Luck, Health, and a Holy Christmas Vigil

I remember four houses. Four trees. Four families. One family. My Grandmother's house, my mother's house, Uncle John and Aunt Vernie, and Uncle Stanley and Aunt Tessie. We were the core, living on 4th Street and 5th Street. There were others, but they always came to us at Christmas. Sometimes we went to them. Sometimes we didn't. My mother was the oldest girl. The first born was Uncle Joe, who never married. Next came Veronica, then Stanley. They were the advisers to Babci, my Grandmother Mary, a woman of the largest smiles and the heartiest laughs.

In our part of a very small town, my family, in our tidy houses, were respected, not because of money or position, because we had none, but because what little we had, we shared with the less fortunate, the Church, the neighbors. It was just the way we were. Perhaps it was a vestige of life in the old country, where we were never in charge of our own destiny, or maybe we really were Catholic, Universal, and Apostolic in the way we saw the world. Whatever it was, the servant mentality fit me well. I love to help, to serve, to teach, as did all of my Aunts and Uncles.

A very special tradition for me, was the morning of Wigilia, Christmas Eve, when each house had to have a male as it's first visitor, to ensure the arrival of the Christ Child at the empty seat at the table. When you were the first to say "Na szcescie, na zdrowie, i na tem sczwentem Wilgilia" you went away with a hand full of silver (and when I was twelve and older, a belly full of wine) and a strange connection to the Christ Child himself.

There is no one left to share the tradition with me, no one left with whom I can break the Oplatek in the evening and repeat the wish: To luck, to health, and to a holy Christmas Eve. I say it now, to you. May you have a lucky, healthy, holy Christmas and New Year.

Du

Ich vermisse dich
deine Sofa
deine nähe

Ich vermisse unsere Zeit zusammen
Sonntag
hin und her fahren
etwas sehen
über alles reden

Ich vermisse dich
Ich vermisse deine nähe

Chapter 60, Page 11, Paragraph 27

There is little difference between reality and fantasy. Reality ends, fantasy doesn't. I don't know how that works, but I believe it.

Now that I've introduced myself, you must forgive me for lying to you. I don't know the difference between fantasy and reality, that is why I'm still pushing the keys of this little machine.

It's always like this between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Soon enough, the snow is gone, and it's Easter. Or another funeral.

Mine may be next. I get slower every day. And dumber. I don't like that. But I live with it.

Bloodwise, I have one Aunt, a Son, a Daughter, and four nieces and nephews left. I don't know how much cousins are worth. I don't stay in touch with them. Don't know their pains or joys and don't really care. With few exceptions, they were no part of my world. Those who were need no explanations. We bore it out we came home alive. And then we found it wasn't home.

Merry Christmas.

Ich Vermisse Dich

Ich vermisse dich
zurueck kommen von eine Reisse
ist ganz anderes
wenn du bist nicht da
wenn ich kann nicht sagen
ich bin am Suedwall

Hier ich bin ganz allein
immer allein

Bilski 5th Street, Mayfield, Pennsylvania

Joe
Anna
Veronika
Stanley
Josephine
Julia
Stella
Walter
Margaret
Mary
Peter

Moja Ciocia Veronika

93
not bad, Cioc,
you outlived Annie
by 20 years

I'd still like to sit
with the both of you
on a Sunday afternoon
drinking beer
and playing pinochle

I don't really care
what the infant of Prague
is wearing today

Here's That Rainy Day

should have saved
Those leftover dreams
Funny
But here's that rainy day
Here's that rainy day
They told me about
And i laughed at the thought
That it might turn out this way
Where is that worn out wish
That i threw aside
After it brought my love so near
Funny how love becomes
A cold rainy day
Funny
That rainy day is here
It's funny
How love becomes
A cold rainy day
Funny
That rainy day is here

Sparks Building 1968

an undergraduate in the elevator
with the head of department
awe
respect
reverence

until he said
"when do you think you'll disappear?
guys like us do that. One of my friends
disappeared from Grad School in '49. He left a wife
and a kid behind.

I met him in a bar in Jamaica in '60. He told me not
to use his name"

I'm still here, master of Provencal.
Still visible. Still invisible.
Neither famous
nor obscure
learning still
and teaching naught
I feel the shame
of missing my calling
of missing my duty
to pass on the thought
unlikely to live it
unlikely to change

Pax Vobiscum-Pax Tecum

Dahlheim
Boedexer
my last few months
Easter
Spring
the birth of a new age
the death of an old one

I will not think I have created this
it is enough
to think
I have survived it

a few years ago
a father
a husband
a man

today
something more empty
than a natal mind
ready to be filled
with something
with nothing
with an immaculate idea
an inimitable notion
a great, hairy, smelly mind
forgotten for love
resplendent
in historical garments
tattered
faded
raiment
words gone stale
in the shadow
gone pale
in the wake
of love
sinking
sucking in the flotsam
visually interesting
life threatening
aurally unimportant
enough of that
enough of this
one egg is un euf

Heidelberg

it rained all day
we bought a green umbrella
sat under other green umbrellas
drinking cappuccino

it rained all day
we walked and laughed
and talked and didn't

after dark
we drove to Schwetzingen
and ate mussels

on the banks of the Rhine
i met an old friend
and confused him
with my better German
and my worse sense

i photographed the makers mark
on the wall of my apartment building
in Neustadt
and showed her the Elwedrietschen
and and and and and......

nothing
everything
mind blank
heart empty
one wrong word
in one hard language
in one sad world

Sixty

ask me a question
i am old
and i am wise
i know all about much
and much about nothing

ask me about love
or loving
i will wink at you
and say
"it all depends"

August 27th, 2004

My fan asked me "How is your evening?"
It was the end of my world.
It was the beginning of my world.
It was so simple, so complex, so.....

And now,
the space and time accumulate
and my evening is boring, lonely, without my fan,
without my friend, without love, without futurity.

I'll survive, as will my fan, differently, without our easy way
of being
without our easy way of loving

Missing

she is not lost
but I can't get to her
dependent on space
and time
I lose a little more of mind
with every jet lagged weekend
tired of flying
tired of waiting
tired of changing faces
from happy to sad
at every landing
on this side of the Atlantic

missing her
and missing the life
we have
when we're together

Zuruck in Amerika

It's what I knew it would be
Hot, crowded, sprawling
traffic
traffic
cars
noise

quiet country paths
are driven to
walking
in the city
is hazardous

loneliness is worse
knowing I can be close to you
yet not close enough

Frühling 2006

Next Sunday runs the Hermann's Lauf
Thirty one kilometers
up mountains
and down

Runners, wanderers, and watchers
all alike
we welcome the Spring
and celebrate existence

I with my Nikon
snap incessantly
at the numbered figures
in lycra and spandex
clown wigs
and Cherusker helm

Standing between drunks
and Evangelicals
I know the name of normalcy
I fear nothing
more than nonexistence