Archive
07/01/10 - (2)
Bell-Calls
It's impossible not to hear the din issuing from the boys' camp. From anywhere within this diminutive village, You just can't miss the persistence of the old fire bell, by the kitchen, Regulating every phase of each day's activities. Those sixty-seven acres are splitting their seams, with excitement. And it's a given that, staying in this cabin, at water's edge, I'm unable to escape the tell-tale ringing of that bell. I, better than almost everyone else around here, Know its calls: wake up; come to eat, in the rec hall; Start and finish projects, general swims, rest periods, evening events. But my firsthand knowledge of these strikings and clangings Presents me with some altogether unintended consequences, The most poignant of which is a vague melancholy, sorrow, That brings my camper/counselor past into blurred perspective, Causes me, occasionally, to confuse who I am with who I was, Experience slight dismay about being excluded, isolated, An unsettling, disquieting sense of no longer belonging, Though I realize if I were to walk into that happy tumult, As I did last Sunday, on being invited to services at the shrine, Or sit at a table, at lunchtime, today, I'd be generously welcomed. Nonetheless, reality's truth is difficult to euphemize, deny. I know that though I'm so close, The distance is colossal, impossible for nostalgia to span, And that going back is not an option my bones can exercise, To assuage the loneliness growing old imposes on my memories. Ah, but so it is — existence's persistent tintinnabulations. In their swelling resonances, I must take solace, Find comfort, delight, peace of mind that transcends equanimity, If I intend to make, of my spirit's vital days, Celebrations not of boyhood's buoyancy but aging's joys.
07/01/10 - (2)
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