Author: gwayland

APRIL NIGHT

There was a black cat on the walk this mild April evening, fortelling the black, night. He was sitting in a driveway, staring at me mildly, eyes very bright, as a mild April evening became the April night, sealing off forever this mild April day.

And that’s all I’ll say, except how much the breeze flutters the little leaves above the ramshackled house on another block, where an old lady lives, all in darkness now, her hammock no longer slung across her little porch, and the tiny model sailboat set upon the sill of the window facing into the carport–that’s missing, too.

And the purple Club House flag, flapping in the breeze, is flying at half-staff, indicating a death in the community. Was it that old woman? I haven’t seen her lately. I hope she’s still with us.

But, if not, living or deceased, I choose to see her happily setting sail, as if that tiny model sailboat were the real thing, large as life –sailing her off forever across the April moon, borne by the mild April breeze into the April night.

SNOWFLAKES, SUNLIGHT, AN IDLE MOMENT IN TIME-CAPTURED

Time passing. Time captured. For what little it’s worth.

But all our life’s times are worth something.

And I’m thinking of one captured moment in a life in which even uneventful moments should count. :

A restless, idle, solitary Sunday afternoon; my age (just an estimate) thirteen, circa 1960; home alone (where was everybody?), feeling as if I should be somewhere, doing something, anything; too young to be so idle, so bored, so anxious, moving around the house, but mostly just staying in my own room that had been my sister’s room until she was married and moved out in June, 1959. This therefore was probably early spring of 1960. Or maybe not.

I’m ust guessing, of course. it could have been 1961, 62, even 63. And I could have been 14,15,16…It all runs together, and that detail is lost.

But it must have been early spring, based on the little thing that happened that made it memorable. The ground was bare, the sun was shining. It wasn’t cold, barely even a little chilly — which is why what was to happen was so unusual, which is also what makes us remember things in an otherwise ordinary day.

I’m not sure why I turned the TV on, or why I didn’t turn it off if I wasn’t interested in what was on, which I wasn’t.

This I remember: Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman were in Paris. War was threatening. The movie, from 1948, was called Arch of Triumph, after the Paris monument. That’s a good a name for a movie or a monument, nes pas? Or a novel. The movie, I now know, was based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, who also wrote All Quiet On The Western Front

All was quiet — too quiet — on my adolescent front that Sunday afternoon.

But, upon reflection, this might be one of those early instances, beyond childhood and at the edge of adulthood, when one suddenly knows enough to be anxious and disatisfaction with their idleness, because there was a life to be lived, and, like it or not, responsibilities to be assumed.

Reality.

I know that, for a sustained period, for no reason, I just sat looking out the window — out over the backyard, over neighbors’ rooftops and, between the houses, at the empty supermarket parking lot. (It was closed Sundays in those days.) There were some trees here and there, leaves probably just appearing.

Then, suddenly…..

large snowflakes began swirling in the briefly darkened sunlight. It was the thinnest, briefest of snow squalls — over almost instantly without leaving a white trace anywhere on the ground. It came on like a mid-Sunday, early spring revery, perhaps unforecasted, perhaps confined to my neighborhood, perhaps even just to my backyard, just for my vision. But it was real; probably the fleeting product of a small, drifting cloud; a very localized meteorlogical anomaly.

Did anyone else — anyone in my neighborhood or anyone else anywhere see it?

And had that squall not happened, I’d have never remembered that otherwise undistinghished afternoon, that moment in that empty, languid Sunday in that empty house where I’d lived all my short life to that point.

And, for what it was worth, I feel certain I never would have recalled what movie was playing on television.

Just before or just after the squall, I became aware that the movie was reaching its sad denoument.

Pre-World War II  Paris is crowded with illegal refugees, trying to evade deportation. Charles Boyer is one Dr. Ravic, practicing medicine illegally under a false name, helping other refugees. He saves Joan Madou, played by Ingrid Bergman, from committing suicide after the sudden death of her lover. She and Ravid (Boyer), of course, become lovers, but as the movie ends, he is being deported. Ingrid as Madou must say a sad goodbye.

Charles Boyer is waiting in the deportation line with his friend, Boris, who predicts they’ll both spend time in a concentration camp but bids him an affectionate farewell. They both promise to meet at the famous bar called Fouquet’s after the war...

One could only hope so.

Drama, Romance, Make-Believe , always bracketed by Reality….and Time.

In the last shot of the film, the camera travels through Paris’s Arc de Triomphe. The Arch of Triumph. )May we all triumph over life.

And because snowflakes fell in sunlight one very idle, ordinary early spring Sunday afternoon sixty-five years ago –an ordinary moment during the running of an otherwise ordinary and forgettable movie (which flopped at 1948 box offices) was made memorable. Preserved for what little it was worth…. in Time.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE

Time was, long, long ago, when it was bad form –as well as rare –to see anyone wearing a hat while dining publicly. That time is far distant now — and I’ll add that the ettiquette is rightly suspended in the case of veterans –especially war veterans.

And thus it was that ….

Morning sunlight was spilling into The Golden Bear breakfast place this morning when I spotted a black cap on an old head. That cafe is in a little strip center on Starkey Road. I’d had my one egg (suddenly a little more expensive), sausage links, grits, toast and coffee and was on my way to the cashier when I saw, in the second booth by the front windows, a decidedly elderly man wearing –yes –one of those black veteran’s caps — a real nice one, too. It seemed newer and more regal to my eyes than most such caps, perched tall on this vet’s otherwise humble, white-haired head.

Here was the special part — the cap was emblazoned with WWII VETERAN. You see that disignation only rarely now and therefore are more inclined to take more serious note of it and the person under it. The WWII on this particular cap struck me as unusually big and bold. But that might just have been the big, bold impression it made on me. Yes, it was a nice cap. Very nice.

As I passed his booth, I could not fail to offer the accustomed saluation (thank you for your service)– especially to a soul so modest in appearance yet so rightly proud of having lived long enough to realize that, as his and his fellow WWII veterans’ days dwindle down, there is nothing immodest about celebrating one’s role in America’s last clearly victorious, least politically frought, dubious, and inconclusive military adventure.

I laid my hand gently on his frail shoulder as I greeted him with the accustomed saluation. He smiled but seemed startled, perhaps, too, uncomprehending, not hearing me right, perhaps wondering, do I know this person? ( I think I saw a hearing aid). I glanced toward his white-haired wife sitting across him. She’d heard me right and was smiling gratefully. There were two clear, thin plastic oxygen tubes running to her nose.

I then held my hand out, the vet grasped and shook it, looking up at me through glasses. I doubt I was the first person to accept his black cap’s invitation to honor him with a hello.

I was abidingly curious and thought it appropriate to ask only one question: “What outfit were you with?”

He didn’t get that. I should have said, ‘what branch?’But I was looking for something specific, like 25th Infantry Division or 1st Marines. That would have told me what action he might have seen.

I asked again, louder, maybe changing “outfit” to “what company?” — which was even less clear or precise.

But he said, quetly, “Navy”

And that was that. Mutual smiles, another warm glance toward his misses and the encounter was over.

But, out in sunlight, my head was awash in –the Pacific, the Coral Sea, The Philippines, Linguyen Gulf, Layte, Guadalcanal, Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Sarabachi Bay, The Battle of the Atlantic — Pearl Harbor.

So I wish I’d had time to ask him –where were you, what ship or submarine? Which campaigns?

Of course, he might have spent his time at a desk in Newport, or Pearl, or like the poor sailors in that WWII saga Mr Roberts, have been unhappily stranded far from the action while their beloved commander finally broke free of the boredom and all the shipboard military nonsence and finally been dispatched to the action, only to be quickly killed in action. (That’s a designation you see so often where war veterans, especially decorated ones, are concerned: K.I.A..

But it doesn’t matter where our vet was. No, it really doesn’t. Our veteran at breakfast on this March morning had been there in some fashion, been part of it, was proud of it, and was still with us.

Yet still, I say to our breakfast vet — and his equally frail wife (who’ve gone back to their home by now), be proud, be at peace and, for as long as possible, be in good health. You answered the call. From some vantage point, you witnessed and outlived that horror. I wish we’d had more time to talk.

Thank you for your service.

A GIFT FROM THE CROWS

Been told crows will leave you gifts if you feed them.

This morning, left shelled peanuts and white grapes on the grass under the light pole next to the car port where various, very volubule crows like to perch and speak out to the world that sharp, caw-caw crow language of theirs.

There is –or was — a mocking bird nest in the shrub down below and mother and daddy mocking bird were forever harrassing and chasing off these shiny, black stately visitors. That’s nature. (I feed the mocking birds out back, and do love their music.)

But as for the crows….

This morning …found the peanuts and grapes gone — and a chicken bone resting on top of the scattered peanut shells.

Thank you, my smart feathered crow neighbors. Don’t have much use for a chicken bone, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

ASH WEDNESDAY

March 5, 2025

Will the veiled sister pray

For children at the gate

Who will not go away and cannot pray

T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

Remembering Rev. John Laurence Donovan (May 27, 1927-March 5, 2019) on this Ash Wednesday, which is also the anniversary of his death.

Dust thou art…

On Septemer 4, 1975, in a letter to me while assisting in the capacity of a Catholic priest and probation officer in the varigated human circumstances of the West Roxbury Municipal District Court, he reminded me of the Scholastic axiom, “Whatever is received, is received in the manner of the receiver “(Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur). It was another way of telling me, as he was trying to tell himself, not to let those critical of him bother him and that people are open to anything you say to them in the way of guidance or advice only to the degree they are disposed to receive such advice or guidance. He –like all of us — probably found himself speaking to brick walls on occasion — but also having the joy of seeing people, formerly bricked up in their personal very negative predilections, come around to right reason.

I guess we hope we ourselves will always come around to right reason. Fr. John was always working on me in that regard.

On November 23, 1980, he wrote me in Florida saying, “a week ago Monday we laid to rest our dear friend Fr. Robert David O’Brien. he left us quite suddenly…I am sure he is with God. He loved to quote from the life of Cardinal Voughan of Westminster who when he was dying was approached by his secretary who inquired how he felt. He answered, ‘I feel like an English schoolboy going down for the holidays.’ To which I say, blessed the man who views his leaving this world as going home.”

J.L.,as those close to him also liked to call him, went home to God on this date six years ago just shy of his 92nd birthday.

Requiescat in Pacem.

And in the spirit of the river, spirit of the sea

Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee

T. S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

A SOFT EVENING IN FEBRUARY

“Soft” evenings, I believe, or “soft” days or nights are how the Irish refer to those many days or nights of rain in that country. I suppose the adjective evokes rain falling softly into the grass or on the pavement or the cobble stones. John Updike writes of a “soft” spring evening waiting for some lost luggage to be delivered to him on the streets of his Pennsylvania hometown to which he has flown back for a visit. He walks those old, familiar streets, remembering. Nice. Soft. Easy. Softness, soft moments in a hard world. Soft, solitary thoughts. Soft memories.

Of course, he called it soft because it was raining.

February is, by most accounts in most places in America, a “hard” month. Hard and mercifully short, because it is the dead of winter, and this February of ice hard as iron, snow hard and heavy all across the nation has been especially difficult.

Here today in Florida it’s just been raining. Nice and soft.

So it is a soft evening after a soft day in the generally soft state of Florida and I’m trying to have soft thoughts in hard times.

These are not harder than most time, of course. Life can be hard, even on the softest of days in the softest of seasons which is how we generally think of spring.

But, again, this is February. Winter. A hard season. (Of course, Florida, though it has been chilly lately, is where many people have come to get away from the hard, cold northern weather. And while it’s a harder-than-usual February here, it is, by comparison, softer than what those northern winter refugees have been enduring. So, let me extend a soft welcome.)

I am supposed to be praying with people right now. That’s what I was invited to do — with some men, businessmen, professors, engineers, in Tampa tonight. It’s a monthly thing, a little men’s prayer circle. I never miss that little time and that little gathering on the fourth (top) floor of a bayside office building in the offices of a devout and companionable lawyer, right across the long, busy bridge from St. Petersburg. Sometimes there are just three of us.

It’s just that the weather tonight– and the need to care for my friend Diane whom I took to the doctor’s office today for what turned out to be good post-operative news ( the growth taken surgically off her thyroid last week is not cancerous and there is no evidence of cancer), has also been suffering pain in her ear and neck region, possibly due to ways her head and neck were manipulated during surgery. So between the weather and not wanting to leave her alone, I’m here on this night after –or maybe still during — rain, writing this.

And they are wrapping up prayers in Tampa as I write. I wish I were there, though I’m content to be here. I can pray alone, though it is always good to pray together.

And, as it happens, Diane is not here. She felt well enough to go out and play cards. So, I could have gone to Tampa and prayed after all. But I’m content to have a soft evening here — alone.

I’m probably just using Diane as an excuse to avoid the tense, rainy ride across the long bridge to Tampa — just to pray for an hour. (Though, had I gone, I’d have been glad to be there. But then there would have been the drive back –in rain and darkness. That can be — hard.

Should we –all of us, together or alone — pray, not for a soft life, but for soft times in hard times in hard months like February?

The music is softly playing in the other room — piano. “Strangers in the Night.”

It’s good to be a stranger sometimes, in the night or any time, so we can have those soft, unhurried, solitary thoughts — and prayers.

Before everything turns hard again.

A WINTER MEMORY

My mother spent her childhood in Lynn, Massachusetts. I took her back there one day — summer or fall, I forget which — and invited her to give me a tour of her old neighborhoods. She was born in 1903. This was probably 1975.

Lynn became a hard-scrabble city over the course of the Twentieth Century; industrial, with many poor neighorhoods. But mom remembered a happy, promising place.

At one point, she directed me to a particular street corner at the foot of a hill.

She was remembering being about ten years old and her mother letting her go out after dinner for one last ride on her sled. She would go down the little hill at the base of which we sat paused and idling in my car a century later. There was no one around; there had been no one around when mom took her ride — a thrilling solitary trip to the bottom.

The old neighborhood had gone slightly to seed. A century of snow had been plowed successively into grimy piles bordering scarred, patched and broken macadam. (So, if my memory is correct, this would be winter.)

But mom’s memory was pristine and inviolet — a scene in the crystal ball snow-shaker — of standing by her sled in the snow-silent twilight, hearing, far off, the barking of a dog.

She never forgot it. I never forgot her telling me about it.

A winter memory.

FLORIDA MID-WINTER REMEMBERING

Think not, when fire was right upon my bricks,

And past the tight boards hardly a wind could enter,

I glowed like them, the simple burning sticks,

Far from my cause, my proper heat and center.

-John Crowe Ransom

From Winter Remembered

________________________________

There’s a patch of old snow in a corner

That I should have guessed

Was a blow-away paper the rain

Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if

Small print overspread it,

The news of a day I’ve forgotten —

If I ever read it.

Robert Frost

–A Patch of Old Snow

BROOM THE STRIP?

Sounds like ethnic cleansing. Or perhaps just a jolting, immodest proposal by a professional jolter.

Asking people to give up their land, however savagely broken it has been by war….

Say wasn’t there a song about “the land?”

Yeah, of course, “this land is your land/ this land is my land….”

No,no — another song about the land which suggests that the people who occupy that land, however rich or barron that land may be in the eyes of outsiders, love it without reserve; call it home, have put down roots in its soil, absorbed its good and bad memories, no matter how dusty or unregenerate.

It was the Jews who , according to ancient testimonials, were infamously forced from their land. It was the Palestinians who were subsequently forced from THEIR land. The same land. And round and round it goes.

The Jews, in our time, have told– and lamentingly sung –of their embrace of the land they once lost – we heard it notably in one period in popular lore and melody.

None other than Pat Boone sang that popular anthem. Leon Uris wrote the book that inspired it — and Otto Preminger made the movie. It was called EXODUS.

But it was really about arrival, and an embrace of the land….(and exodus from being scattered or enslaved in other lands and then returning.

And once upon a time, it seems like everyone was humming along …

This land is mine, God gave this land to me
This brave, this ancient land to me
And when the morning sun reveals her hills and plain
Then I see a land where children can run free

So take my hand and walk this land with me
And walk this lovely land with me
Though I am just a man when you are by my side
With the help of God I know I can be strong

So take my hand and walk this land with me
And walk this golden land with me
Though I am just a man when you are by my side
With the help of God I know I can be strong

To make this land our home
If I must fight, I’ll fight to make this land our own
Until I die this land is mine

It spilled out of juke boxes in the early Sixties. Not great poetry; bad, actually. Not even a great lyric. The melody was better.

But it is the Palestinians who are returning now. This is their Exodus, their Return.

It is cruel and preposterous to assume they can ever be forced to leave — forced into another Exodus.Into Exile. Banished to Nowhere.