Innaguration and Rememberance

As today we welcome a new dawn, the sun rising on the proverbial new day's second coming. I felt it only right, to couple a speech from the new president with a poem from a great one. Be forewarned, it may break your happy heart, so read further with caution on such a momentous, joyful day.

My Childhood Home I See Again
-by Abraham Lincoln


My childhood's home I see again,
And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
There's pleasure in it too.

O Memory! thou midway world
'Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise,

And, freed from all that's earthly vile,
Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle
All bathed in liquid light.

As dusky mountains please the eye
When twilight chases day;
As bugle-tones that, passing by,
In distance die away;

As leaving some grand waterfall,
We, lingering, list its roar--
So memory will hallow all
We've known, but know no more.

Near twenty years have passed away
Since here I bid farewell
To woods and fields, and scenes of play,
And playmates loved so well.

Where many were, but few remain
Of old familiar things;
But seeing them, to mind again
The lost and absent brings.

The friends I left that parting day,
How changed, as time has sped!
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,
And half of all are dead.

I hear the loved survivors tell
How nought from death could save,
Till every sound appears a knell,
And every spot a grave.

I range the fields with pensive tread,
And pace the hollow rooms,
And feel (companion of the dead)
I'm living in the tombs.

The Tragedy of Written Word

I recently had a discussion with my father about one of our mutual interests in life. That which is the unique joy of reading printed word. My father, if you have ever met him, is what would be referred to in a past time as a learned man, a storyteller, a man of many, many, many, words. Quick to share with anyone in earshot, a story of some magnitude or microsignificance that he has found within his daily routine. I have never met a day where he has told me the same thing twice. Whether it be the bus stop, or at the neighborhood Barnes and Noble that we happened to be standing in.

And in our aforementioned discussion about the multitude of virtues of reading, he expressed a notion that I have thought of before: "Son, I feel sad sometimes, knowing there are so many books, and I have so little time left."

My first notion was to jump to the conclusion of fear, that dread emotion that I have dealt with all of my life in less than stellar ways. The fear that we lose everyone eventually, and the loss of a father is one of immeasurable greif. Especially MY father, a man who is my everyman, my salt of my earth, my hero. Everyday I worship more and more his prescence in my life and the love he unconditionally bestows upon me.

So I told him. "Dad, dont say things like that, you have lots of time left. Time to spend doing what you love, reading."

To this he shrugged, "it's okay, I know the reality of things."

In that moment it seems if I was granted clarity, to remove myself with the wonder of my quick moving mind, I stepped back and realized something else about our exchange. That he was right. I have always thought about that notion, that with the relative length of the human life, vastly superior to thousands of animals in its length and depth. There will never be enough time to conquer all the words that I wish.

I had thought about this before, and I am sure that in my poor knowledge of literature there has been an author to address this very notion. Perhaps many authors. That I have often found myself in libraries and book stores, floating through the ailes on a sense of psychic magnetism, perusing the many options hoping one would catch my eye, and have been hit with the familiar gut twist that accompanies sadness and heartache. That debilitating feeling coupled with such a harsh realization: That I will never learn as much as I want to, that here in this wonderful, heartbreaking, beautiful love of mine I will never conquer her.

More to come...

Ode to Under the Influence

-Charles Blaine

What dreams do damaged ones embrace?
Wretched insides hidden behind one's face.

What hardships must they often endure?
All the while keeping their love's flame pure.

A ghost of grain and barley leers confines of space,
Haunts those who've long felt no escape.

Twere memories sweet of times oft forgotten,
Twere sweet as fruit but with time have rotten.

Beguiled by lies and sweet deceit,
Their once good hopes, do long retreat.

Quaking queerily in the night,
They try no more, tis no more fight.

That flame of love now is put out,
Quiet lingers, the dead move about.

Where once dwelt purity all has died,
Oh woe extended suicide!

Life Change Is Hard

What does it take to change your life?

That is the question that I have now. The reality of my situation is that to have what I really, ultimately want I have to do one of the hardest things that anyone can do and something incredibly hard for me to do. Change the way I am. Not for anyone else, but for myself. An action so hard that I am petrified of it, I am so scared to change, but infinitely more scared not to, because of what will come of it. I need to be something different, and I know this, but I cannot, not yet. I am being crippled by my fear again, once again fear is taking away from me what I want the most. Which is my everything, my life, my reason for living, my sunshine.

Coupled with that fear is my brain and its tendencies of nostalgia. Of times when this change was not what was needed, when this change was the farthest thing from my mind. When I was able to be that fear crippled soul, because others could not see past my veil, into my cowardly soul. Nostalgia is change and fear's cold breath, stinging my heart with its icy chill. Change requires living in the future, but nostalgia calls to the easy past. Where things were always better, and fun and happy, and the hard times are all but forgotten, eclipsed by the wonderful love and exhilaration, the purity of feeling.

I want change so badly, and I do have one ally. Hope, hope springs eternal, but it is fragile. Easily crushed by the behemoth of fear. One must nuture it, and protect it, for it is all that can save one from the depth of the past.