Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

Twenty two years after his death,

I sit on the weather-stripped bench.

At my feet a small plaque commemorates a man I never met,

whose family and friends chose to mark his life.

To mark his death, really, as that’s the only year engraved.

Chose for strangers who never knew he existed

to know

that once there was a man named John Butler,

who must have sat just about here

gazing out across the water

seeing much the same view I’m seeing.

 

 

The sun’s blinding reflection off the Sound

two post-season sailboats

tiny white triangles

glide atop undulating waves.

 

A vista wide and sea-drenched as Turner paintings

I couldn’t appreciate

standing before them in my 21^st year of life,

having not yet lived through the tempestuous storms and squalls

that came later

heavy and dark and relentless

the way sorrow becomes

when we’ve lived enough years

for losses to take up the whole sky.

 

Two sailors – not Sailors, who inhabit stories and paintings –

people who woke up to a glorious 10-hour reprieve

from the encroaching El Niño

piled beer and snacks and sunscreen into the car

headed to the marina

to take their boat out for the day.

 

Like John Butler perhaps grabbed a coat

headed to the bluffs

felt the smallness of being a solitary person

on the edge of a continental land mass

eyes moving across the expanse of water

trailing the white triangles

ears alert to the sound of wind rustling the trees

birds calling and cawing

skin both warmed under the bright light

and cooled

by the breeze.

 

I transform John Butler from physician to poet

altering his essence to suit me better,

a move so common it barely registers

as I envision both our hand-held pens moving across paper

that curls with the breeze,

the shadows of both our hands dancing with the drift of clouds.

Tied together

across time

across identity

across a fundamental alteration.

Moving from unknown to known.

 

To unknown.

 

John Butler will never know me.

 

Twenty two years after his death,

I contemplate his life

As I contemplate my own.

 

Twenty two years from now,

the next poet will inhabit this place

we both visited,

during a sunbreak from the devastation of dark storms

so heavy they threaten to take over my whole canvas,

push my water and light to mere tendrils near my lowermost edge,

and alter my essence

to suit a new poetic arc.

 

The vista seemingly permanent in place and time

can only be permanent when captured on film, or canvas, or page.

In real life

heavy clouds blanketing the sky are in constant flux

storms come and go

the tide ebbs on even after the seagull is gone.

 

At least that’s what’s written on John Butler’s plaque.