Location

Time and place are married to every action.

The bride fixes her hair at church while the bells ring from the stone tower above at noon, noon, noon.

The groom was baptized at St. Francis Easter Sunday 1982. His mom wore her pink hat and sat in the front pew, beaming.

They’ll never break up, and they can’t break down.

That’s what People do. One day. In their home. In the morning. On the street.

Then and there.

Last week, I saw the moon through my window and thought long of you from 5,000 BC, away from the campfire, standing on pine needles in the clearing on the hill, drunk in its glow. And then I thought of you from 5,000 AD, living on a manmade island, wondering if your girl misses you up there.

Nothing happens never and nowhere. If you think about it, it’s not scary. We move. Then we rest.

I’m sorry for the weight you carry. I feel it too.

Under the bells. In the moonlight.

The Empty Chair

The empty chair stands on guard

Ready to seat

The one who chose it always.

It belongs to me now and I say

Don’t sit there, friend.

It’s a monument. It’s retired.

Standing still stubbornly

In a world that won’t stop moving.

I leave, go to work, and plan

And build and lose and laugh

And lie and fight and try to finish.

The chair waits. It’s a flashing marquee.

It says it held her here

Where she sang silly songs

And tried to understand

Where her life went so fast.

She’s not coming back

And so it stays a tangible memory

Of what was.

A statue now.

The whole world can die away,

And I’ll go with it,

But as long as it’s mine

I need it to do nothing.

To be perfect and sacred and still and sad.

The Bar Formerly Known As…

“Things change, and that’s how they become our own.” This was my first thought coming out of a dream, and I wanted to write it down before I forgot. 

I was standing, in the dream, in a pizza place where I’d worked. And the full kitchen had been remodeled. It was laid out in a square before, and now it was L-shaped and more closed in. It was a whole different vibe. I think I was sad about that, but I hadn’t said anything to anyone. Then, the above mentioned thought came to me clear and whole. A group of younger kids was there, early 20s I’d guess, and it was a bar. I hadn’t really been interacting with my environment, but at one point a song played and everyone knew it, so everyone sang it. I got caught up myself and was singing too. This was their bar. It was no longer my workplace. 

And that’s how life goes. We get Mr. Gatti’s on Battlefield or LaMar’s on Campbell or Parkview laid out like a pitchfork until we don’t anymore. Only so many people in the world know those places like I do, and some of them are already gone. 

I’ve often wondered how people from 200 years ago or 1,000 or 5,000 years ago would see our world. The answer is they wouldn’t recognize it. They’d say: “there used to be a barn here, or a creek bed, or a path with trees and a hill,” as they stood next to a Bed, Bath & Beyond. Change may be the hardest thing to accept, but it’s what makes our world unique. And the world can’t be about us for long. For we are fleeting. 

In the parking lot of a Bed, Bath & Beyond in Sunset Hills, Mo.

The truest words I think I’ve heard in my life came from an artist who has now passed: “Life is just a party, and parties weren’t meant to last.” Someday, I’ll tell my grandkids about him and it’ll get confusing fast. “He had one stage name, and then he was a symbol before he took the old one back.” And they’ll tell their parents, “grandpa’s stories are crazy.” And their parents will smile and nod. 🙂