Life: it's not about the Cadillac

Because immediately upon finding out that I had just retired they called from inside the Beltway and sought me out, and flattered me that my name on the proposal would help them get the contract they were bidding on, and their pay offer was decent, and my reasons for preferring to work in WashingtonDC instead of Harrisburg, and I said okay, my first job after Navy retirement was with a “beltway bandit” consulting firm whose contracts were with the Navy Department. The president of the firm, whom I grew to trust when I lost my naiveté trusting another retired Navy officer in the firm, drove a black 1967 Cadillac Calais (the base model) four door hardtop that he had ordered brand new. One warm, muggy spring day we went out for lunch together, he driving, and I asked him why he’d spec-ordered a Cadillac without air-conditioning. He said because he preferred the fresh air, and that from spring through fall he always drove with all the windows open, and the heater on in winter. Anyone who remembers, that very long sedan, the hardtop model, had huge open air space for breeze and wind when all the windows were down. This is the exact same car ->

He had been doing well in business ever since his own Navy retirement years earlier, and that same noon outing I asked and he told me that one of his secrets for business success was always arriving to work in a cheerful, top of the world mood; that he insured that by never listening to the radio on his morning drive to work, because the news was always bad, and there was nothing he could do about it, and he refused to begin his day depressed and down. That was more than forty years ago, and even if I’ve not made it a habit I’ve always remembered.

Mornings I usually begin with B&D, a mug of black coffee and one square or truffle of dark chocolate. Soon I open my computer and hope its lighting up also helps light up my brain, and usually I immediately begin typing, still hoping, that either something will come to mind or that I will type into something. Which reminds me of an article I once read about sex, that even if you aren’t in the mood when your partner is, start anyway and shortly the mood will come and you will get into it. But if, lacking a typing inspiration, I do open my email first, I avoid all the news and scroll down to open poem-a-day and word-a-day (today’s word is “appose”) always worthy alternatives to news-of-the-day. Including Anu Garg’s Thought-for-the-day, often right on.

Just so then, with this morning’s poem, by Rasheed Copeland,

“to be considered before

Inviting everyone to The

Cookout”

which I both enjoyed and “got it” (many poems these days may seem asinine unless you “get it”). But scrolling down on that page always leads both to other poems by today’s poet and poems by other poets; and I found Patricia Smith. Loved this one and read it aloud to Linda:  

"When the Burning Begins"

Patricia Smith

for Otis Douglas Smith, my father

The recipe for hot water cornbread is simple:

Cornmeal, hot water. Mix till sluggish,

then dollop in a sizzling skillet.

When you smell the burning begin, flip it.

When you smell the burning begin again,

dump it onto a plate. You’ve got to wait

for the burning and get it just right.

Before the bread cools down,

smear it with sweet salted butter

and smash it with your fingers,

crumple it up in a bowl

of collard greens or buttermilk,

forget that I’m telling you it’s the first thing

I ever cooked, that my daddy was laughing

and breathing and no bullet in his head

when he taught me.

Mix it till it looks like quicksand, he’d say.

Till it moves like a slow song sounds.

We’d sit there in the kitchen, licking our fingers

and laughing at my mother,

who was probably scrubbing something with bleach,

or watching Bonanza,

or thinking how stupid it was to be burning

that nasty old bread in that cast iron skillet.

When I told her that I’d made my first-ever pan

of hot water cornbread, and that my daddy

had branded it glorious, she sniffed and kept

mopping the floor over and over in the same place.

So here’s how you do it:

You take out a bowl, like the one

we had with blue flowers and only one crack,

you put the cornmeal in it.

Then you turn on the hot water and you let it run

while you tell the story about the boy

who kissed your cheek after school

or about how you really want to be a reporter

instead of a teacher or nurse like Mama said,

and the water keeps running while Daddy says

You will be a wonderful writer
and you will be famous someday and when
you get famous, if I wrote you a letter and
send you some money, would you write about me?

and he is laughing and breathing and no bullet

in his head. So you let the water run into this mix

till it moves like mud moves at the bottom of a river,

which is another thing Daddy said, and even though

I’d never even seen a river,

I knew exactly what he meant.

Then you turn the fire way up under the skillet,

and you pour in this mix

that moves like mud moves at the bottom of a river,

like quicksand, like slow song sounds.

That stuff pops something awful when it first hits

that blazing skillet, and sometimes Daddy and I

would dance to those angry pop sounds,

he’d let me rest my feet on top of his

while we waltzed around the kitchen

and my mother huffed and puffed

on the other side of the door. When you are famous,

Daddy asks me, will you write about dancing
in the kitchen with your father?

I say everything I write will be about you,

then you will be famous too. And we dip and swirl

and spin, but then he stops.

And sniffs the air.

The thing you have to remember

about hot water cornbread

is to wait for the burning

so you know when to flip it, and then again

so you know when it’s crusty and done.

Then eat it the way we did,

with our fingers,

our feet still tingling from dancing.

But remember that sometimes the burning

takes such a long time,

and in that time,

sometimes,

poems are born.

But scrolling her other stuff, this one, considering this week’s anniversary, I especially "got it"; and who doesn’t, or, worse, won’t "get it" is an alphabet idiot, imbecile, moron, and you should pardon my French!!!

"Speak Now, Or Forever. Holy Your Peace"
Patricia Smith

Two weeks after 17 students were gunned down in Parkland, Fla., hundreds of worshippers clutching AR-15s slurped holy wine and exchanged or renewed wedding vows in a commitment ceremony at the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary in Newfoundland, Pa.

Draped in thick silk the hue of hemorrhage and bone, you fondle 

your butt stocks, muffled lust needles your cheeks. Your aim? To 

make America great. Again,

your terse-lipped Lord has nudged you into the glare—numbed 

and witless in His name, you preen and re-glue blessed unions, 

mistake America straight, contend

your unloosed crave for the sugared heat of triggers. Besotted beneath

your crowns of unspent shells, you hard-rhyme vows and 

quake, aware of that weight again,

the gawky, feral gush of fetish. Every uncocked groom and rigid 

bride is greased and un-tongued, struck dumb by what’s at 

stake. A miracle waits. You men

and women kaboom your hearts with skewered Spam and searing 

pink Walmart wine, graze idly on ammo and blood-frosted 

cake. A prayer is the bait. Amen

woos guests in their ball gowns and bird suits, hallows your blind

obsession with your incendiary intended. Though you’ve 

faked America, hate upends

all this odd holy—its frayed altars, fumbled psalms, assault rifles 

chic in itty veils. And we marvel at this 

outbreak, bewaring that gate again,

left unlatched so this bright foolish can flow through. This ilk 

of stupid blares blue enough to rouse ancestors—y’all ’bout to 

make Amiri berate again,

’bout to conjure Fannie Lou and her tree-trunk wrists. While you 

snot-weep, caress mute carbines, wed your unfathomable 

ache, America waits. ’Cause when

the sacrament cools, and the moon is pocked with giggling, who’ll 

fall naked first, whose shuddering tongue will dare the barrel? 

Take that dare. Consummate. And then,

whose blood will that be?