Cole

Blogs seem so inconsequential in the real world, when young boys, doing as we would wish them to do, like play ball, or roll around in the dirt, get hurt in the process.

My neighbor Cole, a little boy who was like a second son to me, and a brother to my son, Davis, was hit a week ago in the head with a ball. Doing what he loved to do - Play ball. Cole grew up in my backyard, making his way through a path we carved out when he was four and my son two. We had no idea that years later, they would walk home from the bus on that path, that others would use it to check in on me, that the deer would trample through, that it would hold so many memories.

Though many tributes are already surfacing for Cole, I can think of nothing better than to share a piece of writing in my blogsphere from the night of vigil for Cole...

To Cole

A Prayer for My Backyard Boy

You are the little boy who made nose and hand prints
on your mother’s back door,
reporting the status of our dinner - hot, cold, pasta or pork -
while through our sliding door, my son reported on yours.

You are the reason we cut a swath through cottonwood trees,
the prickly holly bushes and native vibernum,
so that you two could run freely to our home and back.

You are the freckles and smile that greeted my little boy,
mornings on the path, evenings for slip and slide,
and a few water balloon launchers and snowballs at our back door.
You stomped through the creek, picked up turtles
and loved the life that God placed in your care.

You took the hand of my little boy as a younger version of you –
though you already had two -
and loved him when he needed a place to belong.

Together, you ate pizzelles, cookies whose name you could never say,
made mud pies and built forts with branch clippings and duck tape
that caused us to curse,
though today, we would resurrect every last inch.

And now we await your movement again,
You speak but only in the actions of a simple peace sign,
a thumbs up, agitation through the night.

Though you are the one we pray for,
it is us that needs the prayers.
So tonight, we pray

while the bullfrogs bellow out into the late spring night,
and ambient light wafts over the fields,
dissolving into the glare of the news van spots.

And somewhere in the distance, neighborhoods away
where they have not yet heard of your tragedy,
children shriek and dogs bark, as it should be.
And we sing, Heal me Jesus, but this is not singing,
we are praying with our souls.

We cry because we forget
God does not weep for those whom he has chosen
to teach us lessons that surpass our grasp.

You are still that little boy who steers his bike
through the backyard, over the cedar bark path,
to your dinner table or ours -
where a plate of pizzelles awaits your return home.

AJW

5-21-2009

Selling Ourselves

Look busy Father and Uncle would crow
to employees
toiling in the shadows
of 26^th and Broadway
beneath the banner of Januzzi’s Shoes.

Together they paced the aisles
before Father returned
to the back office space
to pore over “the books.”

We would be dispatched to our stations -
Brother to the store room to unpack
the cartons delivered by the man in brown.
It would have been like Christmas,
if Brother had been me,
caressing each style
before pricing and stocking.

Sister would slowly wind her way
towards the counter
to stand stoic
beside the rigid cash register queen
who scolded her when wrinkled ones and fives
were turned opposite of tens and twenties.

Grandpa, founder and mender,
would retire to his repair stand
where the musk of newly-shaped leather
mingled with the scent of cobbler’s glue.

Customer names were recorded on cards
kept in a metal cabinet.
Filing the recently pulled or
pulling the filed always fell to me.
I would make it a game
see how fast I could order the stack
or search for the cards
of boys with whom I was madly in love,
later to be stung by their betrayal
of wearing of new loafers
bought elsewhere.

Tension lingered in the air
on the days of sales
causing the aisles of shoes to quake -
the children’s section leaning into men’s boots,
rows of nursing whites
holding back women’s heels,
and ice skates teetering on the top
shelves above my head.

Retail was never easy
even before big box stores
swallowed up ideas and families.

But the business had been blessed
by the presence of the mill, the hospital,
and those who needed orthopedic shoes.
As if the store was a ministry itself -
serving and fitting -
and that purpose fed the family,
not the money collected
and carefully counted at day’s end.

Yet customers were never completely content
with the price, style or fit.
Ladies prattled
and squirmed in green vinyl chairs
squeezing bones into shoes too small,
waiting for us to admire their toes
in the slanted mirrors.
We could never lie to them,
we could never tell the truth.

We only knew that the odor of unwashed feet
would cause us
to seek out Grandpa’s shoe glue
or steal away to the store room,
relieved for a moment
from the duty and pride
of selling the shoes, the business, our selves.