Starlit light, endless fight
Moonshine takes flight, darkness of a winters night.
Snow falls on me
As ice gathers underneath my feet.
Frost forms on my clothing
As a naval fleet…
In short: Supernatural.
Skiing--working
Securing all
A boy takes fall
Yet no ones there to see
Racing down the hill
Tortured by my thought
Few drinks in--maybe a bottle neck--
not a spill
Until…
I come across
a body--
Crystal’s forming
As a realization
That something is deathly wrong.
I call out…
 |
| Skiing @ Cockaigne |
I call out…
I ask… “Everything ok?”
A cry…
Then--
No answer.
I get closer
Now sobriety wasn’t my strong suit
But I was suddenly sober!
Somber décor of blood
Resting on his white snow pants
Bone sticking out
I cry out into the night…
But no one comes
Just as I imagine no one came for him!
“What do I do?”
“What does one do?”
Answer: your job!
Be professional.
And help…quickly!
Snow fell as a memorial
On his broken femur bone
As if to say
Celebrate that death had not come his way
He spoke now
And I to him
My jacket covering him…
Him…in shock
A German born testimony of strength
He had worn
No greater badge of honor
Than that of surviving.
In my t-shirt
I continued to call for help
No one…
15 minutes went by
Horrified but trying to stay calm
And reassuring
People screaming
But still no help!
Afraid: both him and I
And suddenly…
Nothing--
A calmness comes
I hear a voice--
My mother’s
“Apply a tourniquet”
“What?” --I asked
“Apply a tunicate, Stupid!”
Scared and startled I responded.
Over the walkie talkie’s speaker I announce
“Tunicate applied, now what Medic?”
No response.
Momentary pause.
The bleeding stops.
Trapped in a bloody moor
I couldn’t get the kid off the mountains floor
He was too damn heavy!
“Requesting further assistance for transport”--I stated.
So many times
I raced through those woods
Never to find
A single soul again
In danger
But…
On this ride
Through the woods
I found a body laying there
Soaked in the life-maintaining fluid
Had I not come…
Would he be dead today?…
I wonder what the fates have in store for us--
As humans
“amor fati".
The Lesson
It was a dark night and I was emerging from an even darker depression. A thick fog had set in over Cherry Creek, but I remember that for the first time ever, I saw clearly. The moon cut little glimmerance’s of light through the thick gray nothingness, and her rays paved the way for a chance encounter of two lost souls to meet. It had been raining all day, the permeated ground soaked sweat, and was met by the smell of a thick dew. I was out walking still dazed from my former state of sorrow when I heard screeching: a scream of terror and pain. I followed the noise and found my fathers cat torturing a baby rabbit-- it was the infant screaming.
I chased the cat away (I would have killed it for such an infraction had I caught it, I hate that stupid thing!). I walked back to look for the rabbit. Somehow I found him in the darkness--in the grayness (or was it he, who found me?). I picked him up and put him in my shirt pocket. He was so tiny, so fragile; I secretly thought that he was going to die, but he didn’t deserve to be shredded by that freaking cat (that wasn’t even going to eat him--mutilation not hunger was what drove Diablo).
 |
| Grandma Joyce and Grandpa Paul Gross |
I took him back to the house and then…up to my grandmothers house. My grandma smiled and pet him. He was so small, so delicate. She sighed and told me that he was probably going to die, ’cause baby bunnies almost always died of fright. I frowned and held him close to my chest. I wanted to save him so badly. He looked at me, his little heart was racing so fast--he was just too scared. We tried to save him, but there was nothing more that we could do--he was dying. I held him in my hands cradling him close to my bosom. As he gasped for his last breath and faded off to sleep I whispered that I loved him. I wrapped him up in a little blanket, a washcloth swaddling my grandma had handed me, and my grandma said she’d bury him the next morning.
I walked outside and sat on the swing. I sighed. At first I felt sad. I felt I’d somehow had failed him. I heard his little scream call out into the nothingness but I hadn’t responded quickly enough. If only I had come to his aid more rapidly, if only I’d been faster. I second-guessed my actions, my self and my worth. Just then a star peaked up from the blanket of clouds. The haze had lifted, and suddenly I was in full view. I had become one with nature, my nature through the death of this tiny friend. My life had resurrected there in the Fall. An elemental truth of life had been revealed…the bunny would live forever, or at least so long as I remembered him. He had obtained immortality and I had been clued into one of the mysterious secrets of life.
 |
| Grandpa Paul |
Fright alone can make a mess of our hopes and fears. The rabbit was to obtain substance and instead was left to partake in a ceremonial funeral procession that morning. I remember how many adult rabbits I had seen out in the wild, and wondered how such a fragile, gentle thing could meet such an in opportunistic and spontaneous fate. How did they have the courage to get so old? I looked to grandma in curiosity, my mind made connections…Life was so delicate, how could one of such a tender age, face their fears and live? I realized that I was kindred to the bunny; Was this to be my destiny?
The infants cry echoed, as tears from the cloud symbolically mourned the death of a young soul. I decided to stay out, in the open, where life was clearly depicted… An effigy resounded: I have faith that this opportunity had a semblance of meaning to me; because I made a construction of resolutions through the experience of the encounter with you my little buddy. I will carry you in the pocket of my mind forever, and immortality shall be the reward that you will reap for your sacrifice, my friend. With love I say goodbye to your physical incarceration, to the earth you return, spurning the bud of an idea and the rebirth of my, Love.
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| Bertha and Joyce |
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