Memories merge so viably with the present
It's like I am standing as a child
Trying not to learn
From the diffident figure
Who loved me more than words could say.
He struggles for breath now
In a hospital room cleared of family,
Wondering how the thing he has not forgotten
Is not there to comfort him
In his perpetual anxiety, when he has no
Earthly business still being here,
Except for the sun he sees in the window,
The faces behind the masks and on the TVs,
And his far more tangible memories
That keep spinning their webs like spiders
Something permanent and unique
That has ensnared all who think of him fondly:
The crazy aunts and uncles no one had met,
The hard times in the orchard business
No one can imagine,
The parties, the women,
The dialogue all jokes
And coded with the crystalline light
Of his unconditional generosity
Through the densest scenes imaginable,
What we as directors can only point at
With our lenses and light with lamps.
The times made of him their creature
As he became, to us, the times,
Of sideburns and butterfly collars,
Manhattans and Cheech & Chong pot,
All of it traumatic, not to be taken seriously,
For there's always a further story,
Of noble disgrace and corrupt glory
To fill the gray chicken-stock afternoons
That would otherwise be boring.
Instead there's a vigil for 5 o'clock somewhere,
When the kind drunk appears
To comfort the wellness, make peace with the sick,
Find the place where we're high enough, full enough,
We can let our minds accept what is real
Without a turning back, where all people
Are in drunkenness and squalor,
And there is never another who matters
To tell us, "You are wrong ..."
To proceed with such freedom, such hard-earned revolt,
To say the truth that hurts the most
In the most forgiving of tongues.
We wanted this chaos, for he protected us
By calling out the lie on what the world imposed,
And there were always others, in his army,
Slinging his courage if not exactly the truth.
There is truth enough in what will never be said,
What never needed to get through.
It was always implied
In the common, inebriant mind,
For that's what we were allowed then,
Such joy on the other side of sadness.
