Deal Me In To This Day

[Guest guest]

I got the five hours in and I'm in again.

 

Deal me in to this day.

 

Just now, the owl screeched.

I interpreted that as agreement, early on

And right on mark, exactly on cue.

 

The owl,

If I were to have a spirit creature,

Would be the one.

The white-faced barn owl,

The great horned owl,

And the tiny owls with tiny howls.

 

I am not being facetious.

In fact,

I've always kind of thought I've caught the drift from animals.

>From Hannibal-cannibal hampsters called "Sugar,"

To a banty-legged rooster called "Festus"

That brought my brother to his first broken heart.

 

Charlie had a chicken.

This chicken was his friend and did tricks for him.

Festus would ride the back of Bozo, (our dog)

Like a rodeo show in full-swing, a center ring kind of thing.

 

But Festus was in the sights set by dogs with less generosity

Towards chickens, and so when the neighbor offered to let him live,

Festus, not Charlie, with his chickens down the street,

Where they could meet one another every day

and Charlie's chicken could finally meet other chickens,

they agreed, Daddy, the neighbor, and reluctantly, Charlie.

I imagine nobody actually asked Festus what he wanted.

 

In less than two days, Festus rode out on the back

of the biggest being

He'd ever seen – he was killed by another rooster in alpha-mode,

And he died and understood, in chicken-understanding which is equal,

I also imagine, with human-understanding

And God-understanding

What death really was.

 

Light, chicken feathers of red streaming in the same beam

With chinese golden pheasants, feathers of light trailing

In gilded glory, the same story of Light

Igniting again and again as the best friend we have.

I imagine Festus had the best ride of his little life

When he died and became Flight, became Light

In movement and color and creation and essence.

Whereever he wanted to be,

He was.

Surely, he was.

 

The news broke my brother.

 

He sat in the small, stuffy tool shed and wept, wept intensely

And profusely, utterly broken to the core by his first loss.

He experienced what it feels like to lose a loved one,

Very early on.

He was nine years old and I was eight.

 

He blamed himself.

He blamed Daddy.

He blamed every chicken the neighbor owned.

 

He blamed the Universe.

 

I watched my beautifully broken brother through a knot-hole

That hard summer day.

I watched him change from a boy into a small, brave man.

We didn't play for a long time.

 

Then we heard the owl one night.

We watched lightening write its truth and mystery into the night.

We lay awake all night, talking about death.

I didn't get it, not really, until a year later.

 

And the sky keeps informing,

And the mourning of what must drop away, fades.

 

This day, this day here now before me?

 

Yes, everything about this day is Yes!

 

 

Mazie