Waffle with a side of gravy

The sun was coming up in the morning;

I walked along the sandbar with my wife;

You could see the waffle tracks

of two sets of tennis shoes at water’s edge.

But what we do together -

you would hardly call it tennis -

but the ball goes back and forth across the net

and bounces.

Later she would be grading the presentations

of someone else’s kids from China

and you would be handing me a plate

of waffles, they call them Belgian, at Aimee’s.

I had a side of biscuit gravy.

It’s better that way

if you like Mrs. Butterworth’s and gravy on a waffle.

Maybe it’s only the salty and the sweet.

You took a break for your own breakfast;

you rode on a barstool made for one

with a guy who still writes with a pencil on lined paper.

Could you tipple and fall?

I was telling a story to the guy

sitting in between us.

The story was about making a young mother scream.

I had said that scaring kids at Halloween is child’s play.

And I looked over and saw your face flash into mine.

Is it because you think I’m funny

or do you get me now and then

because you are?

Love is a lot like riding a bike.

Your feet are off the ground

and the world seems to be

flying by so much faster.

But the mist rises imperceptibly off the

late summer river up into the cooler

autumn air.

It hovers between heaven and earth.

And Dawn happens to be the name of

my wife of almost thirty years

and the sun rises between us.

It didn’t have to work out that way.

But on All Saints Day,

the sky was clear and the day was coming bright.

And for a moment your father and I

have something in common.

And it wasn’t just that we sometimes

have worn pumpkin heads on Halloween.

Some things your never forget how to

once you’ve learned how to,

but do you always remember to do it?

Every now and then I think that you should ride a bike

with someone you love,

it doesn’t need to be at sunrise

and you don’t need the bicycle.

Trick

Invisibility is not that hard to achieve. Of course, it was dusk turning to nighttime and the kids and the parents were watching where they were walking. And they could see that our porch light was on. But I was certainly watching them as they came, illuminated by that same pale light. I stood next to the limestone porch pillar, the last of the summer’s morning glories and the oak leaf hydrangea about my head and shoulders. I was clothed in the color of shadows, standing motionless except for some deep breathing. There really was no reason to expect a 210 lb. man to be standing there at all - except that it was Halloween night. I was invisible.

I could hear the kids telling each other that this was the house as they hurried past me. Last year there were these two dummies, and then one turned out to be real. It was Pumpkin Head. And there have been years before that.

From where I stood this year, I could hear a kid tell my wife who was handing out candy at the front door that ‘that guy’ had scared him so bad last year that he had nightmares. Of course, I was happy to see that he had come back for more.

The girls from across the street paid me the high compliment of saying that I looked creepy even when they knew it was me underneath my cloak of invisibility. They had skipped my house several years earlier - even with their mother with them. Back then, even candy couldn’t entice them to our porch.

A neighbor, from two houses over, walked up the walk behind his daughter as she climbed the porch steps. I moved soundlessly up behind him as he asked Dawn, who was standing with the candy on the porch, “Where’s Bert?” A pumpkin-headed dummy was sitting at a card table just to one side of the sidewalk and physicists aren’t easily fooled.

I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned and exclaimed, “Claude Rains!” I had my face wrapped in an ace bandage, my eyes covered by plastic purple slatted glasses. My fedora was a little rumpled. I looked the part of The Invisible Man - if you could see me.

It had still been dusk when Keller, the seven year old girl from down the street and her dad walked past me, waiting by the pillar where I could easily overhear them talking to each other as they went by. They turned and then they stopped part way up the front walk to wait for Keller’s brother, Owen, to catch up. He was still across the street. I took one quiet giant step out from my shadows as he was crossing and Keller was looking the other way. I froze again.

I couldn’t figure out who she was dressed as, but she was aqua colored from her head to her feet. Then I called out her name in a low voice, “Keller.” Her dad saw me then but he didn’t give me away. Her older brother came up and I called out again, just loudly enough to be heard, “Owen.” He looked over at me and figured it out right away. I had talked to him earlier in the day about his own costume. I had not really changed that much since then.

He walked confidently to the porch, but Keller was uncertain. She had suddenly seen The Invisible Man standing still where there had been no one standing only moments before. She stood frozen in her own way to the sidewalk. Her dad urged her to hurry and go get the candy and then they could run away. But she wasn’t sure enough about what she was seeing to do anything at all and she kept looking at me for some sign that nothing really scary was there.

Her brother came back from getting his candy, and then finally Keller grabbed her dad’s sleeve and hurried him up to the front door with her. And then, as they reached the sidewalk and turned up the street, I could see her aqua face looking back at me from over her shoulder. I had remained almost motionless, but I do hope that she saw me eventually waving.

At some points in the night, The Invisible Man just wandered the yard. Sometimes the kids came so fast, I just couldn’t make it back to my shadows. I grabbed a bold one or two and chased a few – an advancing step and a word were all that it took. I materialized as a very large dark scarecrow in the tall zinnia stalks in the flowerbed near the street - three girls daring each other to go touch my outstretched hand.

And I was back in the middle of the front lawn when a young mother turned her head and noticed me standing there in the grass. She stopped about where Keller had paused. I was no more than three or four giant steps away from her. Her husband and her child had already gone up to the porch.

“That’s not real?” she half-queried her husband. He quickly replied, “No that’s real.” I stood, motionless as a statue, as husband and wife disagreed back and forth several more times. Eventually, as these things go, the father and their child came back from getting the candy and the young mother said emphatically one more time, “That’s not real!”

I took one step towards her and she screamed.

Music to my ears.

And the kids just keep getting younger – and older.

**

Pumpkin Head - 2014  With links to other Halloween Stories

The Invisible Man - All Hallow's Eve - 2015

Late October walk

My extended gloved finger tip

barely slipped between Venus and Jupiter.

And the gloves came off

to bare finger the first frost

on the football dummies

left out in the trampled grass.

It’s the end of the summer as we knew it

and I’m okay with that.

But the middle-aged man’s

bare knees

weren’t knocking so loudly

on Mass St

that I could hear them

over his chattering teeth.

And the hot sauce

sat out on the tables

in the outdoor seating,

waiting at the Roost.

And somewhere over the river

the pigeons lined up

on the cables with care

and the nodding river was tucked

under a soft, gray blanket of mist.

If the sun comes up soon

we can perhaps pretend

a little longer,

but the squirrels in South Park

are preparing for the cold.

Almost an interesting conversation

I am an inveterate eavesdropper.

The other day, I overheard parts of a conversation.

“Conversation” was one of their words, actually,

and “people my own age.”

And other fragments:

“older people” and “physics, that must be hard.”

I could have perhaps butted in.

But I was at least twice their age -

and male.

They were two young women, walking.

It’s tough to meet people

who want to have a conversation

at any age.

I know that sometimes eyes glaze over when I say

I write poetry,

so instead I talk about the weather

and about what I did the other day.

I might have butted in.

What’s the worst that could have

happened? They might have given me

empty smiles and quickly turned away from me.

What were the chances that we could

have had anything interesting to say

to each other, anyway?

Oh, it was almost a beautiful day.

And I almost overheard an interesting conversation

the other day.

Open books

I look at people’s faces as if they were open books,

written in the language my Grandmother used to speak to me when I was new.

I answered her in English and I was told that we understood each other completely.

Sometimes I think I can understand what I see in people’s faces,

though I don’t always care for what their faces say.

I wonder if my Grandmother would have understood them better.

But why would I even try to read the faces of strangers?

Except that they are like an open book

and sometimes I have read what I have wanted to believe since I was new.

I answer the faces as I naturally would.

I admit that I do not always know what I am saying

and sometimes I don’t know what I have read.

I don’t even remember talking to my Grandmother.

But I’m fascinated by people’s faces.

I read them as if they were an open book

in a language my Grandmother might have understood.

Night time conversations

 

I feel as if I am drowning in my words. My thoughts and feelings condense to drops. Phrases and lines have trickled down. Observations and experiences become streams and rivers. And so soon I’m flooded out of my mind.

What is a metaphor or a simile good for when so many poets have parted the waters like Moses?

There is nothing new under the sea and on dry land a glass of cold water will quench your thirst when you are thirsty.

From their side of the glass, everything said has already been said. The image makers, the storytellers, the rhymers of rhymes and the teller of tales. Beauty and truth and truth and beauty. Tragedy and ongoing comedy.

And yet from my side of the glass, I wonder if this might be my first time. So swim I must. At least I’ll wade in the water.

The toad on the riverbank has no new song to sing, but he and I might have something to say even if we are the only ones awake underneath the moon.

And then I heard the katydid and I walked over to where she was calling. And when I began to tell her of my woes she just tittered.

“Look over at those lightning bugs flying over the grass,” she chirped. “Not a word do they speak, only a streak in the night - over and over again.  All night long, not a song, but a fleeting, glimmering glow. If you want to write you should join the cacophony - the torrent - whatever you want to call it.

“Talk to the moon and the stars if you want to. They have time. Write words if that’s how you want to express yourself. You’ll never, ever make the sun come up in the morning, you silly little dribble.”

And then, Katydid laughed. “And look over there. That lightning bug just got published.”

Cracked Blue Pitchers Productions presents:

~ 18 min. video: My story and a reading of 'The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock,' by T. S. Eliot.

Text:

Cracked Blue Pitcher Productions presents “The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ by T.S. Eliot:

Read by Bert Haverkate-Ens

I do not wish to make a presumptuous pronouncement, but I’m not sure that can be avoided if I open my mouth. Better for you, perhaps, to see if you can find truth and beauty within yourself, or, perhaps out underneath the stars above at night. When I step outside in the wee hours of the morning, often there is no genuine silence. The world seems to hum. It sounds a lot like my refrigerator. I have thought about trying to find the source of what, to me, seems like dull noise. In the absence of many of the noises of the day – often I still hear a siren moving through the night – this humming intrudes into the sense of clarity that I seek. I suppose if I could find the source of the noise - I would just follow my ears. After all, few people would be willing to get up out of their beds to try and stop me. I would just pull the plug. But something almost surely would go bad.

So I don’t.

I am just imagining that I am telling a story here and reading a poem that reveals truth and beauty to me. YouTube has kindly agreed to store this recording on their servers and make it available to anyone who wants to listen for a click. It seems reasonable. How they make a buck out of it is their business. Time – and not money – is the value at stake hear. But never mind.

Late last summer, I walked into the Social Service League. I was on my way to the river, a walk I take nearly every day. The thrift store was in temporary quarters across the street from the Douglas County Courthouse. I’m not saying that I discovered a miracle in that cluttered and cold, dimly lit, nearly abandoned warehouse space. It’s too soon to tell. But I might have found part of the great mystery of the universe.

On the shelves at the Social Service League, among all of the twiddle and the other odd stuff, was a blue pitcher. The color and the very pleasing round shape appealed to me. I held it in my hands. The ceramic was smooth and cool to my palms. There was a chip or two and some apparently negligible cracking but I wanted the pitcher. It was in a thrift store, anyway.

I then browsed the poetry section of the used books. On the top shelf, I saw a pale green copy of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland and other poems.’ I had that very book at home, the black and white slightly enigmatic photo of Eliot, his chin resting on his hands folded over a cane on the cover. I suppose, it might have been an umbrella. The photo was cut off below his tweedy elbows. Maybe the book could be a gift.

At the counter, they asked for and I paid two dollars. I didn’t get a receipt so I don’t know how much for the cracked blue pitcher and how much for poems I already had on my bookshelves.

I carried the pitcher and the book with me as I walked. I had slipped my digital camera into my pocket before leaving the house and I posed the objects among the petunias in the planter boxes along Mass St, and in other places.

If time is the preeminent value we are talking about here, I had gotten my money’s worth before I even got back home. I cleaned up the pitcher a little and filled it with water. When I came back some time later, the pitcher was empty and the counter was all wet. To me, it was clear why someone had donated the pitcher to the Social Service League. It didn’t hold water. Still, it was a beautiful object. I was happy to have it. I place it around in several different places in my yard. Finally I put it into my little garden pond after the ice from the winter had melted. It seemed suited to its element.

Occasionally, the wind would rock it enough so that water spilled into its mouth and it would fill and sink to the bottom. Easy enough to reach.

Eliot, on the other hand, was confusing me some. I carried the thin little paperback with me now and then. I could hardly make any sense of the Wasteland, though some individual lines would make me laugh. But ‘The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ continues increasingly to bring satisfaction to my soul. I don’t particularly mean anything much by that word, ‘soul,’ I just don’t have a better one handy. I don’t think I’m especially religious anymore, but since things mean something to me – even if only apparently – I suppose I might have some sense of the sacred in me somewhere. I had a philosophy professor once tell me that it was difficult to tell the difference between the voice of God and indigestion. I know I cannot.

But Prufrock gets to me. ‘Let us go then, you and I/ when the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table;/ Let us go …’ Well, Eliot goes on for several pages. I think that he is talking about time. He uses the word ‘time’ directly any number of times.

I first read this poem years ago. Before I got married, even, and that was half a lifetime ago. Thirty years this year, if you’re counting. One night -I don’t know how all of this happened - I read the entire poem out loud on the telephone to a friend of mine who is completely blind. I could hear her breathing in my ear. It turns out, I have never read that poem better than when she was listening. Of course, I have read it silently and out loud for myself and also for a few others, both in fragments or whole some times since. And now I would like to share Mr. Eliot’s poem with you. If it doesn’t mean anything to you, if you don’t enjoy the sounds of the words and my voice, am sorry. Or maybe it was my story that soured you. Time is what can never be recovered

But if, and I trust you, if there is any stirring in your soul as you listen to me read, go to the Social Service League – or find a street performer - and give them something for their time and stuff. You don’t have to tell them that Prufrock sent you. But gratitude should be paid. The universe is a vast and random place – but not without some personality. You and I are part of the universe, after all. And I, of course, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I think that I enjoy reading Prufrock more if someone – even if I am only imagining you – is listening. Some mystery is involved.

So now, Cracked Blue Pitcher Productions presents “The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ by T.S. Eliot:

"Let us go then, you and I, …

**

~ 8 min audio: My reading of 'Prufrock' with sampled soundtrack from 'Still breathing.'

~ 8 min audio: My plain reading of 'Prufrock.'

Here is also a link to the text of the poem itself which includes another reading http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/173476

or you can listen to a YouTube of Eliot reading his own poem 

https://youtu.be/JAO3QTU4PzY


The words are the same, but the sound is different. You may or may not hear anything differently. If you do, it might have to do more with who you are at the particular moment.

Some things simply take time and attention.