Introduction
Standing on the edge of a rip tide, ‘neath a killing moon on a cold crisp January evening at Castle Island. The collar of my Pea Coat turned up against my cheeks. My hands buried deep in my pockets. Flurries dance about like chaotic ballerinas-resembling so many emotions and tears swirled upon the boreal winds. I Peer out to sea like some obsessed, half crazed ancient Mariner in search of his elusive white whale-that – similar to reason and saneness, slumbers just beneath the glass surface of the uniform midnight blue seas.
I let out a sigh and visualize my ghostly breath as it hangs in the frigid air. To My right our old stomping grounds of Squantum and Wollaston, to my left Southie and Charlestown. Directly behind me that infamous park bench once shattered by the impact-now restored to its former glory. (I half laugh to myself and shake my head in sad bemusement,) I still cannot believe that you drove onto the beach that night, perhaps guided by the light of a similar moon. Beyond that bench lies, -layed, lays? I apologize I get my tenses so mixed up and confused as the years advance- the city itself, Dorchester and the South End, Downtown and the North Shore. Hard to believe it’s been almost 21 years -since I saw you last ‘Neath a fate filled moon-but I digress, I’m getting ahead of myself…or behind myself if you will indulge me; so before I trip to far afield, before I revert and slip into senility, before I lose track of the regression of time, let me begin, begin at a point in time that can serve as the beginning, not necessarily the absolute beginning, but our beginning, the start of this or that, neither here or now, nor there and then, but a starting point to the nonlinear adventure that is, or was us…..
I turn and step away from the riptide. As I do so, my back to the sea and the boreal winds, I catch a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my right eye- I spy you-standing there grinning that Cheshire cat grin. I turn and look the other way and walk away -knowing that my sanity will not handle a full straight on stare. So, I turn my back on those ballerinas and amble toward that bench and back toward the city. The tide has begun coming in carrying all the accumulated flotsam of its depths-pushing me to retreat back to dry land. I half smile to myself, a sick, twisted disbelieving yet knowing grin. I no longer feel the wintry night. I am no longer distracted by the hordes of competing ballerinas. I have regained my center. I have decided. I have one beginning- perhaps not the exact starting point, but as beginnings go it’s as good as any. I have ascertained our starting point. So, once more my friend into the breach I go….
(to be continued)
The Poetaster's Muse-ings 