All these years later
I pass this place
And think of her
That summer
Of that terrible heat
Inside me and out,
when I did nothing right.
She coming here
A year before I did,
With whom,
I can only guess,
It just wasn’t with me,
The girl I saw
In the sun dress
In our lobby,
Large sunglasses
And a look
That made me ache
Picturing her dancing on
The sand and pier
And bedsheets
Of that magnificent
We didn’t get to see music during our annual post-Thanksgiving trip to Asbury Park, even though we booked a room in a motel in case we could.
But just before our leaving for the north again today, we
got to see whales and dolphins, a startling bit of magic that is usually
preserved for our Victorian Week trip to Cape May.
This was particularly apt since it came at a moment when I
was looking for a particular part of the beach where my poet friend (as
described in my journals from a decade ago, using the word “friend” liberally)
and finding it just as the massive head of the whale broke the surface just
beyond one of the rock. Scores of people crowded the rail to see the rare phenomena
– rare for this time of year when the water gets so cold.
For me, dolphins and whales are magical creatures and seeing
them always comes at a time when I am searching for something or trying to come
to terms with some issue in my life, a lot like angels whose appearance bodes a
positive change in my life.
Back in October 2012 during a trip to Cape May, I ached to
see them as an omen of better fortunes after an incredibly rough year, and a
massive school of them appeared at the last possible moment before I was
scheduled to return north, hundreds of them at a time when I was pondering all
the stupid mistakes I had made over the summer, and when I was thinking in
particular about that poet – the same poet I was thinking of today when the
whale appeared for the first time along with yet another school of dolphins,
the whale’s head rising completely out of the water just when I was looking at
the pole around which the poet had been dancing a month ago, as if that dance
and the whale’s appearance were connected, just the way I believe the dolphins
appearing a decade ago were connected to her, if not a sign of forgiveness,
then some gesture of forgiveness issued by the universal being that oversees
our lives, these beasts of the sea engaged in a dance that is both delegate and
beautiful.
As a decade ago, once I saw the whale I continued to stare,
and saw the scores of dolphins, as well, although I could not predict just
where they would appear in order to snap a picture. The whale was more
predictable, issuing a spout of water before rising to the surface again,
although it was its back I saw most, curved and wet, glittering with the
sunlight and it submerged again – even then, I barely had time to focus the
camera because it vanished again, catching only a bit of the spout and the dark
black back via video briefly.
I know all this sound like something out of the X-Files, but
I believe it, need to believe it and in believing come to find comfort where
otherwise I might find none.
These are the angels in our lives; we are our own demons,
needing salvation, desperate for absolution, and like the ancient Odysseus who
has always been a hero in my life, we search for those signs that tells us we
have won favor or forgiveness from the Gods, and seeing this now, as I did back
in Cape May all those years ago, I’m convinced the Gods look on me with favor,
or at least with pity and compassion.
Such things need to left
For the dead of night
The haunting hour
When old ghosts appear,
The nightmares of remembrance
We dare not broach by daylight
Yes, here,
I stroll down a memory lane
Into the belly of the beast,
The hole in the ground
The hum of traffic,
Inching its way to New York.
She telling me finally
Of the girl she mentored,
Who took her own life,
Death being less tragic
Than what might have been,
Tears welling up in her eyes
As she remembers,
The news reaching her,
Standing beside me
As if it happened yesterday
Rather than yesteryear
The pain of it
Stalking her always,
Now and forever.
