SamadhiMuse

                          Christmas Eve

      With watery blue eyes and a Norwegian accent,
      Hallard told me, with dignity,
      how it is to live on, afterwards.
      Not much to do at home;
      just the little dog she loved, waiting.

      Chuck's wife, Etta, had said
      Hallard was sleeping on those same sheets
      she had put down after the funeral....
      Sleeping in those same pajamas
      and never cleaning up after the dog.
      Just spending the evenings in the bars
      until it was time to go to work again.

      Chuck talked a lot; a compulsion.
      He told me about the doctors
      and how hard it was to get the straight
      about those spots on his x-rays.
      One doctor was going to pass him off to another
      without asking him.  But he cut him short.
      If they wouldn't consult with him, he'd look elsewhere.

      Rose said he's dying of cancer and that Etta knows it
      but that they don't think he does.
      Etta, I had thought, must be a little simple.
      How she walked around and smiled meekly.
      Unobtrusively passing in and out of our moments,
      not sad - just brittle - like a hurt child;
      trying to be good.

      Hallard sat telling me how nice it was
      to have the family together at Christmas...
      the holidays were lonely times since his wife had passed on.

      And I'd been tolerant - pleasant to all of them;
      Rose's relatives and their holiday gathering.
      A bit boisterous and condescending and bored,
      and I'd been telling Rose, with barely concealed pride,
      how well I was putting up with it all.

      Hallard will go back to his Los Angeles apartment and his dog
      and Chuck and Etta will go back back to Washington like Rose's parents
      and these moments won't ever pass again for any of us.

      We won't sit here again in our ignorance and pain,
      the young and the old, the condescending and the patient.

      But it's not so bad for us to be here together.
      They see us as spirits yet unbent
      and they can yet find some meaning and hope
      in our ignorance and in our condensation and confidence.
      
      They were young once.

      And we, if our eyes were opened, would see great courage there
      in their eyes and their hours, in their courage without cheering.
      Courage, in the face of death, aging and agony
      and in the face of our condescending youth.

                                 gallagher
                                 24 Dec 76

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —