MY BEARD..

This beard of mine

..

and I have had this beard

of mine for 57 years

for fifty seven years

I have tried to keep my chin

well undercover

this in spite of the fact

that a friend once told me

that my beard resembled

the scraggly underbrush

that grows in an arm pit

never the less

through 57 years

I have faithfully watered

and fertilized it

even when chemotherapy

thinned it down to a few

long gray wispy strands

that made me appear

like a Chinese wise man

but as always the best thing

I can tell you about my beard

is that it is still bugs the hell

out of my dear departed

mother

+++

^

......AFTER WORD — At 20, I came back home from studying Art in Paris with a beard that I had worked diligently to grow. My mother hated it and begged me to shave it off. I held fast until after I had been married for about five years and we had gotten ourselves in to a bit of a financial bind. I went to Hoodie (mother's name was actually Hildreth but as a toddler I couldn't pronounce Hildreth and called her "Hoodie" and it stuck) and asked her if we could borrow enough to get out of debt. She eyed me: "OK," she said, "I will lend you what you need but only if you shave off that damn beard!" I swallowed hard and did it, holding up my end of the bargain. Of course I started growing it back the very next day much to mother's wringing of hands and calling me a cheater. I told her that I only said I would shave it off, which I did, but keeping it off was not in the bargain. I remember my daughter Jerri, who was about four at the time, telling me when she first saw me without the beard: "Dad you look like a cobra -- no chin."

......Then there was a time a friend of mine made the armpit remark mentioned above. He was right. You would think that someone who wanted to have a beard as much as I did would be blessed with a thick growth. No such luck but I'm holding out through thin and thinner (when on chemo) and will never give in to Hoodie!


NIMROD, THE MIGHTY HUNTER

Cancer patients dubbed "terminal" always

need to have goals — reasons to stay alive for!

..

Nimrod — blind in one eye, scared, legless, islands of skin left bare minus hair

seven years out

from the“terminal” prognosis

this old cat begins year eight

acting feisty — feeling great

determined to live longer

than my omnipresent Mom

who always had to out do me

always had to show me up

however, to live longer than she

will take two more years

bringing the total to nine

now, I know the rumor

about cats having only nine lives

is just an old wives tail

but in my situation and in my condition

it does give one paws

and coming to the rescue

Nimrod, the mighty hunter

our family’s big old orange tom cat

the day we got him from the pound

he was hit by a car and survived

a week or so later fell into a swimming pool

and damn near drowned

constantly treed by the neighbor’s vicious dogs

had a hind leg loped off by a field mower

lost an eye in a fight with a coon

Nimrod might have been

blind in one eye, scared, legless,

islands of skin left bare minus hair

but in the end that tough beat up old tom

lived a lot more lives than nine

so there, Mom!

+++

AFTER WORD — When I was twelve years old our family lived out in the country in a house invested with mice. One day we went to the Pound and adopted a large homeless tom cat. My Dad named him "Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter." I didn't know the Biblical connection back then, Nimrod being the son of Cush. Anyway, the other day I got to wondering if I would live longer than my mother who died of lung cancer at 78 and from the dark deep reaches of my mind old Nimrod came to the rescue.


* BREMERTON FERRY.

The Bremerton Ferry carried me out on the cold clear water of my loneliness 

.... And the Bremerton Ferry

.....Carries me out

.....On the cold clear water

.....Of my loneliness

And again this evening

She crosses my mind

With a middle-aged man at the rail.

Looking back,

Smiling through tears.

Looking back

To lovers and friends left behind

I’m too old

For this summer love nonsense.

And yet, I circle the decks

Filled with that same sweet ache,

Long forgotten

But now like a pulled tendon

Remembered sharply.

.....And the Bremerton Ferry

.....Carries me out

.....On the cold clear water

.....Of my loneliness

The passengers,

The other passengers,

On the periphery of my vision

Are not unknown.

There is something of you

About them all.

The tilt of a head,

The way this one’s hair falls,

The figure there standing alone.

I smile,

And recognize you

In every face I see.

And it is enough

That once in a great while

Some total stranger

Smiles back in the passageway

And recognizes me

.....And the Bremerton Ferry

.....Carries me out

.....On the cold clear water

.....Of my loneliness

+++

AFTER WORD — This piece was written in 1970, the first time I was the theme speaker at the Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute at the Seabeck Conference Center near Bremerton, WA. I had to leave the conference early to do a program in Bellevue, on Sunday morning. After spending an emotional week turning strangers into dear dear friends it is only natural to feel what I was feeling as I took the Bremerton Ferry back to Seattle that Saturday evening. If you can play the realaudio rendition (controls above), know that the back up musicians were Starr King School for the Ministry students in their mid 20s, who are now all pushing 60. Time