Finally, as you will soon see, our characters make their “escape.” Have you ever actually made and “escape” of any kind, especially when you were young and especially if you disliked your home town? We will also soon discover the attitude and personality differences between the two – Hart is down-to-earth and practical. The protagonist appears side with fantasy and less with the concrete matters at hand. Are there other viewpoints they might have had? Are they complementary? Do you find yourself attracted more to one than the other.
So, it happens three days later when we
announce we have found a boat and will try
to find the owner upstream. No one stops us
asks questions or raises protests – saying
“Seems like the best thing to do if you want.”
So, we simply walk away – walk away
run away to our boat with ten days’ stores
So, finely provisioned, we drift downstream
away from Chickopee and into dream
“Well, that was easy,” I say as we drift
with the current, steering only to miss
logs and sandbars and beds of river weeds
“Yeah. Why not?” says Hart as he pulls on oars
“I can’t get over how easy it was”
“You’re not hungry or cold yet,” all he says.
Hunger? Cold? Such things are far from my mind
Summer has started and provisions stored
We have clothes and blankets. Who could ask more?
Freedom makes me lightheaded and giddy
Hart stays somber like a sailor on watch
We float past farms and fields, a few small towns
At sunset we pull off into the reeds
Blankets and canvas laid out in the boat
I lie awake after Hart, staring up
through flushed rustling leaves to the wide-mouthed stars
Crickets and frogs spill continuous songs
streaming up to join white light, and I am
one in this silence with all this rich noise
As I reach the flat edge of sleepiness
I think how long it has been since I’ve tried
to recall my dreams – not since Jani left
I notice. It’s time. Tonight, I will . . .
. . . diving deeper than I have ever been
the sea’s weight presses me like a great stone
Hand over hand I follow anchor chain
down down deep to the floor of the green sea
the steel links are molten hot on my hands
but do not scorch me as I hold them firm
At hull-crushing depth where green fades to gray
I find jagged anchor claws clutching ground
My ship rocks above – rigged ghost floating pale
Disarmed dreadnaught, tethered under folded sail
I wake with a jolt. The night’s gone quiet
except river ripples against the boat
All of the day’s joy sinks bleak and listless
into opaque water at this dusky hour
This is no ship. This river is no sea.
I can’t go home. Why is this not easy?
The dreamed-up ship and the boat where I sit
rock sluggishly bow to stern nodding ‘yes’
Hart snores softly beside. How can he sleep?
He should be awake! He should console me!
Get hold of yourself, I say silently
It is just the dark. It is just a dream
No, this is different. This is what is real,
says that assured truth-telling voice inside
I can’t go back. I can never go home
You’ve never been home. That is why you left,
says the patient, unseen speaker again
I sit up clutching my knees to my chest
Hart mumbles something and rolls over flat
“I have wanted this all my life,” I say
under my breath trying to touch truth’s core
But you have never lived this life ‘before,
comes the gentlest whisper soothing my stress
I will live this now, I pledge to myself
I sit watching the summer river flow
thinking this same water touched Chickopee
and now I see it and, in a moment,
gliding south it becomes wider and brown
Sleep is gone and so I watch the sunrise
and I listen to Hart’s soft dreaming sounds
wondering if he walks on some firmer ground
The morning of the second day the sun
broils up immense in shimmers and cloud-streaks
the still air wet and heavy on our skin
Sweat beads on our foreheads and on our necks
“I’m hot – I’m going for a swim” I say
to Hart who lies with hands behind his head
blinking himself into some wakefulness
“Okay,” he croaks and yawns from his damp bed
I stumble to shore over roots and weeds
to a private place within tall bushes
where I can relieve myself unnoticed
Crouching there, I see a spider spinning
webs hung with tiny droplets of diamond
water – spider busy repairing night’s
damages to its fragile home – its place –
suspended here where any beast or wind
can instantly deconstruct the many hours
of eight-legged labor – but inside spider
spins webs for a delicate dozen abodes
How rich in homes this thin-legged spider
and I squat here having not even one
Elimination done and dug, I leave
and do not disturb the wealthy spider
At the river’s edge I strip all my clothes
drape them carefully on dry gray boulders
I slip quietly beneath brown water
where I swim blindly in yellow-green light
River water brushes silky fingers
through my hair and over arms, chest and thighs
The river is my fluid perfect skin
blending, shaping river-robe as I swim
I surface and tread water looking back
and as intended, I can’t see our boat
I could be a water creature gliding
in summer light – naked, needing nothing
that this streaming river does not provide
My body cradled by this silky stream
yearns deeply for fins and tail, gills and scales
I dive again, stroking hard for bottom
I lay my back along the river bed
mud-holding weedy edge with hands and feet
– oh, to lie and to breathe here and to sleep
with only flooding pressure as I weep
Lungs expended, I must break the surface
As I burst to air, I see no purpose
to another bottom dive – all too brief –
I am not a fish. This is not the sea
I breaststroke back to shore wincing tears back
about my limitations to be free
I shake off the water, put on my clothes
and return to the red boat where Hart eats
a large green apple. I grab one myself
and join him. We crunch in noisy silence
until he says, “Let’s go.” and I agree
We pole to the river-running channel
Still no wind and sun rising full and hot
Ship in my head and this boat that is not
Once in the channel, we sit slumped, with oars
drawn in and laid at the bottom of the bobbing boat
Current pushes us side to side, off straight
carrying us wherever such currents go
rhythmic lapping on both sides of the boat
I raise up squinting at the river banks
where a blaze-coated fox bends, lapping too
I turn back to center now eyes narrowed
“What’s that?” I ask Hart, but more to myself
“What? He says without looking up to see
“No, look,” I say, pointing to a blackened tree
waterlogged and jutting at an angle
“It’s just a dead tree fallen off the bank.”
“Okay, but have you ever seen a lump
that size growing on a tree that large?
“I see it!” He is suddenly interested
Unexpectedly, the curious bump moves
forward heading for the tree’s higher end
The relentless current floats us sideways
to the tree trunk’s mobile skin and shortly
the mound grows a beaked head jutting out from
a two-foot, plated, algae-covered shell
When we draw close to this river dragon
he snaps his bony beak – extends his head
“Looks like turtle soup to me,” Hart exclaims.
“That’s a snapper, idiot,” I shoot back
The beast again beats its jaws and hisses
backing slowly down the log on bowed legs
I am glad this would-be dragon does not
sport wide wings to lift us, four-legs pendant
his hard-ridged tail dangling like a rudder
and held tight within his toothless old snout
Such fantastic thoughts take me back to dreams
And river oceans and great dragon ships
The reptile slips off the log into water
The river roils with some deadly battle
Soon the monster surfaces beak around
an amphibious rodent, doomed in the jaws
The rodent flails and squeals held tight thrashing
as a broad-winged blue heron glides in landing
long beak probing surface water, walking
back now nearer shore toward the primal battle
while Hart and I slack-jawed assess the scene
The blue one advances toward the quarrelers
The snapper’s shell enough to resist the stabs
Its beak doesn’t let go the shrieking mammal
Those jaws built to kill just keep hanging on
while the great blue bird arches and flaps wings
attacking as intended to steal the food
This dual battle takes but few minutes
as we watch and feel the weight of ages
cutting into our chests and on our hearts
Speech impossible, we drift downriver
The snapper and the heron separate
as the turtle cracks the small rodent
The blue one wades out and jabs the water
All three recede from view as the river
carries us silent southward
After witnessing such natural violence
we both exhale and shake our heads
“Guess there will be no sail again today,”
I say trying to sound chipper, cheerful
“Guess not,” says Hart sounding almost downcast
“Well, I’ll take the first turn at oars,” I say
gingerly taking my station and sculls
“Sure,” says Hart moving to the red boat’s bow
“Are you always chatty in the morning
or did that battle din plug up my ears?”
“You’re not used to me when I first get up,”
Hart stretches and yawns and smacks his dry lips
“Stop! Stop! Let me get a word in, will you?”
I make fun of his bushel of ten words
but he just stares blearily and snorts once
With this morning phantom’s silence, I start
to sing a song we learned in school but I’ve
only warbled one line or two when Hart
says, “Stop it. I can’t think.” He’s serious
“Oh pardon, pardon, a thousand pardons!”
I try to take it lightly though I’m hurt
“I like quiet in the morning,” he says
“I like noise. My thoughts are too disturbing”
“All the more reason to listen to them”
“When I listen to them, I go crazy”
“Well, if you never listen to yourself,
how will you ever know your mind and thoughts?”
“I listen to myself!” I say loudly
with too much defensiveness – I’m fearful
of where this conversation is going
“So what disturbing thoughts are you having?”
“Never mind,” I say and sulk in silence
“Look,” I nod toward the shoreline
where another blue heron angles breakfast
“Nice bird. Don’t change the subject,” Hart replies
“I tell you I’ll give up morning quiet
anytime to learn what is in your head.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I quip pulling harder
“This is going to be one long trip, all right”
“D’ya want to get off now and walk back home?”
I ask because I might if he doesn’t
“Of course not, idiot. But I do think
we shouldn’t go much farther arguing
This is a good a time to share darkest secrets”
“So, you start with yours,” I say stubbornly
“Okay, but then it’s your turn after me”
He wags one finger sternly in my face
“Here goes. Okay. I woke up so frightened.”
“You too!?” I almost drop the starboard oar
“Aha! See, this is how it works, my friend.”
He slaps his thigh, and his big grin appears
“I say what I am thinking and you change!
You’re interested – it works in reverse too.
So, what were you afraid of?” He’s attentive
“Well, I’m not sure. I try not to think much.”
“Here’s a chance to try,” Hart encourages
“No, you first. You’re the one who brought up fear.”
“All right,” Hart concedes with mock impatience.
“I’ve got two points to zero so far now.”
“Not unless you say what you’re afraid of.”
Background:
If it hasn’t become obvious, this story resembles Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in some ways. Not one of the four (Tom and Huck, plus our two) is a common person. Each reaches out for “the more” that lies beyond picket fences and classrooms. This part of the narrative also appears to reveal much through conversation. (I make no claim to create dialogues that are of the quality Mark Twain fashioned for his characters.) The conversation at the very end of this segment puts a finer point on the differences and complementarities of our two characters. Actually, these two people are both part of yours truly. Part is the adventurer and the disdainer of home towns; the other is more cautious and very practical. The latter person, for example, learned to fly (See last two posts: “Remembering Flight – Parts 1 and 2) by practicing with checklists and protocols. There was a great deal of emphasis on safety. That would be represented by Hart. Our main character, on the other hand, represents the part of me that rode Harleys, sailed big boats, went scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, and so on. How can two such different personalities reside in one person, you ask? Think about yourself. Do you have two or more “personalities” or profiles?
Exploration #1: What about our two characters making their “escape?” Do you find their story they tell their parents believable? How old do you think the two “escapees” are? If these were your children, would you let them go? Remember, parents think they will only be gone 2-3 days.
Exploration #2: Have another look at the italicized passage beginning . . . diving deeper than I have ever been . . . and speculate on how the passages such as this do or do not add to the waking narrative.
Exploration #3: How about the snapping turtle? If you haven’t noticed, in this epic there is and will be a series of reptiles and creatures named for reptiles like the dragon fly earlier in the story. They will become increasingly larger – more and more fantastic. What could the snapper symbolize in a literary and a practical sense? Does the violence of the turtle and heron natures have anything to say? Note that the next “song” is called “Snakes and Dragons.”
NEXT: Snakes and Dragons TBD – Segment 1
Comments
Post a Comment