DRY CRIK Journal

Dear Hal, the world’s gone crazy now –
but we’re paying the poor a little more
to go to wars in far-off places. We were right
to shut the campus down. You lost it then,
slipped off into that nether realm of a
nervous breakdown, we used to call it.
‘Make life rich,’ you told us students.

Whatever happened to the kid in fringe,
wore that leather jacket everywhere, pretended
he was going to ride Traveler around
the Coliseum grid iron? And quiet Ken,
the handsome guy who wrote poetry
you busted for smoking dope before class,
admonished for the broken trust among us?

How ‘bout the Israeli captain Uri, late
twenties stiff and impatient with our naïveté,
can you see him, where’s he living now?
And the brunette with full hips and lips,
her passion unsuccessfully repressed, even
in class daydreaming in your craggy face,
your dark Jewish eyes, remember that?

You came to visit twice. Sent back photographs
of children’s colored shoes in a line at the door –
and when I lived alone we drove the ranch,
you totaling species to yourself until a
nighthawk caught in our headlights. You were
closer to God then, old testament prophet
betrayed by the religion of business.

How many years has it been since you left
Nancy alone – how she tried to hold you
together – damn near twenty now, I’d guess.
We kept in touch for a little while,
exchanging cards until our minds got full
of more pressing stuff, more places
to exist where we could make it rich.

                                for Harold S. Spear