January 22, 2011

J:

The Weatherbeaten

Sure enough they're still there,

the books I read when I was very young.

They remain in the harbor of the juvenile section.

My brother first encouraged

open ocean travel out beyond these

volumes about melted coins and warlike badgers.

Young men who read are brazen,

and tough enough to handle heavy weather

with sextants for latitude but careless disregard

for wet chronometers,

adrift among the decimals and fictions,

and measureless expanses of trench and massif,

between jagged landmasses.

Some men return and write dull volumes;

entire works devoted to a boy and his tire swing,

desperate stories by old men afraid of forgetting.

Here is one in my hand,

about something as exciting as

a day walking through the forest with one's dog.

But boys wanted adventure,

death, danger and mystery they know is out there,

where old men want to be boys again.

I am a weatherbeaten,

young man, schooled in what really lies beyond,

not quite yet convinced that there's nothing worth wanting

outside my small experience.

I'm young enough to want to want something

in these books where anything impossible could happen.

Too young to wish to be young.

A boy darts past me like a bluefin,

snatching up one about a boy accused of treason.

"They've got it!" said to himself,

as he warily avoids the sailor looming

uncertain and adrift in a far flung foreign port.

R:


I worked on choosing a color for my new (old) china cabinet. The colors are Benjamin Moore's Stingray 1529 in high gloss for the exterior and Mascarpone AF-20 in flat finish for the interior. I'll post pictures in the spring when the work is completed on it.