RANDOM AND NOT SO RANDOM THOUGHTS

RANDOM AND NOT SO RANDOM THOUGHTS

-           I rent a studio at the Loft Literary Center, in the Open Book in downtown Minneapolis.  It is a block from Gold Medal Park and a couple blocks from the Mississippi River. I often walk down there when I take a break.  Over the past few weeks, it has been fun watching the ice recede slowly and then—poof!—disappear almost overnight from the main channel.

-           I usually stop at the memorial to the thirteen people killed and the many injured in the August 1, 2007 collapse of the 35W bridge.  Our daughter’s name is on the wall of survivors, and I rub my fingers over her four names (see the poem at the end of this).  Lately, I’ve been rubbing my fingers over two other names, who were on that bus as young people.  One allegedly took the money he got from the settlement when he turned 18, and went to Syria to fight with ISIS, and was killed.  Another, who had worked as a parole and corrections officer, is sitting in jail, awaiting her trial for a kidnapping that ended in a murder.  It has made me think about what happens to the trauma in us years later. I’m not saying that the bridge trauma caused  the choices these two made (or our Talia, for that matter). There were other traumas in their young lives for sure.  But it does make me wonder. And grieve.

-           On a lighter and more happier note, our older daughter has passed her state certification and now will begin selling insurance.  My wife, especially, helped her study for the test many nights, and she (and a little bit of me) learned a lot about insurance.  It happened that during that time, I turned on the radio in the middle of a commercial, which asked me (and I think you, dear reader, as well): “Is 2020 the year you finally get rid of insurance complacency?”   First of all, I didn’t know I suffered from insurance complacency.  I didn’t even know there was such a thing as insurance complacency.  But now, no doubt with help from our daughter, I plan on making this Election-Leap-Olympic Year a Year of Liberation from all forms of insurance complacency, both domestic and foreign.

-           Yesterday, we received a letter from a funeral home, addressed to “The Hansel Family”.  On the outside of the envelope—repeated in BIG LETTERS on the top of the letter inside—read the following words: We Need Your Help.  My first thought was “What, aren’t there enough people dying for them?”  And then I thought, “What actions would they ask us to do to reverse that trend?”  I mean, the coronavirus is doing its deeds across the world, and opioids and hunger and lack of health care are quite active in Minnesota   Turns out that they need help determining “how members of our community plan for one of the hardest things a family has to face.”  Which means they need help getting me and us as pre-paid customers.  Perhaps I will “help” them out, and then change my phone number.

-           In the bathroom at The Loft, there are new signs urging us to wash our hands, in about 20 languages.  I was pleased to see that most of the languages were from Asia or Africa and one indigenous one from here.   I’m hoping to see election signs in many languages up soon, and only one color: blue.  I’m not excited about Joe Biden, but not voting for him means helping the scourge of this man and his dishonorable party.  We have got to win this.

The poem below is from my book “The Devouring Land” about the 35W bridge memorial. I have a bunch of readings coming up: see my page PatrickPoet on Face Book.

Be justice. Be beauty.  Be washing your hands until they are blue.

Patrick

RUBBINGS

A man stops at the wall

to rub his fingers

over four chiseled names.

He has no brass

or paper, only the skin

of his fingertips,

unique in each loop

and whorl, yet genetically

linked to the smallest insect

that crawls across his hand.

He has rubbed these four

names for years,

not expecting a miracle

or some genie to pop

out and grant wishes—

his daughter, after all,

survived the bus

as it fell with the bridge

down to the riverbank—

but to remember

the shocking joy that

unexpected gratitude             

can bestow after

unsought terror

has been banished.

She is near sixteen now,

delighting and defying,

her memories secreted

in chambers she alone stewards,

and so he touches

her four names—

Talia, the morning dew,

Grace, the ground that sustains

when the very ground is shaken,

Cabello, that wonderful hair,

Hansel, the brother of the girl

who fled cruelty for wickedness

and was saved,

not by water, but by fire—

Oh, child of our hope,

joy of our remembering,

I lift your name

from the rock

with my skin.