8.06.2017

En Garde

Our old man's telling another one
about all the money he's about to save.
Those who know him tune these tales out.
The kid and I continue our dinner uncaring
like neighbors through the woods.
This latest plan involves solar panels
on the freshly roofed garage.
Our father pats himself on the back
for extending its dimensions by three feet
during construction, as if he'd seen
this lucrative energy endeavor coming
two years prior while dispersing the loan.

"It will cut bills immensely," he sighs.
"Indian Point is closing down
so electricity will go through the roof."
I think of the still unused generator and subpanel
he had installed in the basement for a small fortune
months before the Y2K Crisis didn't happen
and cringe at what some people squander on fear.

"I'm sad," my seven-year-old brother
blurts with rib sauce on his cheeks
after the need for more eastern sunlight is mentioned
by the amateur project manager
who spawned us decades apart.
No one acknowledges his sentiment.
It's a landmine, a potter's field
a storm worthy of song.

Dad points at folders of literature
on the dining room table and tells us
that this solar swindler wants him
to nag the neighbors about his enterprise.
I pity their foolish decisions to answer his knock.
We finish our Saturday evening meal
catching up from five weeks of overdue separation.
I conserve funds through selling sweat, not death.

Once dinner's done I take the boy for a stroll around the block
to promote more than physical digestion--
just the two of us, as it needs to be sometimes.
"I'm sad, too," I tell him as we round the corner
with forest newly cleared, absorbing our view of the Hudson.
The child's afflicted blessing is familiar.
He senses much for a soul of his age;
remembers what counts; responds.

"That tree is so big and old.
We'll have to take the hammock down."
His voice trails off despairingly.
In my own youth I pretended it was a ship
on rough waters while friends and I struggled
to keep its cords afloat, laughing like deranged sailors.
I should reach for his hand
as he walks the curb like a balance beam
but my own is shaking, too.

Our creator was affected when the row of stoic pines
along the summer house in the Adirondacks
where he spent his boyhood
had to come down twelve years ago
due to blight and risk of falling.
The similar impact of this undue evil
holds no bearing on his current decision.
Nothing breaks the cycle aside from six feet.

Feed a cold, starve a fever
manage to forgive the culprit's best intentions.
It's illegal to deny anyone
a glass of water in Arizona
though there's nothing on the books here
about felling a massive sugar maple
that's earned its place in the soil.

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