The narrator has been visiting Trappist monasteries as part of a writing assignment. Each time the monks start chanting psalms, long-blocked memories of his dead son Michael come back to him. He's just had a particularly powerful experience of sudden grief at Gethsemani Abbey.
As the monks walked by me on their way to their rooms, I was startled to hear my name whispered. Turning around, I came face to face with my old seminary classmate, Tom Barett, now known as Father Daniel. He was thinner than he had been when he had once emphatically dumped me with a cross-body block during a football game. But I felt the raw strength in the arm he threw around my shoulders, as he squeezed and half-carried me along into the preau, a small garden that formed the core of the monastery quadrangle.
He responded immediately to my shaken appearance and asked what was the matter. The pain pushed aside any bravado and in a rush I told him about Michaelís death, the experiences Iíd had in other abbeys, and what had just taken place inside the church. Tom had been standing in front of me with his arms folded, listening. When I finished, he nodded and said, ìHeís after you.î Then, nodding again, as though saying the words had made him more certain of his conclusion, he repeated, ìHeís after you.î
I said nothing in reply. The thought made me sick. Tom continued, explaining how he believed God never stops trying to draw us close to him. ìIf we resist,î he said, ìhe finds ways to get through our barriers. Iím positive heís reaching out to you, and your experience just now is an example. Iím just as certain that your continued involvement with us is no coincidence. I think he brought you here for a very special reason.î
I remained silent at first, even though I was tempted to tell Tom that if God was trying to reach me, I was not interested. While I was glad to regain access to my memories of Michael, they did not offset his loss. That thought finally overrode any desire I had to be polite and I blurted out, ìScrew the sadistic son of a bitch.î
Voices of Silence: Lives of the Trappists Today, Frank Bianco
May you have a blessing come
At an unexpected time.
May you near drown with gratitude
That there is air to breathe
And voices and words
Soft light and harsh
And solid ground beneath.
May you fall in love
With those you know
And those you don't--
That you may meet someday
With the touch of the found long-lost.
And may you create.
May you bring newness.
And may what you create
Bring blessings
At unexpected times.
I first heard of Bill Christman because his "Stations of the Cross" were being exhibited at St. Louis' Forum for Contemporary Art. They were exceptional--the traditional Catholic meditations on different scenes along Jesus' journey to Calvary (when He fell along the way, when Simon of Cyrene helped carry the cross) rendered in neon and bold 1950s style graphics. They were deeply profound, subversive without being cynical, modern but past-honoring, and I loved them. I also couldn't forget the name. You don't forget the name "Christman" when you associate it first with the Stations of the Cross.
Later I worked for him at City Museum, on Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis, in his Museum of Mirth, Mystery and Mayhem. (I manned a concession stand which advertised itself as the "Shrine of Shameless Hucksterism.") I've also attended concerts-cum-happenings he's staged with the band Switchback. One such event showed off a new buffalo sculpture in a neighborhood park. Attendees were encouraged to wear hobo attire, eat communal stew, and toast marshmallows at a bonfire. Naturally, this was known as the "Buffalo Hobo Inferno."
Christman's an interesting guy to know.
read Christman's comments about the artistic life here.
A birthday poem for Pollux.
Who you are
As you are
Yourself
No one else
You
A song sung
By your eyes on the world
Your gift of everything, anything
Delicate, crude, secret, loud
Of strange fascination
Or country-wise--
You are more that this
Beyond what I may shout.
Accept this thanks, any thanks
Accept
The curious shape days take
And
Sudden spilling darkness
And then
And then sun
Bursting in on cobwebbed corners
Lighting your changing face.
I'd give you--
Oh, what I'd give--
Ask it of all else
Ask it of the world
And then listen--
The answer will murmur
But the din,
Your cruel intruder,
Steals words spoken
By unfamiliar tongues.
Only listen.
Know much waits unheard, unseen
Tug at the hidden
Pull it to view.
We will guard
We will pledge
Our hands to grasp yours--
If you ask--
We will pay heed
To tears
Triumph
Music
Silence
And remind you
You have
A human inheritance.
You have
Eyes in the past
Eyes in new distance
Eyes in this moment
The song of this instant
You as you are
No one else
You.
For St. Louis people reading this--I'm the "featured artist" at an open mic at The World Cafe this Thursday the 19th at 7. The World Cafe is in the Baraka building, 5001 Mardel near the intersection of Chippewa and Kingshighway. There's a $3 cover and a sign-up sheet for anyone who wants to bring writing to share.
Let me know if you have any special requests--I'm planning to do some of the poetry I've posted here, maybe a short prose piece or two, songs even.
Sing me St. Henry's Tower
Sing me the bell-home
Gone now but for memory, for photograph
Sing me all the vanished places
And the still-living
The gardens, carved slices
Of England, China, Japan
Where paths wind far father than they should
Sing me the night carnival
Of catwalks, steel spirals,
Castle gargoyles, concrete serpents
Sing me the fountain flanked by stones
Posing as ruins
Far older than they are
Sing me the collected pretenses
Of another age
And today's dreams
Waiting to be birthed by your song.