Half-life

Half-life - a reading (on YouTube)

Unstable degradation. Statistical decay.

As I reflect on my life, I find time has become mutable, radioactive and mutagenic. I am a blackout victim haunted by the ghosts of my past. I run across lines in my notebook and recognize the handwriting but don't remember jotting them down. Some still send icicles crashing down my spine.

I sort through the scraps of paper trying to piece the notes of my past back together. I only decipher a list of casualties whose bodies lie forgotten at the communications outpost from when the trenches were overrun.

Too many companions have gone missing. How many were silenced by friendly fire? I don't remember. My memory is now a trauma ward full of head wounds suffering one too many concussions. So many events have become ephemeral and translucent that they almost disappear.

Desperate for direction, I seek guidance before sleep. I wake on the verge of screaming from the dream that follows. Alone in the dark, I wonder what path my life should take from its small, subconscious symbols. If they are the answer, it would have been better not to ask. Or, perhaps, the answer was not the dream but the hour of writing that followed when sleep would not return.

Life alternates between moments of stolen moonlight and chasing the sun from room to room as it migrates through the seasons. I map the maze from memory, caging still-lifes as my legend. I capture story fragments on the journey as others collect vacation snapshots, painting scenes like signposts in case I stray this way again. Such lost and wandering moments have become my life now. And in that living, I am content.

This year, I reach half the age of my oldest known relative when she died. Half this life lies beneath the reflective pool which was once a boiling cauldron. The pathways of the second half are now limited by my choices in the first.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Imbolc 2009

Imbolc 2009 - a reading (on YouTube)

Today is Imbolc, the first day of the Celtic spring.

Each year I've used that line, I've been greeted with rolling eyes and gentle laughter. "Where I live, spring is still many weeks away."

I think that is the difference between the Celts and the Christians who co-opted their festivals. The Celts saw two distinct signs of spring today. They saw the light had returned to the level it was at Samhain (All Hollow's Eve). They saw the ewes lactating, a sure sign that lambs were on the way. Their traditions survive from the cold and desolate places where they lived, Ireland, Wales, Scotland.

Theirs wasn't a Nordic cold. The Norse didn't have much use for a goddess of poetry anyway. Winter for them was a time for sharpening weapons and preparing the longboats to launch once the thaw came while the skalds inspired them with the sagas. An egalitarian people, they didn't discriminate on whose lands they raided, on whose books they liked to eat.

The Celts were more in tune with nature than our Christian ancestors. In Christianity, today is the Feast of Candlemas, the Purification of the Virgin. Where the Celts focused on the quality of light outside, I think the Christians saw only darkness, saw only another day to burn candles against the pagan night. Some see seeds, where others see only soil.

Here, a bright yellow fog of pine pollen drifts in front of the windows with every gust of wind. Soon, that wind will turn amber-brown as the oaks join their cousins' arboreal fertility rite. Brigid's flame sparks the red unfolding in the new leaves of the maples, and fans the yellow-orange embers dying in the oaks. Fallen leaves reflect the sun like so many water droplets splashed across the road, like so many tiny candles strewn across the lawn. Crepe myrtles wander naked through the landscape, their limbs barren of all but last year's empty husks.

Cardinals dot the branches, vibrant reminders of the season just begun. They disguise themselves among the hibiscus, sheltering near solitary blossoms. Orange honeysuckle lift their trumpets toward the sky, the first flowers of a coming symphony. Azalea's pop with recently forgotten colors, purples, pinks and reds.

Eagles and osprey call their mates to nest. They return to the same haunts year after year, latticeworks overlooking the rich hunting of a tidal basin, pines towering above the stone-strewn field of human dead. Soon their nests will blossom with young in ones and twos like the wildflowers dotting the lake shores their parents hunt. Young heads will cry for life to feed their insatiable hunger, their need to see a future as bright with promise as their piercing eyes.

I hope today you will turn your own eyes toward the horizon and search for the subtle omens that spring is on its way. Like the alpine flowers whose blossoms burst through snow, the signs are there for those who unchain their blinders, and choose clarity over night.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Lost

Lost -a reading (on YouTube)

Some weeks seem so full of problems, plans and appointments piled one atop another day after day that when they are all resolved, I'm uncertain what to do next. I feel like a child searching for direction, striving toward a goal that he has lost sight of or never completely understood. I'm not sure if it's the pollen, the weather, or some other internal or external factor. The feeling just envelops me like a fog until my world becomes unclear and indistinct. I feel as though I'm still waiting, stuck circling in an endless holding pattern. The runway lights are visible but I never receive clearance to land.

On days like this, it is hard not to feel completely isolated and alone. I belong to no pack, embrace no herd, have no clan to call my own. I feel like a one-man play with no supporting cast, no Greek chorus to warn me of my folly, no social safety net to catch me if I fall. Instead of exploring new or undiscovered countries, I circle back along the fringes of familiar places, uncertain whether to stay or go.

On Sunday I had an unexpected visitor. A young, gray tiger came knocking at my front door. When he saw me through the window, he immediately started crying as if I had been remiss and left him out all night. It was cold outside that morning, at least for a cat born in Florida. I thought to offer him a little food, something to warm him a bit until the sun could take over. As soon as he heard the cabinet open, his ears perked. He sat up on his hind legs when he heard kibble rattle against the ceramic bowl.

When I joined him on the front porch, he was friendly but cautious. He had obviously been around people and knew what he was missing in regular meals and a warm bed. His fur, thick, rough and a little gritty, gave him away as spending most of his time outdoors. His white socks were just an off color of gray. He had scratches along his nose from defending his territory. He was comfortable at being petted, though somewhat skittish of any sudden movement. When he turned his attention to the bowl I set before him, I could see he was an unneutered male.

He dove into the dish like a man just rescued from a deserted island. He finished every morsel, sniffing along the ground for any crumb he'd left behind. When I retreated back inside after he'd eaten and washed, he sat staring at the front door, waiting for it to reopen, waiting for an invitation to follow me inside. After several minutes of disappointment, he trotted behind the house to stalk the top of the ditch in the now bright morning sun.

I don't know his story, don't know whether he was a stray abandoned by his owner, a wildling raised around people, or simply a semi-neglected pet forced to spend his life outside. He comes around some nights and cries at the back door as if surprised to find it closed. It's heartbreaking not to be able to open it and let him in. The other two just wouldn't understand.

Many days I know how he feels. I've been outside polite company for so long that I am cautious when the opportunity presents itself. But I haven't turned completely feral. Some instinct drives me back toward the door and longs to be allowed back inside, despite my uncertainty at what I might find within. Despite my reluctance to enter lest someone raise a hand to me again.

In that way, perhaps we are both lost, caught in the twilight between a shadowed world of solitude and self-reliance, and a brighter one of constant warmth and companionship. We beg at the door, accepting any scraps laid out before us. Perhaps, if we are friendly enough or gentle enough, if we purr loudly enough, someone will accept us and let us in. Or perhaps we are merely trying to convince ourselves that inside is where we belong.

So we linger beside the door, hesitating at the threshold when it opens. Afraid that if we enter we will become trapped inside, losing our identity or our independence. Afraid that such a prison within is worse than the one we've already constructed for ourselves without.

Gripped by indecision, we wait in the fog, gray and indistinct, until the sunlight burns through to warm our spirits, and we wander off to hunt or play alone.

© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

The Gift

The Gift - a reading (on YouTube)

I believe that everyone receives a gift, a talent or a passion they enjoy far more than anything they attempt. For the luckiest, it becomes their profession. For the rest, an avocation or maybe just a dream.

For me, my words are my gift. I'm not saying they are literary or masterful; the wall of rejections behind me says the best I can hope to be is competent or adequate.

Writing is an addiction that I can't stop myself from relapsing into. Thoughts and phrases echo through my mind until I jot them down. The compositions haunt me. They possess me in ordinary moments, walking, driving, watching television, showering. They stalk me into sleep and wake me in the night.

Some messages begin with a reflection that strikes me as significant, or an encounter from my memory that I'm still trying to sort out. It's not that I think my life is unique or even particularly special; it's just the only one I have to reflect on and discuss.

Other messages ignite my imagination with a spark that burns until all its fuel is spent. I record them like a court stenographer then read them back to myself, adjusting and readjusting each word and phrase until my mind is content. Sometimes that takes hours, sometimes days.

A few I play with like a child building sandcastles out of words just to see how they might sound piled one atop of the other. In some I am trying to capture scenes of light and shadow, the beauty that pierces my eye like an ice pick on the days when colors ache and make me want to cry. They emerge in migraine-muddled complexity with strange, almost Lovecraftian references, religious and mythological, the natural symbols that form the currents of my thoughts. Capturing them is almost meditative though I'm sure few people understand their meaning. They are an expression more than a communication.

Then there are the stories, the worlds I become immersed in as I allow myself to explore them. I drown in the character's experiences like an overdose of narcotics. I know their dreams and motivations better than I know my friends. I remember their histories and can feel the events that interrupt their lives. While I'm typing, I can see the places they travel through in vivid detail. When I listen, I can hear their conversation deep inside my head.

But many days, writing is like thinking through cold molasses. A headache pounds or doubts and distractions pile up until each thought becomes an exhausting weight and all I want to do is sleep. On such days, I am lucky to stay positive, lucky to keep shambling forward in something resembling progress. On such days, I have to embrace simple pleasures like remembering to breathe. I have to remind myself that each day is its own gift, its own experience added to the stockpile we call memory with no guarantee that another one will follow.

When I was fifteen, I learned to rappel. That summer, my Boy Scout troop was camped in the mountains of North Carolina. One day, our adult leaders took us over the ridge to the top of a sheer cliff face, maybe sixty feet up.

There, instructors taught us what we needed to know step by step: how to tie our own harness, how to attach the karabiner, how to grasp the rope with one hand and loop it behind our back, how to pull it tight across one hip as a brake, how to set our feet against the rock face. All very simple and exciting to fearless adolescents. After one instructor descended to the bottom in three or four quick leaps, the other asked, "Who's next?"

Like any group of boys, we stood around and shuffled our feet. All of us wanted the opportunity, but none of us want to be the first to make a mistake or look foolish. Since I was the senior juvenile leader at the time, I figured it was my responsibility to step forward. So I did.

The instructor checked my harness and hand positions then sent me to the edge. As with any new experience, the first step was the hardest, the one where you lean backwards over empty air then push off, trusting that everything you've learned is right. After a few tentative hops away from the wall, I jumped out farther and farther, leading to longer and longer drops. All too soon I was at the bottom staring back up, wanting to scramble up the path and take another turn.

But there wouldn't be time. My example was all it took for the line to form at the top of the cliff. Now everyone wanted to try.

While I was waiting for the next of my friends to arrive, I glanced down at my harness. The extra six inches of webbing feeding into the knot had shrunk to between one half and one quarter inch. One good pull and it looked like the knot would come undone completely. In fact it did when I gave it another strong tug. My blood still freezes when I think how close I came that day to a quick, unplanned descent onto the rocky platform where I stood.

I believe that everyone receives a gift. Remember to enjoy the gift today brings, whatever it may be, however hard you have to struggle to embrace it. You never know when the knot might come untied and all your plans will change.

© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Winter Solstice 2008

Today is the winter solstice. Last night marked the starting point of a ten-day transition to the beginning of a new year. For us it is a magical period when each moment seems to stretch and slow. It is a time of reflection and preparation, a time to celebrate and to relax.

On the morning of solstice eve, we wake to find our world obscured by fog. As we allow it to envelope us, whirlpools and eddies swirl around us, much like events of the previous year. Its tendrils caress our faces, weaving masks before our eyes, requiring us to rely on other senses. Its silver spell alternates between a blanket and a shroud, in some moments providing comfort through obscurity, in others an obstacle as we stumble our way through it by feel. Mostly, the fog acts as a veil, concealing what lies before us until we are ready to confront it. In that way, it acts a blessing.

In the translucent air, lily pads float on a glassy lake as unrippled as a pan of mercury reflecting a silver sky. Only the narrow trails behind mallards and marsh hens allow us to distinguish the water from the fog. A thin veil of marsh gnats dance in elaborate figure eights like faeries practicing school figures as they celebrate the air.

Cobwebs form strands of tinsel and dew bejeweled garlands that drape across the cypresses and red cedars, visitors in our home from previous winters that we have set free to take root in the wild for others to enjoy. As we approach, they rise like sentinels from the fog, emerging like monuments on a battlefield, reminders of our past glories and the comrades that we've lost. Upon closer examination, individual pearls of dew transpose the scene behind them, reflecting an upside down world come to rest upon its head.

After a time, the fog rises into a looming cloud in a transition as stark and steady as a gray curtain ascending, an airy barrier between clarity below and obscurity above, with only low hills and shallow valleys providing any topography between the two.

As the day grays, the fog drifts into an overcast of hammered pewter. While we prepare for dusk, distant angels of snow arrive with messages that tickle our noses, reminding us to laugh. Even our elders remember how they once had fun and are delighted to share their antics with us like the children they once were.

By twilight, a high wall of clouds rings the horizon, a seemingly insurmountable rampart. But the sun glints through a chink in its mortar like a brilliant candle blazing behind a keyhole, waiting only for us to peer inside.

On our journey home, an infrequent friend gives us an infrequent greeting, reminding us of another who recently was lost. Were we to strike a candle for every missing friend tonight, we would swim in yellow light. Beyond the windows, we erect a barrier of candles to barricade our minds against the pensive mood that begins to settle as this longest night descends. Tiny lanterns provide a beacon through the darkness as a revitalized mist seeks to infiltrate our musical celebration with melancholy, with marginal success. We leave a single sentry flickering to watch over us as we sleep.

The first day of the winter dawns with the sun capturing the barest shadow of yesterday's fog in its misty rays before they eventually burn away. With clearer eyes, we brew the mead that we hope will decant the light and magic we feel as gift to share with our fellow travelers as we stumble down the road together.

No matter how dark or obscure today might seem, we know tomorrow will dawn a little brighter as we are slowly reborn into a new cycle. Yesterday's fog was like a faerie mist bearing the gift of forgetfulness to everything it touched, unchaining us from the previous year's remembered pain. For a few days, we are light and free. The past is set aside as we focus on the future, until it, too, transitions to a memory as another cycle burns away.

As always, no matter how dim your previous day or evening, I hope your Solstice will be warm and bright.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Expectations

I get the feeling some people are expecting me to say something this morning. That somehow I will be able to capture the historic nature of last night in a way that they cannot.

I hesitate to try. Nothing I say about the election can live up to those expectations. I can bring it no greater meaning than my own.

After the polls closed on the West Coast last night, a friend of mine from high school called me. He was excited that the networks had officially declared the election for Obama. After we had talked for a few minutes, I asked him what his mother, who had died a few years ago, would have thought. He told me that growing up, she used to tell him that while he could do almost anything he wanted to do in this country, he would never be President. Because he was black. I think she would have been tickled to see this day, though perhaps not for the reason you might think.

This was a woman who taught me the meaning of being colorblind. She adopted each of her son's friends as her own. She cared for us, nurtured us. She helped us work through our problems. She protected us, at least where she could. She didn't care about our backgrounds or heritage or skin tones; her son's judgment of our character was good enough for her. She was the village auntie who wouldn't hesitate to set us straight in her own gentle but authoritative way.

I think what she might have been most pleased with out of this election was that for the vast majority of Americans it was not a referendum on race. For most of us, it was about policy, about character, about outlook and direction, whether our candidate won or lost. Race was incidental. As it should be. For that, I think she would have been most proud.

Don't be fooled by the pundits and experts this morning citing how this demographic or that voted by percentages. People are not monolithic, not by gender, not by religion, not by skin tone, no more than by the color of their hair or eyes. The experience of having certain qualities changes us; they don't define us in absolutes. If you don't believe that, have a conversation with a redhead or two some time. Or an Abenaki. Or a Jew. Each has a different perspective on what it meant to grow up in this country, some of which was directly shaped by how they were treated and perceived.

My aunt, who had a double-shot of my splash of native blood, used to get hassled at the beach back in the '50's and 60's because people thought she wasn't white. That experience changed her, just as hearing her retell it years later changed me. She always wanted me to be proud of that sliver of my background. My grandfather wouldn't talk about it, because of his father's and grandfather's experiences I'm told. He lived in New England, not Selma, but his society's expectations still changed him.

As my own changed me. The friend I spoke with last night was once told by my high school girlfriend's parents not to come around alone to see her, at least not to the front door. They were concerned with what the neighbors might think. One member of my own family used to joke that my dark complexion came from all that "nigger blood" in me. This was acceptable behavior at the time. This wasn't segregationist or backwoods Florida. This was an educated suburb in the early '80's, a stone's throw from the Cape. Canaveral, not Cod.

Though they still make me angry sometimes, those memories belong to the past now, not the present. I think we can finally say we've moved on.

Do we have different expectations of this President-elect than of any one previous? I hope not. He is a man, not an icon. He will certainly make mistakes. And we, as a nation, will continue to stumble forward, hopefully toward a better future, for our children or our grandchildren, if not always for ourselves.

Cleo, if you are looking on this morning, I hope you are smiling. For myself, I am content that we have redefined at least one expectation in this country. Though I can see from some of the returns last night that on a number of other issues, we, as a nation, still have a long, hard path ahead.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Samhain 2008

Samhain. Nos Calan Graeaf. Summer's end. The first of winter's eve. The sun descends and the shadows move. Aflame, a chariot disappears beyond the horizon. A pale reflection of her departed brother, the huntress rules the night. Will we pack or prey?

Each day, we play different roles, sometimes changing by the hour. Magician, lover, warrior, king. Ingénue, vixen, amazon, priestess. Father, husband, son. Mother, maiden, crone. Each of us longs to be someone else at times, covets another's life. We wish to pack our cars and move away, to start again, only younger and wiser. Instead, we continue drinking at the masquerade, the music and clinking of glasses covering the agony stalking beyond the safety of our walls.

Tonight, we throw open the gates and pry away the mask. Stringers of adhesive cling to the emptiness we call our face. Peering behind it, we find our subconscious has become an ossuary filled with bones sorted and stacked by function. Deep within the catacombs, we are confronted by a wall of skulls. Dead end. No one gets out of here alive.

We build a bonfire and scribe our names to stones that we cast within to see who will come up missing in the morning. We pacify the tailor lest his silver needle weave a spell within our clothes. We ward ourselves with roses and crushed ivy. Prophetic dreams visit us in the silence of the night.

The deadliest gifts come in small and tidy packages, wrapped prettily with silver bows. Inside the most innocent of children, the bete noire lurks, eager to possess them. Each year, they run the streets in gangs, trapping us within our homes. We bribe them with foolish consistency lest they hobgoblin our distracted minds.

We scare ourselves because we want to be scared. Like a movie whose ending we can predict, or a game that children play, it teaches us and reminds us. Don't look behind every door. Don't wander through the maze alone. Fear the branches scratching at the window. Fear the shadows scurrying across the floor.

Tomorrow, we light the candles in remembrance our hallowed dead. Tonight, we fear the mischief of lesser souls until we know they are safely tucked away.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III