For my mother, and her fallen soldier

This one is easy. It's Veteran's Day, and first and foremost, I always think of Pete, my mother's first husband. Her first love. Her first heartbreak. He was a Marine who died in the Vietnam war.

I wrote this poem years ago (for a poetry class my last semester in college -- yes, that many years ago), and even then, I knew it was some of the most original, most amazing work that I had ever put to paper (and the only poem of mine my teacher liked)...in the library, with a spiral notebook, assignment in mind (to write a poem about a memory). I remember looking down to begin writing...and then nothing else until I looked up. And it was complete. And good. I remember nothing of composing each line. It had just appeared. Like it had been there all along...

I haven't changed a word since. This one is for my mother, and the soldier she lost all those years ago. I celebrate them both.

A Sketch for Mother

I'd come without an umbrella. I think
there was a moment when I realized why I'd come at all --
not for me --
for Mother. She'd never been -- never really even told Dad she'd wanted to.
That was something they didn't discuss.
And the rain that day was so cold.
The wool of my blue pea coat chafed my damp goose-pimpled skin
and I'd felt like my grandmother as I used my scarf to cover my hair and ears.
It was the rain, I knew, but it seemed as though something else
had forced me -- and all the other gray people -- to 
walk with bowed heads and downcast eyes.
White stone statues, cement blocks -- even the grass -- turned gray and dirty under the cloud light.
And yet I remember the marble still shined. Cold and hard, almost vindictive.
Water ran down the face in rivulets. Like some great stone creature at weep -- I remember thinking.
Deep deep black that could somehow still reflect people against the 
hazy sky -- people that stood in front of it
as if only looking at their own faces.
I don't remember the walk -- or how I even found it -- but suddenly
I was right in front of it -- looking at his name.
And I'd felt out of place and clumsy because I'd come empty-handed.
PEDRO LEON, JR.
Carved neatly in a line of a section of a wall on a lawn.
Lined up neatly amongst a thousand other names -- all faceless, all gone.
Military to the last. 
And I remember running my fingers in the groove -- in the groove carved by the letters of his name.
       Who were you? What did you look like? 
       Why did you leave?
       How did you die?
       (And most clearly, most troubling)
       I would not be here if you were alive. 
      You died. I was born.
A soggy piece of paper in the depths of my pocket -- found it and placed it
over his name -- covering it -- burying it -- pencil shaded over it.
PEDRO LEON, JR.
was now on the paper.
I'd had to look up to see his name -- and the rain had soaked my upturned face.
I'd never known him. Wouldn't. Couldn't.
My God, My Country, My Family -- his Code of Life remained only as an etch in a wall that marked
his death.
And suddenly the enormity of what he'd done -- what he'd given -- penetrated the chill and left me
even colder
and the water on my face was no longer just rain.

I gave my mother that paper with the smeared scribbled stencil on it.
I often wonder where she put it away.
And if she ever takes it out to run her fingers over the letters like I did.
And if she ever bows her head unconsciously like I did.
And if she ever cries tears for a lost man friend lover husband soldier. 
Like I did.

Short, Sweet Tennyson

Since yesterday's post was extraordinarily long, I thought I'd keep this one short, sweet and let the Tennyson speak for itself. This is the "other" quote, the one that I spoke of that was paired so singularly with Invictus in a certain little book. They were the first set of lines I truly memorized (so struck was I by them), and even all these (20) years later, can still recite by heart:

Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world...for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset...
And though, we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are --
one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find...and not to yield.

Today, think of your strength and will, your own truly heroic heart, and remember to never yield that which moves you, makes you, IS you (it's not too late, never too late). Hear, hear, Alfred.

1989, W.E. Henley, Morgan Freeman and Me

As is my new habit when I use our lovely new Mac laptop, I am wont to pull up the Internet and (compelled beyond my control to) watch whatever cool new movie trailer comes up on the Apple/Safari site. I love doing this. Grif and I often do this together (although the Jake-turns-wolf thing from New Moon made him cry). But this is about the trailer I watched recently -- the one that almost blew me out of my chair...all the way back to 1989.

I used to keep a book of quotes. Rather, I keep it still, but I haven't entered an unforgettable, un-losable, all-consuming quote for quite some time (the last was February 2004). For the entire decade of my 20s, I was never without this book -- traveled with it, wrote in it constantly, kept it at my bedside table or in my backpack of the moment. It's a simple cloth-covered blank journal. Blue. Given to me by a friend I no longer keep in touch with (although the miracle of Facebook lets me sneak peeks at her profile picture). I don't recall what made me instantly bestow the "quote book" label on the blank book, but I distinctly remember wanting to mark the date when it was full -- feeling at the time that it would be only a matter of months before it was covered front to back, page after page with thoughts, quotes and poems (yes, some of my own, tragically) that moved me, inspired me, resonated with me, and ultimately shaped me into so much of the woman I am today. The first entries are dated November 25, 1989. Almost exactly 20 years ago. Strange coincidence? I don't believe in those...

I flip through it quickly now and am almost struck to tears at some of the entries -- great words from movies, poets, songs, artists. I have a feeling that many of these will surely show up in later blogs now that the quote book has been rescued from its dusty position on my neglected desk....

The book is nearly full, surprisingly. Not all the way -- no ending date yet recorded. Not surprisingly, some of the earliest entries are still my favorites, the ones given the careful attention to penmanship that supports their importance. Of these (still strikingly) there are two that live alone on one single page, embodying a unique position of particular importance duplicated no where else within. The two best. The ones most important to remember. To feel. Believe in. Live by. Recorded sometime in November of '89.

The first is part of Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (and the quote I nearly always leave within wedding or congratulations cards...a blog for another day)....the second is the finishing lines from Henley's Invictus:

It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

The same poem's opening lines live on the page's exact opposite (among quotes from Dead Poet's Society of course), and if you don't know them, or the whole poem itself, it's worth a look.

Which (finally) brings me back to the movie trailer. The one that I watched, tears in my eyes, jaw dropped, completely moved by the story of the movie and the story of my own life that came charging so forcefully back with the trailer's opening recitation of one simple poem...this poem. My Henley poem. The Henley poem I could picture with perfectly clarity written in my old quote book. The one that was so very important/striking/moving/perfect to me all those years ago. All from a trailer of a movie that also carries its title...Invictus. I couldn't embed the video, but if you want, take a minute to watch it. I want to see this movie -- I think, now, I must.

This is a hard time in my life. I want so much, to do so much (as a wife, a mother, a woman) and I think I'm at the stage where it's easy to forget the girl I was in 1989 (and the years following) who was confident, invincible, unstoppable, passionate, romantic and ready to take on anything -- change the world (my world) armed only with a poem or that one perfectly inspiring quote. I played rugby too -- for four years. I was the captain of our team (another movie coincidence? You know what I'll say).

I'm always astonished when the universe listens to my prayers, my pleas. I think, now more than ever, I needed a reminder of that girl I was then. Of the writer I was, and wanted to be. A reminder of the way I thought nothing could stop me, or interfere in fulfilling any of my dreams. Of the way I looked at the world, of the things I was moved by, engaged in, driven by. A reminder of that little blue cloth-covered quote book where I poured so much of myself into and had utterly, completely forgotten about. A reminder so that I could bring part of that back to my life now and remember (know) that I have the strength and will to not only achieve happiness, but do so with grace and thanks and above all, hope.

I mean, come on -- a movie introduced (and surrounded) by THAT Henley poem? A movie about hope -- and accomplishment -- and change? With rugby? At this time in my life? Not coincidence at all. I'm listening, universe. Wide awake and listening -- and full of thanks for the reminder.