can click in and out of, it’s a big live working-day 3d map.

She is resting after the previous night’s storm, sitting in a runabout in the bay that’s lifting on gentle waves. Lazing under an old moon that’s slowly giving up the night. From under half closed eyes she watches early walkers search the shore as they plough through seaweed and pull wet driftwood up the sand. She is sleepily visualizing a rainbow dawn that’s dusted with rose gold when suddenly from directly under her, a guttural da-dum da-dum rises up from the deep. Pulled from the dawndream she sits up straight: She recognizes that sound.

She grids the surface with her eyes, then skims the area until she spots the shape: That old wing tip, the one that’s been stamped with a registration is raised slighly over the tide as it’s propelling itself towards a waterspout that has developed at “Aguas Blancas.”

Aquas Blancas Aquas Blancas is a refuel station, which is situated on one of the earth’s natural energy points.

Here forces come together to form something new as energy splits and crystalline streams connect with an underwater current. It’s an area where information is collected, collated, and saved to reshape old images and lose what is no longer useful to the earth’s welfare.

Esteban runs the show, he is the area superintendent, he takes care of the waterways, it’s part of his remit to stay on top of the goings-on within the district.

On his monitor he is watching billowing sails drive in, hearing the command of, “Drop anchor” ring out over the silent air. Zooming in on the horizon, he recognizes the old three-mast-whaler, he’s just about to ping Flora to ask her to investigate to see who has taken it out for a spin when a casement opens on the side of his monitor. When he clicks on it it takes him into an echo chamber: A low boom fills his space, he turns down his volume to get a feel for the vibrations that form coloured shapes in the air around him, outlined mishapen water bubble imprints compressing and expanding on the air offer a delightful display for the wonderment of the uninitiated, but as Estaban reads the symbols he concludes that someone is listening in, and when he clicks on the data coordinates he finds an outline 74

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of a “Midget Bubble,” and when he activates the zoom lens and volume control he hears the sound of an anchor falling.

And as daylight breaks on a bruised red and purple sky, Estaban sits back and waits for the noise to settle, and within minutes an image of a small,light, refined midget submarine fills the screen.

Marked by History Meanwhile on the sound, Flora who is now fully awake is keeping account of the ongoing drama. She excitedly dials through to Esteban and while waiting on the connection she calls out to a couple of gulls that are flying by: ”Hey guys,” she points and continues as they turn towards her voice, “The old boy is back, he’s still trying to change the game, change the outcome.” Their only retort was to change course, fly higher and fly faster.

“I hope you’re not too comfortable there, Esteban, Ahab just popped back,” she said when he picked up, and she laughed again when she heard the groan from the other end.

“I have you on monitor,” Esteban replied, “I saw the sails, and just hoped it was one of our guys out for an early morning spin.”

“A quiet day would have been nice after last night’s storm.” she replied, “And the ‘Dick’ is in with him, I just saw his fin reg. There might even be a betting pool with this one.”

“We have a problem then. We have a sub on the seabed and there appears to be a bleed through.”

“You mean the sub can see us?” Flora asked.

“Well I don’t know about it seeing us, but he’s picked up Ahab’s noise on an acoustic sonar” “A Hayes! Did you say a Hayes? How peculiar! Can you include me in the feed please?” Flora asked.

“I can include you and no I didn’t say a Hayes, I can’t see its manufacture’s tag.!”

“Mind you that’s an old model now, so it might not be, don’t know why I thought of it.”

And Esteban just sighs, he knows from experience that it is pointless to try to stop her when she is in full flow!

Captain Barnacle 200 meters under the sound a man sits at a monitor, the cap that he’s wearing has the name “Barnacle” blazed in red and gold lettering over its peak. The log in the local naval headquarters has him working on a research exercise, testing a new “Midget Sub” that has walking abilities. He is unaware of the activity around him as he gets on with the job, his only concern is to get home in time for lunch.

Esteban and Flora have a visual of his surroundings on their monitor, they are looking in at him as he places a tiny eye shaped camera on top of a static line and sends it up to the surface. There it grabs a 360 degree panaroma image and directs it back down to his equipment.

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As the monitor reads and stores the information, Barnacle writes up his day-book, adds the date and then a subheading: “Party Boat.”

“Nobody writes up day-books anymore,” Flora thinks, “and as she watches him she realizes that his camera has picked up the image of the “Pequod.”’

“Dead on the nail,” she said to Esteban, “He can see the ship, now that’s something. It’s unusual for a human to have the sight!” Barnacle raises the volume and they both sit back, watch and wait; his face changes as he hears voices. They can see his brain in motion as he senses the unexpected disturbance. No one had filed reports when he left that morning, He murmurs “A bleed through but from where?” as he sends the eye monitor up to the surface again, this time he sees a whale approach and hears a call: “Ahab, it’s him, it’s the “Dick” and he’s coming strong.”

There’s a scramble as deckhands rush up on deck.

Then a shout, “Prepare the harpoon, drop the keelhaul. We need diversion.”

And a reply: “Aye aye Capt.”

Sonar blips track the diverging sounds and Barnacle now worried enters his code to release his anchor and leave the area. But even as he is revving the engine, Flora is inputting code into the stored image of the sub to isolate the boundaries. Just then Esteban confirmed his coordinates, “I have the download, they can’t see him, the bleed is one way, but on those coordinates the whale will take him out, just run him down.”

Meanwhile Barnacle knew his bubble should lift on command, the legs should fold up, but nothing happened, he cleared his cache and tried again, and from the speaker a trumpeting sound grew: thump thump thump and his headlights tracked the shadows that grew bigger and bigger.

“Has to be a film crew,” Barnacle thinks. “I wonder can I get their attention?”

At Spirit Base

Esteban watched as the cage settled down and locked over the sub.

“You added a cage around the sub, why not around the whale? “ “The whale is in the game,” Flora replied, “the sub is the virus here in this role play, and Ahab can’t see it. We isolate the virus.”

“So Ahab can’t see the sub!” Esteban repeated. “So, what now?”

“Now we let them play,” Flora replied. “It will only be an hour or so.”

“Flora, he’s keelhauling, Charlie Brown.” Esteban said.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Flora exclaimed.

“There he goes, see look it’s Charlie okay, he’s the diversion, and he’s gone over and down, and round and over and down again. What did Charlie do to him? Does he want to drown him?”

Fora is searching “Google’” as he continues to muse. “Look at this,” she says and she shows him the film news that she has pulled up on her screen, it appears that Charlie animated him a few years ago, declared him a national thug and it was reported, so it could be ego payback; he must be subscribed to a rag, Ahab received the link connection as soon as his name was mentioned in the article,” and then turning to Esteban she exclaimed, Well would you wanna be animated?”

Estabe ignored the question and continued: “Can you get him out, can it be stopped?”

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“No I can’t, that’s down to Charlie. Let them play, there are others betting on the outcome. It’s how it works in ‘Ego Land,’ it’s all about choosing your battles, Ahab gets Charlie now, and then next time out! …”

“Ah come on, it’s Charlie!” Esteban exclaims.

“No, It’s gaming, maybe even business. Who knows!” Flora interjects.

In The Midget

With his camera on a 360 rotating static line Barnacle watched what he believed to be a working film set in action. When he was a kid he had a part in a school production of Frank Lloyd’s “Mutiny on the Bounty,” and he had been so impressed with the script, the production and the idea of the sea and high jinks; and how good stories were developed, created and connected, so this reality for him this was a bit of a treat, it had the guts of a good tale to be embelished and spun at the dinner table. And then he saw Charlie Brown being sent over the side.

He stood at that and hit his head off the overhead book shelf. “They can’t keelhaul Charlie, wait till the kids hear this, just as well I have the pics.”

An experienced submariner, Barnacle knew that he only had to wait it out, though he had a couple of real scares, and when he thought he could feel the whale’s breath through his viewing windows his life flashed before his eyes, and when he eyeballed it, man when he eyeballed it, it was so real!

That is if one didn’t know better, but then he realized it couldn’t see him when it came within ten feet of his ‘Midget.’ The Capt., stayed in tune with the story ...enjoying the bits he recognised, reacting to the other parts, with nothing to do but wait on his team to answer his message he relaxed. He was getting ready to message them again, when the epilogue started and Ishmael took the steering wheel, turning the ship about, Barnacle watched him take it towards the horizon as a dirge wafted over the waves and sang into the depths: “And hear ye hear ye My name is Ishmael this outcome has been stamped in time In fiction, cartoon, and perfect rhyme, No changes can be made to suit The greed that trips along old routes.”

Coda Esteban and Flora were sharing elevenses when the memory cell completed its run and Ahab died one more time.

“Has there ever been a correction?” Flora asked Esteban when they popped into the command center at “Aguas Blancas” to reset the timeline, and check the downloads.

“Yes, one or two cruel acts have been overturned, not fictional ones now, some of those fictional characters are a real pain and it’s not even funny haha, Flora. Imagine if the “Dick” had got to the sub, like this morning when we saw the addition of a new character, another fictional character, anything can happen with the ‘fictionalists’ get involved, but with events that have occurred in real life they sometimes get resolved in a better fashion.”

“What would have happened if the ‘Dick’ had got the sub?” She asked.

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“Who knows!” Esteban exclaimed, “but I don’t want that though recycled or imagined here.”

“Very good, so what happens now.” Flora said. It was her first time to see a lockdown complete a cycle.

“I just make sure the cache is cleared and coordinates are reset and all goes back to normal.” and he showed her the sequence of symbols and numbers that he had to imput.

“Are there the same for all events?”

“No each one has its own stamp, so let’s loose up the Captain! first.” And here you go he said, and before a one could say, “Shiver me timbers,” the cage was released and Barnacle’s monitor came alive again. His co-ordinates were reset to get him home in time for lunch. He sent the camera up one last time; he had hoped to contact the ship before he left, but it wasn’t to be, and Captain Barnacle knew that everything was about timing.

At dinner, later that evening he started the story with: you’re not going to believe this, but I got the photos, and when they assured him that they didn’t believe him and he went searching for the photos only to realize that they had been deleted.

Later in bed chatting the Mrs he agreed when she said: “That’s Life.”

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The Silent Fisherman, N.C. Wyeth, Date: 1907

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Chornby and Leo the Blind Man Tom Sheehan

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Silence is the color in a blind man’s eyes

Leo wondered if it was some kind of contest, if it smacked of more than what it seemed. He had heard the poem a hundred times, Chornby always walking around with the book in his shirt pocket or back pocket suddenly reading it to him, again and again, and Leo, the Blind Man of North Saugus, let the words sink in and become part of him, part of his sightless brain. Just like Chornby had become part of him. Chornby’s face he could not picture, nor eyes, nor beard, nor jut of chin, but settled on the imagination of Chornby’s hands and could only do so when he felt his own slim unworked hands, the thin fingers, the soft palms, the frail knuckles, how the fingers wanted to touch a piano but couldn’t, or a woman, but who wants a blind man?

Chornby, he noted early, walked with a heavy step, a plod on the earth or trod surface, so that the framework of the old building vibrated and made echoes of itself. Chornby’s hands must be robust and huge, Leo thought, because he had been a farmer at one time, a tenant farmer, a milker of cows, a digger of land, a puller of weeds who just happened to read poems. Just think about that, he said to himself, think about the farmer, think about the distance between two men, how wide it can be, what narrows that distance, sound or silence? What kind of providence can a poem bring?

Silence is the color in a blind man’s eyes, sounded again.

Though Leo initially could not begin to visualize the poem on the page (not with the sensitivity or capture of Braille or the impressions of an old copper etching he’d known), perhaps not ever he thought, the way the verses were built, the white space supporting the sounds. This, even as Chornby repeatedly explained the structure, often testing Leo’s patience to the darkest limits, the words building on a pad in his mind, a pad conjured up in an instant. At first, they collected in a bunch that he had time to separate and sound off on. What the hell, if he had anything, he had time, a whole ton of time.

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Then the words, each one in turn, eventually assumed a hazy kind of identity and a place alongside another word or two. Sense came of some of them finally, and then one night, alone, a clarity, as if a shell of awed proportions had gone off in his head, exploded its sound and meaning in a dazzling display of whiteness. His brother Milward had once tried to explain the properties of a white phosphorous shell to him, the heat and the dazzling light and the rush of energy traversing a forward slope of a mountain in Korea. The nearest thing to them Leo had ever known, to both Milward’s description of white phosphorous and this final poem, was pain.

He used to tell Chornby his gall bladder attack was a poem because that had struck him awake on several nights at full alarm, fright leaping through his body, a stabbing in his guts, a poem of pain fully understood down to its root and rhythm. his red octaves screaming two shades of peace in sanguine vibrato, Chornby had said, “I’ll stop at the end of each verse, each line, so you can see, can visualize, how the whole damn poem is made.”

As if a piece of punctuation or explanation, he added, “Don’t let my rambunctious choice of words upset you. I am not very selective, not schooled. I only mean by them what I’m trying to say.” At that moment Chornby’s voice was heavy and anvil-like, canyon stuff, back-of-the-barn deep, not a classroom voice, not a poet’s voice, no obtuse edge to it, no carriage of partial mystery, no forecast of shadows. It was the no-nonsense voice of a farmer who knows the land is an enemy of wild proportions or the friend of a lifetime in one swift reaping.

Patience, it could have said, all the rough stuff not withstanding.

“But your voice changes when you read the poem,” Leo said, “the sound changes, you get cryptic, shorttempered, and don’t tell me I’m getting short or I’ll kick you the hell out of here! You think I can’t see you, don’t you? Well, I know when you’re standing in the doorway or in front of one of the windows. One room, one door, seven windows, I could find you in a damn minute.”

And for his own punctuation said, “And don’t shrug your shoulders like that. I know what you’re doing when you do it. And your voice changes then, too. I could call you an Octavarian.” He tittered, less than a guffaw it was, half full of respect, measuring, playful, reaching. “Hell, man, sometimes I can see better than you.” His fingers tapped slowly on the tabletop, a radioman sending out his own code.

Chornby only smiled, yet standing in the doorway on this visit so Leo could find him in that shadow of shadows, that deep shade of an eclipse of the whole man. He’d been in the shadows his whole life; his dimensions raw and few but known.a purple strike lamenting rivers and roads lashed in his mind, One day a year earlier and there’s no one there, and then a voice says, coming off the front walk of the one-room house that used to be the old North Saugus School, “I’m a new neighbor now. I’m Chornby. I come to live with my daughter Marla in the old Corbett house. I have a poem here about a blind man I’d like to share with you. I like to read some poems. Not all poems, just some of them. I’ve watched you walk all the way to Lynn to 82

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see your brother Charlie and all the way up the Pike to see your brother Milward, some days your cane flashing like a saber, the sun giving respect to its duty. This poem reminds me of you and I wonder what you might have to say about it.”

Leo’s quick words leaped out of the darkness. “You followed me?”

Chornby spoke as if he were plowing the land, trying to make the furrow straight, the endeavor simple.

“No, you were going my way, so I went along with you, some ways in the rear, but then I went past both times, to see Ma Corbett in the nursing home in Lynn and off to an old friend’s new home in Lynnfield, but not far from Milward’s place.”

Chornby read him the poem for the first time. “like a crow’s endless cawing of blackness anticipates nothing.”

“That’s a damn love poem,” Leo shouted, “and I don’t even have a girlfriend. What the hell are you trying to do to me? What are you saying?”

There was no way he could fathom Chornby’s face, what lurked in a half smile or the set of eyes, how his mouth was framed, the lips readable. If he dipped one shoulder in a half shrug, was it a signal he could interpret? ”Everything is love, Leo, or no love. Everything. You don’t need a girlfriend to have love. I don’t have a girlfriend. My wife’s been dead two-three years now. I love this poem. You made me see what it’s like, this poem.

I just want to know what it does for you. If it does anything. I am never sure of things like this, such argument or reasoning. You sow a seed, take care of its bed with tender care, it grows. If it doesn’t, better find out why.”

“You’re like a damn busybody hen, popping in here, following me like I was a damn cripple or something, sticking this poem in my ear. I never had a poem in my ear. And now, for all my listening, it is your hand on my heart.”

“I’m trying to be a friend, Leo. I wanted to share something with you. I’m just an old farmer who loves this poem.”

“Not outright pity, I take it.”

“None at all. I don’t give a damn if you never see another shadow in your whole life, if that’s what you want to hear from me.”

Leo knew he was blocking one of the windows, the idea of sunlight failing around him, a personage of shadow. the mute fingers letting out the slack where your mouth reached, They had, with that declaration, become friends for one long year. Chornby would come and read the poem, always reading it from the book, never having it memorized, saying he couldn’t do it.

Leo never told him he had it memorized, had said it a thousand times a day it seemed for months on end, at first the words cluttered on the pad and then standing like singular statues. There would be a pot of tea on the old kitchen range, converted to gas by his brother Milward, and the tea would hit the one room as if it had been sprayed with pekoe or oolong or something else Asian, a cutting swath of clear acid in the air, hitting the sinuses, clearing them, drawing Leo and his friend to the stove on cold days or to the small porch on warm days, the late sun spilling on their feet, the poem following the way a shadow comes along or moves ahead of a body proper.

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Leo said one day, the wind bitter and cold outside, the windows rattling, “Why don’t you ever read one of the other poems?”

“It would only dilute this one, Leo, cut right through it. If I know one poem in my life, it’s worth it, and I know this poem because you know it. It’s real for me. It’s like my wife, my one woman forever. I’ll not dilute her. Not for one damn minute. Not forever. The same as having a best friend. There’s only one of those. Everyone else has to get in line. reached, your moving away, a pale green evening down the memory of a pasture.”

Came the day, in the sock of winter, they said the poem like a duet at work, the words falling in place with unerring accuracy, rhythmic, shared, together, almost one voice, the room expanding around them, a spring pasture coming to them, silence coming at them, one word and then another word hanging in space like they were parsing each one in the midst of the air, a letter at a time, a slight whoosh if need be, the rush of a consonant or its soft command on the lips, sibilant, syllabic.

The blind man and the sighted man said silence as if they stood in the middle of a mausoleum, and the word hung there for them and then died away and became itself. All around them they felt the word become itself. When they said color, some long minutes later, Chornby had his eyes closed and Leo had his wide open, and they knew they were twinned in this sound, this nothingness. Leo was ferociously at ease.

The next day the knock at the door was timid, feminine, like feathers, Leo thought, pigeon feathers in the eaves. It was Chornby’s daughter Marla. “I have news about my father.”

The tone of her voice abounded with that news, harbinger, omen. “I found him this morning in his bed the way he wanted to go, peacefully, in the darkness. That’s just what he said to me one night recently, 84

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‘Peacefully, in the darkness.’ He also said that when it comes on him, he wanted you to have this book.” She placed the book of poems in Leo’s hand. “He said you’d know what to do with it.”

She was a smaller shadow than her father standing in the open door, the wind rustling behind her, death hanging back there in the darkness of the day as if it were words ready to be spoken, dread highlights hunting the darkness. The old schoolhouse had no echoes, no vibrations, the sills socked home tightly on the granite bases. Half the size of her father, Leo thought, yes, perhaps half the size.

Leo motioned for her to close the door. “Shut the death out,” he said, and his fingers found the page of the poem where that route was worn like a path. Listening for her steps, seeking minor vibrations if there were any, he offered the open page to Chornby’s daughter, their hands touching. An electrical movement passed through them and he remembered a static charge coming at him once from a metal file cabinet at Milward’s house.

Her voice was soft, hesitant. It would take her time. He had plenty of time. Now Chornby had all of it. Against one window, she posed a smaller shadow, but a whiteness lurked in aura. Leo thought of the white phosphorous Milward had spoken about as Chornby’s daughter Marla sifted through the poem. He tried to picture her small hands holding the book open. There was something delicate he could almost reach, fragile, silken, but it was lost in the poem as she spoke it, her breath instead nearly touching him, cinnamon with it, and perhaps maple syrup, yet day and night all coming together in the one essence: Arrangement by Tones Silence is the color in a blind man’s eye, his red octaves screaming two shades of peace in sanguine vibrato a purple strike lamenting rivers and roads lashed in his mind, like a crow’s endless cawing of blackness anticipates nothing.

And now, for all my listening, it is your hand on my heart, the mute fingers letting out the slack where your mouth reached, your moving away, a pale green evening down the memory of a pasture.

It was faint but indelible, he decided; discoverable, he assented; mild but ascendant, he owned up to; and Leo the Blind Man knew how soft and delicious it was on her tongue, at her lips, coming from her mouth, the poem, the poem her father had found for him. *** 85