a trip to a place left behind always in my heart at home in two places past and present as one never gone
have I returned home when I visit the past or when the trip ends?
Senryū are similar to haiku, but they tend to be about human nature, rather than nature.
Gogyohka (pronounced go-gee-yoh-kuh) ~ a form of Japanese poetry pioneered by Enta Kusakabe in the 1950s ~ 5-line poetry ~ like tanka, but with freedom from restraints ~ no fixed syllable requirement ~ no conventions regarding content ~ brief lines in keeping with the tradition of Japanese short verse
It was winter, early 1966. Do you remember where? Of course you would, but you’re no longer here to say.
Somewhere in Pennsylvania. A grandparents’ farm, family friends. We camped there several times, but for that visit we stayed in the farmhouse.
All for a fun day of sledding for the kids. Why shouldn’t a dad join in? Diving onto that wood and metal glider you raced down the hill, unstoppable.
Until you found the one bare spot on that long slope of a farm field. The sled came to a dead halt, but you rocketed forward.
We found your metal frame glasses coated with blood from the gash in your brow. Just like that, the cold seeped into all of us, so we went inside while you were taped up.
But the day was early, so once our bones were warmed by hot chocolate we loaded up the grandparents’ van, ten of us packed into a ’64 Econoline.
We headed for an old logging road, snow covered and perfect for sledding. Of course, you were more than content to let the kids have all the fun.
The last leg of our recent trip took us to western New York to visit with family, and, of course, the Niagara River. Parking on the American side of the river, we walked across the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls to view the falls from the Canadian side, which is always a delight.
The farthest thing from my mind when I’m chipping away at the frozen layer on my driveway on a chilly, mid-Missouri February morning that, as usual, has as much rain as snow is to wish for more of the same. But here I am on a ninety-six degree day in August crossing a Target parking lot as I wade through heat waves rising from the asphalt that remind me of that Vegas hospital parking lot in early June of ’93 after visiting Dad and thinking he’d be flying home soon – we know how that worked out – wishing I could have one of those ice-crusted snow days. Or better yet, just one more minute working beside Dad at Overland Express back in Buffalo in the ’70s with the snow blowing between the trailers and across the dock, his face just as red from the cold as it would get if he were here with me on this hot, August Missouri day.
Absent the agony of your companion, the white heat of pain temple to temple, my pleas for mercy falling on ears deaf to everything but a ringing magnified tenfold, you were a welcome distraction, courting fascination with the pulsation of lightning through a prism.
That you are now absent as well, I wonder. Should I miss you?
For years, I was plagued with sinus headaches, often several times a month, that would start with a pressure buildup behind my eyes. A migraine would follow if I didn’t immediately treat the headache with ibuprofen and pseudoephedrine. These days, those headaches are few and far between, and I haven’t had a migraine in many years. I can’t say I miss them. On the other hand, sometimes I would have an ocular migraine, an arc of light with a prismatic effect in my peripheral vision, very seldom accompanied by any discomfort. Those could be fascinating. The last time I had one I wrote about it, here.
On a still night, with ambient light nothing more than flames rising from ash and maple into thin smoke that wafts upward in a loose spiral, coaxed ever higher by glowing embers that lie in the pockets between those slowly settling logs, we sit in a circle, feeling the warmth seep into us as it pushes against the chill pressing into our backs.
Talk of the day’s events behind us, we gaze into the sky in awed silence, a wordless communion blessed by a blanket of stars, those flames now as if nothing. Even as the fire is reduced to embers, the night’s chill has no effect, for what could rival a brilliance that inspires the imagination, kindling wonder that knows no bounds as it blazes across the sky?
There is dignity, even in hauling coal, when masts stand tall with sails unfurled as they hold the wind as their own.
But treacherous waters care not for dignity when the wind howls and waves rise to meet a bowsprit. You drew the short straw in that lottery, your life cut short after eighteen years, your graceful lines no match for the rocky shore that met them.
Within the shallows of that narrow bay where you’ve lain for a century, you know no wind, yet you have a view of the sky that holds it, so blue during days of calm, or darkened gray when those winds swirl. The water around you, cool in any season, steals from you that rippled view in winter, yet offers a cool blue light, nearly electric, filtered through its icy ceiling.
And though we may walk above you in your winter obscurity, we can still imagine you as we might on ice-free days, when, though your masts are gone, you are still known as Sweepstakes, your lines still graceful before the winds you held so dear.
I started scuba diving in 1981, and during the 1980s I made several trips to Tobermory, Ontario, and the Fathom Five National Marine Park. Twenty-two shipwrecks (and likely more) can be found in this underwater preserve where scattered islands create a hazardous passage into the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. The two-masted schooner Sweepstakes, built in 1867, struck Cove Island in 1885 and was towed to Big Tub Harbor at Tobermory, where it sank in twenty feet of water. The shallow dive was always enjoyable, and I even made a trip to Canada to dive on it as a part of my Ice Diving certification.
Image source: screenshot from YouTube (Sweepstakes in the winter) ~~ click for larger view Map source: Wikimedia Commons