By Bryan Beaton
Roderick's birthday is four days away.
Every year we would connect. January 16. Always was, and always will be, a special day.
Last year I reached my brother in Mexico ... calling from the harbour in Hong Kong. Close and connected across time and space.
Who will we call this year on "his" unforgettable day?
Here's a poem Roderick shared with me. It comes from a time of life (January 1997) when he felt "shattered". I had asked him how he had gone from the easy certainties of faith in his younger years to find new foundations after everything 'certain' had disintegrated. In reply, he had spoken of finding a rock - something solid he could hold onto. He decided this rock would be God to him. That was a turning point, a new beginning on a new journey of faith.
He shared this poem. I didn't understand. I don't understand. But, I do understand life in small fragments.
BITS OF LIFE did not answer my questions. However, I recognise and treasure some of its fragments. In that small intangibility - here - there - everywhere - he found his way back to freedom and solid new certainties.
BITS OF LIFE
I lay under a willow
Her long hair curtaining
The sweet sigh of her lips
Descended upon my expectant face
I stood in a corral
Afraid to stay, wanting to run
Slipped in the mud
Tried to escape the pointed horn
While billy laughed at me
I lay on the car-top
With my brother, late at night
And counted the summer stars
That blazoned across the sky
I am a salmon
Spawned and spent with big eyes
While a child swimming
Knocks their ungainly fins
Against my battered sides
There is the clam
From whence we all came
It closes its eyes tight
And dreams its sandy dreams
About its next great creation
Here is my God
A small intangibility
Somewhere here, Everywhere there
An uneasy fear
A spike of truth
Jan 5 1997
Love you, brother.