The Point

Some years back I lost my best friend ,Al Crew, a Marine veteran of the Korean conflict. He was so much his own person that he made an everlasting impression on me, and I felt compelled to dedicate a poem in his honor. Last year I lost my son Colby, and I've been struggling ever since to find some way of expressing that loss. It has lately occurred to me that Al's poem speaks to that loss as well. I do not think Al would mind. They knew one another and shared something of the same quirky sense of humor. To Al and Colby I rededicate "The Point".

The Point

Astride the turning of the year,

Straddling that fence of time

I scanned the land ahead for signs

But finding no familiar mark,

No beacon's blaze, no star to steer,

Turned my bewildered gaze behind

Where faintly glowing, warm and kind

A homely flame made tame the dark.

Just candle-light; yet as I tapped

More memory there surged a flame

'Til, brilliance filling every frame,

The windows of my mind proclaimed

A presence I had seldom paid

Such heed as now, with truth un-trapped,

I saw within me clear and plain,

Beheld the friend, his face and name,

Whose hand had touched all I had made.

I had the choice of turning back

I thought (Oh, what a wishful liar),

When suddenly, with such force and fire

I made as if to jump aside,

Like a train upon a track

His memory came rushing through,

Whistle crying wild and wide,

"Do what you're big enough to do!"

Then up the line there sped my guide.

I find in following his lead

No timid flight or stubborn stand

As one by one I take the hands

I'm dealt and play them as they lie.

For in so doing what I need

To do, I've come to understand

I'll not have done the best I can

Or stood as tall as I can stand

'Til I've stopped trying to touch the sky.

Chuck Simmons-1998

There, now you know who Daddy Underwig is in so-called real life.

Lookout,

Daddy