The Forgotten Ones

Mamma sings to the trees.

She said when the whistle cracks whistled.

Old man trees bend where the moon used to be, and black-rain leaves storm through the darkness.

The darkness.

Nothing but wet.

So many leaves falling limp and smelling. Like oil on the ground. Breath can't poke that blanket. Wood and mud. Settled smoke. Forests rising with too much trying to grow.

We cry silver worm tears, but no one cares.

The first cold chatters bones like we forgot, and Momma can't sing to the trees. She's there. In them. Dancing with the black cloud moon. Forgotten me. And I don't get a tree. Don't want her anyway.

Sing me, trees. Forget the black cloud moon.

Forget my open mouth.

I don't remember what I used to be.

*******
(From Jason: On this Halloween, beware the forgotten ghosts where the paths have overgrown. Look off into the dark fields and forests, but keep to the roads and lamplight. Insanity shrouds the long forgotten. And anger. If one touches you, whispers to you, run. RUN. Do not disappear with them into the brambled shadows.)
*******

HAVE A GREAT DAY, EVERYONE!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Fevers

Tickling disease
And our nighttime cries
Cold sweat reminders
How invincibility dies

West Branch

Unfortunately, I've been rocked by gastroenteritis. Good times, good times.

Not surprisingly, I haven't been around blogs or kept to my posting schedule. However, in the meantime, I thought I'd share with you some images from the West Branch of the Delaware River earlier this weekend.

A guy from work and I went up to the cabin for a little late season fly fishing. Here I am workin' it.



The West Branch is a premier trout water in Pennsylvania. The Cannonsville Reservoir (part of the New York City water system) feeds it via a bottom-release dam, which keeps the water cold even in the oven days of summer.

Since the wild, old brown trout were not rising, I tried a fly of my own invention, which I lovingly call the "Evans Special." Here is one of my early ones which is a bit larger than what I tie now and lacks some green flash in the tail that mimics scales.



Here is one of the granddaddies lurking down there. Beautiful fish.



After I released him, he hung out by my feet for a while.

So long fish friend. Perhaps we'll meet another day.

(Now if my intestines would just calm down. Geesh. The noises they've been making are downright Satanic.)

Dusk

My paintings scatter on your water
Softly
One at a time
A pigment rain
In air I've walked
Will walk
My green jacket with the broken zipper
Billowing
Darkness buttering the breeze

Too much to bear at sunset
With my paintings
Ribboned by rocks
Piling in the brown eddies
Not wanted anymore
So tomorrow I'll paint
And I'll show you what I see
Again

Ventilation, Part 16 (fictionalized history)

(In 1952, polio reached its peak in the United States with 21,000 cases of paralytic polio. The first polio vaccine was introduced in 1955. By 1965, the total paralytic cases had fallen to 61. In this fictionalized history series, we will be experiencing the aftermath of polio, before the dramatic triumph of a vaccine. If you're just joining us, go back to Part 1.)

Fifty-Four Years and One Month Since Hospital Admission
August 2006 (61 years old)


Julia's assisted living facility had the most beautiful windows.

Not the view so much. But the glass itself. Images poured and flowed as they moved outside.

Nobody made glass like that anymore. Bubbly and uneven. Julia didn't need a time machine to know how the colonial world looked. There it was, filtered through those antique window panes. The breeze in the trees. The blooms on the Rose of Sharon. A perfect visage of an eighteenth century summer day.

At first, Julia missed Cindy's quiet footfalls in an outside gust of wind. The slide of a dresser drawer snapped her back. Stacks of sweet-smelling laundry stood ready to be put away. Cindy's hands worked, but her downcast eyes stared to the side.

"Morning, Cindy."

"Morning, Miss Julia," she said. Her voice sounded uneven, like it hadn't been used very much.

All of the pretty lines of her face angled down.

"Are you feeling okay?" Julia said. "You don't look too well."

Cindy pressed the slacks down in order to close the drawer. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not, fine."

Cindy shrugged. So small and tired.

"Put the laundry down," Julia said.

"I don't...."

"Don't argue. Come on."

"But...."

"You can't even finish your sentences! Over here. Now!"

Cindy just stood in exhausted confusion.

"If anybody says anything," Julia said, "I'll cover for you."

Cindy's red eyes eased over to the chair.

"That's it. Right here next to me. Come on."

Cindy's shuffling feet and limp arms sagged into the seat.

"That's better," Julia said. "Now, are you feeling ill?"

Cindy shook her head.

"No? Are you sure?"

She shook her head again.

"Oh," Julia said, suddenly seeing all the symptoms. "I see."

Maybe Cindy sensed Julia's insight, because her shoulders collapsed even more.

"Tell me what happened," Julia said.

The young woman's eyes squeezed shut. Her breath caught.

"Oh honey, it can't be that bad."

She played with the wedding ring on her finger. A hand shot up to smear away an escaped tear.

"I can't do it, Miss Julia."

"Tell me."

"I can't make him happy. Everything I do is wrong."

Now the tears really broke through.

"I don't believe that," Julia said.

"I've ruined everything."

Julia watched the emotions crash over Cindy. A tissue soon joined the fray.

After a couple minutes, the crisis eased.

"Did he say that to you?" Julia said. "That you ruined everything?"

Cindy shook her head. "No. Not in those words."

"But he was upset?"

"Yes."

"And everything is cold and bad between you?"

"Yes," Cindy said.

Julia edged up the authority in her voice. "I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen right now."

Cindy turned and quieted.

"Look. I've laid here for God knows how many years. I don't like to even count them. My life before this machine seems like a dream. A complete fairytale. I not sure if I even believe it happened anymore.

"So you can say I have no idea what I'm talking about. I've just been laying here, after all, while the world rolled right by me. And maybe it's true. But being the watcher and being denied so many things everyone else takes for granted taught me some things. The kind of things only outsiders can see.

"I know you're convinced that you blew it. That for whatever reason he could never love you. Or never really wanted you in the first place. But it's bullshit, Cindy. You hear me? It's bullshit. I guarantee you he's off somewhere, tired, hurt, confused, impossible to focus. His friends are asking him what's wrong. You've affected him too. You're not the only one who's been hurt.

"The real problem is that people forget, Cindy. People forget everything outside them all the time."

"I want you to touch my face," Julia said.

"What?"

"Go on. Go ahead."

It was hesitant, but Cindy did.

"I'm really here. Amazing, isn't it? I'm really talking to you. My eyes are looking into your eyes. I care about what you're feeling. I care about what's happening to you.

"But so many times, people look right past that. Right past how the other person feels. They wrap themselves up in everything they're afraid of.

"Afraid of not being good enough. Afraid of losing what they have. Afraid to admit what they really want.

"If he wanted you once, Cindy, he wants you now. Don't deny him that. Don't steal yourself away. Don't crawl under all this ugliness and stare out, ready to fight. Instead, be the best person you can be. Want him, and tell him so. And above all, let him love you back. Because it's the greatest gift, you know. But so often we hand it back. So often, we just don't have the strength to accept it. Don't do it, Cindy. Please. Don't hand it back because you're too scared to take it."

Cindy's chest rose with the deepest of breaths. Remaining tears sparkled with a smile. "You're the wisest person I know, Miss Julia. I don't know what I'd ever do without you."

"Not wise. Just telling you what I've seen."

The teary smile grew. "Thank you for telling me all of this."

"You can always turn to me, Cindy. Always. And I'd give you a hug if I could...."

But, Cindy did it for her.


Back to Part 15.

Hollow Road

I'm going to preface what I'm about to write by saying that I believe it is unlikely that ghosts and hauntings exist. I want to believe, but I just can't step outside of my drive to delve, test, and analyze. Faith is a concept I have difficulty with. A thing must have consistant evidence for me to believe it, and what people say they see and hear in the dead of night (or want to see and hear) is notoriously untrustworthy evidence. I've put myself in plenty of creepy places when I was younger in the hope of experiencing something supernatural, and although I was afraid, I perceived nothing that could not be explained.

However, something just happened to me. Something curious.

Because I've never felt anything like it, I thought I would explain.

Friday afternoon, I hopped onto our motorcycle to tour the windy Pennsylvania back roads and capture autumn photographs. The ride carried me about 15 miles from home. There, I turned up a promising road called Flowing Springs Road.

Twisting among colonial stone houses and barns, the road crested, then folded down through vistas overlooking farms and wooded pastures. I bottomed in a flat valley and climbed a gentle hill toward Hollow Road.

I saw it to my left.

A farm. Old and odd.

Nestled in clumps of overgrown trees, the house towered mansion-like with columns and different facades poking in different directions through the branches. Dark windows. White walls. The way a mansion might look in the 1850's, I thought. Not as opulent as today, but tighter. More economical and compact.

The ground stretched around it in an open square. No tilled field. Just a small old barn. A few towering trees shaded the lawn.

A shiver tickled through me as my motion brought me around. I eased to a stop sign, then turned onto Hollow Road. Higher over the property now, I traveled the other side. I looked down over the grounds.

And my dread grew.

Why?

Because I knew it was haunted. And I knew because even though the road and trees blurred as I drove, another vision overlaid my sight. A vision like a recent memory playing inside my head. I saw her. A middle-aged woman with a calm face shaped more long than round. In flashes I saw her standing on the grounds. When the evening pressed quiet and lonely. Other visions of her were at the window and the expression on her face. One vision was her body, dead. The end of her suffering after weeks of disease.

She could be many places quickly now, as quick as your mind can shift through thoughts. But then again, she could linger too, when she was especially sad and alone. All of these impressions flowed into me in about 20 seconds. They intruded. My thoughts had been wishing for more colorful leaves. Ghosts were very far from the mind.

I didn't immediately react to what I had seen. I stopped down the road to take some pictures of horses and a weathered wagon. But the visions trickled deeper into my consciousness. As they did, the impact increased. Why were they so clear? Why were they so fast and coherent?

Although it made me uncomfortable, I turned around to pass again. No new images hit me, but I did feel even more strongly that I didn't want to linger. I snapped a picture (it doesn't begin to do it justice), then hurried on.

Curious, like I said.

Perhaps it was nothing more than my creative brain taking off. Yet, I've never experienced that kind of intrusive vision before.

Who knows. Maybe that woman did speak to me.

Maybe someday, it will happen again.

The House on Hollow Road

Autumn Prayer

Ember air
Lay your crimson fingers on me
I'm here
Warming the feathery cold
Sliding with the continental sky

Ventilation, Part 15 (fictionalized history)

(In 1952, polio reached its peak in the United States with 21,000 cases of paralytic polio. The first polio vaccine was introduced in 1955. By 1965, the total paralytic cases had fallen to 61. In this fictionalized history series, we will be experiencing the aftermath of polio, before the dramatic triumph of a vaccine. If you're just joining us, go back to Part 1.)

Forty-Four Years and One Month Since Hospital Admission
August 1996 (51 years old)


"Man, you've got some tunnels down here," Pete said.

His escort, the mechanical engineer, screwed an open light bulb deeper into the socket. The darkness retreated.

"This campus was built before the turn of the century," the man said. "Lots of buildings have been isolated from the power plant now. Like the new hospital pavilion. This steam is coming in from the dormitories."

"Way better efficiency."

The engineer nodded. "We used to really have to bake the dorms to heat the old university hospital when it was in this building."

"Just offices now?"

"Mostly." The engineer shined his flashlight farther back and illuminated a crisp, old tarp. "Here we are."

The air smelled stale. But not much mildew. The tunnels seemed pretty dry.

"How long has it been down here?" Pete said.

"Oh Jesus. Thirty years, maybe."

"Well, let's take a look."

Pete reached and pulled. Dust billowed up and swirled in the flashlight beam.

"Somebody decided to keep one around a long time ago," the engineer said. "But not many know it's here now."

"Good thing your CEO likes to take weird tours down here."

"Yeah. He loves the tunnels and boilers and shit like that."

Pete punched his mechanical screwdriver into four screws and pulled off part of the metal housing.

"Right model?" the engineer asked.

"Close enough. We're damn lucky, I can tell you that. This company stopped making this shit eighteen years ago. You couldn't sell your soul to get new parts for it."

"Damn."

"We called seventeen hospitals before we got lucky with this here one," Pete said.

"How does she look?"

Pete wiped some grime with a rag from his back pocket. "Well, the exchanger looks good. But we won't know for sure until we install it."

"You really still got someone in an iron lung?"

"Yep. Polio. Since back in the 50's. Great lady. Her name is Julia."

"Must be fucking hell."

Pete angled himself to get deeper in. "She doesn't seem to mind it so much. She's got a great sense of humor."

"Well, I can't imagine living in one of these things. I'd blow my brains out if I could get someone to do it for me."

"Piss!" Pete pressed a cut finger into his rag. The cloth had lots of dark decorations.

"What are you going to do when you can't fix it any more?"

Pete dabbed blood from the slice. "There's still a bunch of these squirreled away in basements. I'll keep it running."

"For her sake, I hope you do. She's gonna be happy to see you."

Pete smiled. "Yeah, she was pretty worried. The lung sounds pretty sick right now. But it's still pumping."

"You need a hand?"

"You mind if I grab a few more parts off this thing?" Pete said. "These motors scare me. If one quits.... But then again, they built some serious shit back then."

"Go ahead. None of this is doing anybody good down here."

"Thanks. Julia would kiss you if she were here."

The engineer repositioned the light as Pete expanded his dissection.


On to Part 16.
Go back to Part 14.

Equinox Turned

October nightmares
Crackling the spines of leaves
Carving pumpkin dreams

Having

"Isn't it beautiful how the sunset shines on the trees?" she said. "The light is so strong."

His eyes didn't stray from the hill. From the glowing leaves.

She sighed. "It's a shame how quickly it's gone."

The trees behind them cut the light at the ground. The shadow was rising toward the sky.

"I don't like watching," he said.

She leaned in. "Why?"

"Each time you look, more is gone. Until just the very top of the trees are glowing. You really can see the last bit of it drain away."

"It'll be back," she said. "Tomorrow."

"It doesn't feel that way."

"But you know it will."

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe I know it. But it's a different thing to feel it."

Crows flapped across the distant clouds.

"If every time you have something, you're worried about it slipping away, then you've already lost it," she said.

He chuckled and pointed. "See? We missed it."

She didn't turn.

"You're wrong," she said. "I see it just fine."

And sure enough, some of the sky's brightness still reflected in her eyes.

Ventilation, Part 14 (fictionalized history)

(In 1952, polio reached its peak in the United States with 21,000 cases of paralytic polio. The first polio vaccine was introduced in 1955. By 1965, the total paralytic cases had fallen to 61. In this fictionalized history series, we will be experiencing the aftermath of polio, before the dramatic triumph of a vaccine. If you're just joining us, go back to Part 1.)


Thirty-Four Years and One Month Since Hospital Admission
August 1986 (41 years old)


The little boy jumped onto the stool and wheeled across the room.

His much older sister made a will-you-just-stop-it face. "Come on, Billy. Get off that."

He clanked into a tray and tipped a cup of water. Liquid fanned to the edge.

"Watch it!"

The boy raised his hands. "What?" The water overflowed and began to splatter on the floor. "The chair didn't go straight."

"Get DOWN!"

She grabbed for him, but he scrambled out of reach.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Julia," the girl said, not meeting her eyes in the mirror.

Julia just shook her head and smiled.

A man strode into the room. Julia's little brother. Billy Jr. slapped into his leg. Some kind of failed Judo move.

"Why couldn't I have stopped at four kids?" he said, laughing. "Come on, chief. Chill out."

The boy took two more runs at his leg.

He nodded to Julia. "Hey Sis."

"Don't like being king of the castle anymore?"

"The subjects are in revolt."

Billy Jr. yanked on his shirt. "Daddy?"

"Yeah, chief."

"Why is she in a microwave?"

Across the room, the oldest daughter groaned.

"First, my little ambassador, 'she' is your Aunt Julia. Secondly, it's not a microwave. We explained this to you like fifty-five times. Aunt Julia needs this machine to breathe."

"I'm not going near it!"

"I see our money on charm school is going to good use," Billy Sr. said.

"Leave him alone," Julia said. "I wouldn't want to come near this thing either."

"Come here, son." He flagged the boy to the back of the room.

Julia craned to see, but it was hard when people were directly behind her. "It's alright Billy."

The girl perked in the visitor's chair. "Dad? What are you giving him?"

"Nothing," a voice said.

Julia could only see the tops of their heads.

"No!" the boy yelled.

"Go on! Hurry up."

The boy wriggled. "No!"

"Go on!"

"I don't want it!" The boy ran out of the room.

Billy Sr. shook his head. "Kids these days." He sauntered over, raised a hot pink water pistol, and launched a long ribbon of water into Julia's eye.

She flinched. "Ack!"

The daughter shrieked. "Dad!"

But he was laughing too hard to breathe.

"Billy! Wipe me off! I'm WAY too old for this, for Christ's sake."

Billy Sr. held his belly.

"Hurry up, it's dripping!"

"Mom's not here to protect you, Jules. Remember when we played dress-up? Somebody get the lipstick!"

"Don't you DARE! Nurse!!"


On to Part 15.
Back to Part 13.

Remember: Catherine Ann Norton

The Remembrance Series: When I walk among old graves, I think about the voices struggling to endure. Someday not even stone will hold our memory.

We can give these voices a little more life in a way they never could have imagined. So please take a moment with me to remember....

CATHERINE ANN
WIFE OF
E.B.H. NORTON,
DIED
April 27th 1850
Aged 38 Years
1 mo. & 23 d.s.

Mourn not for me
My husband and children dear
For I am not dead
But only sleeping here
~E.H. Shands

When compared to the loss of the dead, the loss of the living seems twice as tragic. The power to listen, the power to love another. How often we throw these things away or deny them. The monuments of our anger and fear seem so insurmountable, but they fall with no more force than the air in our words.

One day a different monument will close over the ones we love. And a lifetime of words will fail to cut that stone.

Time is streaming through your fingers. Don't squander it.

Some Serious Sh!t

I'm sorry.

I'm going to have to come down from the usual frivolity here at The Clarity of Night, because today I was faced with a topic of utmost seriousness.

No, my bank didn't fail (yet). No, I didn't suffer a psychotic break during the Biden/Palin debate (please make no inference from the order of these names other than alphabetizing, or, in the alternative my strong preference).

What would you do in this situation:

You're in the offices of a center city law firm. Not the best law firm, but pretty dang respectable. You're preparing to do your stand-up business in the marble-ish bathroom. (Sorry ladies. We're talking the old gush and go. Zippers are such convenient things.)

Suddenly, there is an emphatic blurt from a closed stall.

I know. Indiscretion. It happens.

You're getting ready to move the move the material for off-loading, and you know...it happens.

No biggie.

But then, as I'm thinking about liquid sunshine and warm rivers and tall glasses of lemonade, there's another.

Higher tone. A little more restrained.

Yeah, he was trying harder to keep the bottom-ly baritone to a bare breeze. But, again, you know. More effort doesn't necessary mean discrete gas. Sometimes it means a rising, almost questioning tone. Like, what? Oh was that me?

Maybe not quite as easy to dismiss, I'm returning to the visions of golden rains when, blaaaaaaaaah, bluuuurt, bleephth.

All hell is breaking loose.

You can even hear the half panic/half sighing acceptance of the dude.

There are new notes involved. Vibrato. Complex harmonies.

Basically, Close Encounters of the Third Kind is going down in my bathroom. And this time, I don't want to hitch a ride with the freaky thin aliens.

I'm an adult, right?

Do I laugh?

Do I let slip the slightest snicker?

Because, my friend, I'm biting my lip and practically crying at this point. I'm hoping to God that no one comes in and catches me this way.

I pull away from the urinal, zip up, and hurry to the sink. The smile has broken through regardless, but at least I haven't spit/burst into raucous laughter.

I move my hands to the faucet for the automatic water, and no sooner does the sound of the stream fill the room when,

Bllllaaauuuuuuuurt.

Another sigh.

Dude made it. Good for him.

We all know the sink/flush rule: any extracurricular noises occuring at the onset, or during, the active running of any water source, eliminates the existence of such indulgences, regardless of whether actually heard or not heard at the moment, or progress of, discharge.

Chalk one up for effort. Despite finding himself on the ropes there, he sucked up enough gumption from down deep to hold the big finale until he had cover.

Ah, the sink/flush rule.

Dude had (f)heart.


(Thank you for the indulgence. We'll now be returning to normal Clarity of Night levity.)

No Màs , No Màs

And as he sat in the dying September grass, he kissed the chill and said:

I tip my glass to gravity
I'm so tired of the fight
If I still had the strength to stand
I'd greet the coming night