Papa Doble “Hemingway”

 

 

 ...................

Reflecting on you...

While trekking

Through the chambered

Quarters  

Of the captain’s domain

Which bears your name,

I came down,

“A Cat in the Rain,”

To the old village town

Anchored in the southern Keys,

In the middle of splashing breaker waves

Towering native palms,

Blooming tropic trees,

With plush opulent leaves

And fertile green seas

Whose black marlin blues

In silver striped hues

Rise up in the light white

To meet the deep blue azure

Of the wide Gulf Stream

Coursing

In the purple-like smells

Of cool ocean breeze

Scuttling in and gushing out

In the rushing white swells

Off the coastal bed

Nearby me…

In red. 

“Today is Friday”

I stand afoot

The wooden planks

In “A Clean, Well lighted Place”

Where you rambled about your stable.

I like the ceramic figurines

Which sit atop the mirrored dressing table.

I like the two wooden African statues

Across from your sleeping bed.

And I like the glass-cased bookshelf

Displaying the books you read.

It is “A Soldier’s Home”

I like the photos of your friends and comrades

Among your travels and ventures east and west

And places north and south of the Border crest.

I like your collection of antique fixtures

And vintage-year mixtures.

It is The Enduring Hemingway"

I especially love the setting of your writing room

And the way my breath is caught in my womb.

I am consumed!

It is “A Moveable Feast”

Raindrops sprinkle the lush gardens and pebbled pathways

About your sanctured haven

And I love the wetness of the light rain bathin’

I love visiting you there

And you touching me here

In my inner-most ear

And all the rest of elsewhere

Loving you…

I gave thought

To “the Sea”

Shaping the flood gates opening through

Your window pane

Alight in the apparitions

Of the calms before the storms

When moments of truth

Collide   

Headlong

Onto the shifting dust tracks in the road

When low whispering reels

Bloom with the lilies of the fields

Transporting the barren deserts

And “the sudden emergence of daffodils”

Into “Islanded Gardens in the Stream”

Splendid it seems

As the “Green Hills of Africa”

Just beyond “the dry side of the valley”

While the House of God

Lay frozen

In the dried blood

Of the white hunter’s snare

There

Yonder between the reeds

Over the bridge

“Across the River and

Into the Trees”

Where

The road meets the cross

For the lost

Within the metered rhythm

Of a simply stated coil

Planted gently in the soil

As a lyrical narrative

To unleash the roots

Of tender young shoots

…And sometimes, strange fruits

“Rising” up in

Backdrops of setting “Suns

And starry nights

“Silhouetted on the rise of the banks”

When spotted leopards,

“The coolly majestic” Lion cats,

And other un-tame game

Meandered across the great divides

Telling tales of seafaring whales

And ocean sails

To “The Last Good Country”

While the notorious bounty

Of glorified injustice

And mocked manners

Of indifference

Are swept to the floor of fallen grace

By the prize in prejudice

And “the pursuit of happiness” are

Stitched together with masked

Tapestries reflected

In the looking glass

Atop of the snow capped summit

Of Mount “Kilimanjaro’s”

Hallowed hills

Adorned

“White in the sun”

“Like White Elephants”

“In the Garden of Eden”

“At first light”

Emerging 

Across the battle fields of grain,

Along the banks of the river-bend

High and lifted up

In stories for the ages

Austered in metaphoric pages

Falling gently on the prose as a rose

Twirled in black lace

In- twine within the white lines

Drawn along side the face

Of the beauty and the beast,

The tragedy and the pageantry

Of triumph

And the defeat

Of cocks and bulls running wild

In bravura style guile

Under the huntsman’s gaze

Ablaze

In the thrill of “the good kill”

White-hot

Like the blast furnace

Trumpeting the sound

Of “their baggage animals”

From the horns of east Africa

Where the antelope and the buffalo roamed

To

“The west bank of the Big Wood River”

“Up in Michigan”

Beyond the hemlock forest,

Past times of tall pines

Alone in the cold white mist

Shading the gray dawn

Lifting over the ocean bed

Like the ends of the spider’s web

Bridged over troubled waters

Creeping up the stairs

To the floors far above

Where mythical messages of whispery

Voices

Border confusions, illusions and delusions

Of conflict

In the trenches up river,

Abiding

Alongside “the burned-out ravaged terrain.”

“It swirled against the logs of the bridge”

Where the Missouri breaks

Upon the dawn of eluding light years

Gray dimmed by twilight fears

Falling too quickly upon the blades  

Of weathered grass

Where you laid your crown

And slept

Under the cloaked sky

And perhaps sometimes wept

Over the lost of true love “Having” gone

But “Not” forgotten

When dreams drift in lonely streams

Of “Springtime in Paris”

Bringing “Torrents” of whimsy in the night

Fronting the inner mirrors

Highlighted in the corner there

Where 

Wounds inflicted by “Fathers and Sons”

Are moored  

To the dead “On the Quai at Smyrna”

In “The Long Valley”* of the shadow of death

Lined with hidden crevices and secret panels

Skirting the cold dark waters of the deep gulf channels

To unexplored worlds

When the wild blue yonder

Takes pause

And calls…

In the haunting wilderness refrain…

“Death had come…

And rested its head on the foot of the cot

And he could smell its breath.”

“Old brother death had come…

On a warm “…Summer” morn

In the hills of Ketchum.

Death alone had come…

For this seasoned gent -

This lion in Winter’s end,

Don Ernesto,

“For Whom the Bell Tolled”

In his season of discontent.

“Farewell…”

My friend – mon ami

“Old man of the Sea.”

Thanks for being

“In Our Time”

And in mine

Probing the depths of the sublime

Far out from the boundaries of the shoreline.

“We fish together now

For I still have much to learn,”

And discern…

In this light of today…

For it is written… so poignantly…

            “One generation passeth away, 
            And another generation cometh,

But the earth abideth forever.

The sun also rises

And the sun goes down,

And hastens to the place where he arose.

.....................

The Wind goes to the south

And circles about to the north;

It circles and circles continually,

Ever returning on is course.

All the rivers flow into the sea,

Yet the sea is never full.

To the place from where the rivers come,

To there and from there they return again.”

(Ecclesiastes 1:4-7)

“Man is not made for defeat.

Man can be destroyed,

But not defeated.” (Hemingway)

“For whatever is born of God

Is victorious over the world;

And this is the victory that conquers the world,

            Even our faith.” (1John 5:4)  Amen

*”The Long Valley” by John Steinbeck was featured

  in Hemingway’s Library

Special note:  Thanks to Carl Jaynes, my beloved friend,

who sponsored my trip to Key West, Fla

Photos taken in Key West (The Hemingway House; Birds at the pier)

The Artist

Cascading waters

Bricks and mortar

In the mirror

Reflecting grace

And beauty joined hands

To touch her face

Just so

She will know

The secret

Inside the Potter’s rings

Shaping things

“…And you shall be like a watered garden

And like a spring of water

Whose waters fail not.” (Isaiah 58:11)