Dear Lord, one true sentence.


It is raining, lighter now, and over the hills with orange and yellow and still some green in the trees, I can hear a football game announcer, and then as I walk in the parking lot, The National Anthem.  It's roughly one thirty in the afternoon, and I've been trying to get on the road, leaving my mother's town home apartment, to drive back to Washington, D.C.  In my own clutter and hers, I cannot find my second pair of eyeglasses, the ones with the James Dean clip-on sunglass lenses, horn-rimmed, the black RayBan case my heavier pair, graduated distance to reading, came in.  I have to drive south, a long ways, the highway.  Into the sun as it lowers in the afternoon sky as I race toward Harrisburg,

I went back into the house several times, mom telling me, get on the road already.  I'm better at packing now, an LL Bean canvas large tote bag, a rolling suitcase, my green air mattress, a backpack. I have it all, but when I look through the rental white Malibu I cannot confirm I have this pair of glasses.  My lower back hurts.  I'm not looking forward to being on the road seven hours.  I was thinking of driving back yesterday.

The day before, as the doctor recommended, I took mom down to Wayne's drugstore to get her a flu shot.  The local Rite Aid was out of the Shingrex vaccine, and I needed the second part of it, and so I asked, and they said, at the counter, sure, no problem.  Mom was in the room getting her flu shot, then the guy asked me in.  He loaded up the needle, mixing two liquids from small vials.  "You're going to be feeling flu-like symptoms," he said.  My arm hurt the first time around.  The second one is different, he explained, as far as the body's reaction, having been primed by the first part of the vaccine.

We walked out into the day and continued on to the Port City Deli there on the main street, the wind gusting off the lake.

And the next day, I woke up aching all over and not wanting to move.  Not the day to be driving.  One more day with Mom, why not.  She kindly lets me retreat to my air mattress, my coat over me, after lunch, and I fall asleep.  Sleep has not been easy up here.


In helping me look for my eyeglasses case, Mom, coming over to the car in her bathrobe as the rain started up again, was bent over going through my thitngs.  "Oww!   God damn it"  Her finger tip is bleeding.  I feel my posture sag.   Yes, I know what had happened. my toilet kit, my Harry's razor.

Back in the house, a paper towel over her index finger.  At the sink.  I pour some rubbing alcohol on another paper towel, and this hurts her.    Oww ow, ouch!  And the blood is still coming, not dramatically, but enough to make a presentation.

Somewhere in all of this, as I go out to walk it off, as she tells me, as I am about to yell out something, as she sits in her old Eames chair... Mom, keep it elevated.  Keep the pressure on...  I find my glasses case, hiding in the side door low compartment underneath the driver's armrest.   Yes, of course.  Found it.  I bring some witch hazel over with the roll of paper towels.  It still hurts her fingertip to the touch, but not as much.  Her eyes still widen.  She has a book of Seamus Heaney in her lap, spirited to her, along with the long thin tortoiseshell calico part siamese cat.  I administer a small glass of chardonnay in a tumbler.  You're right mom, you are taking this all very well.  And the walk helped, even if it was a sad one in a sad parking lot in October with the rain and the sound of local football game.

Look on the bright side, we got a lot done.  But I feel sad, the first time she's not coming out to wave to me good bye as I drive away, waving back, eyes filling up.  She is, after all, a lovely person, even as she is.


An hour later, I am out of the rain, driving, listening to NPR, about illegal shark fishing in El Salvador and the related human trafficking...  pulling into the rest stop over looking a beautiful valley parallel to the highway.  Stiffly, getting out of the car.   I call her, on her cell, she picks up.  It's better, but still oozing.   Shit.  I go in and use the restroom.  There are two young African American woman behind a folding table, raising money for the local cross country team.  I put a dollar bill in the cup, say thanks, go look at the large map with the you are here.  Beautiful part of New York State.  Beautiful streams and rivers, the Otselic...  I look back over to the young ladies, as them where their meets are.  Johnson City...  I ask them about the river valley I saw once, and yes, they ran at Whitney Point recently.   "Yeah, I ran cross country...  Meet days made me very nervous.  Just wanted to hide at in the back of the bus and vomit..."   "Yes, the competitions are fast!"  and we all laugh.



At fifty three, 
no more winning for me.
A conscientious objector to the race,
one who'd rather just run, as he did as a kid,
over the high and rolling hills of farm country.
I'm one who'll never catch up, too far behind,
even at such pace.

I'm sure somewhere,
it's written in the genes, in code.
The younger brother goes behind to take care
of mom.  Intrinsically, he values hers,
the books upon the shelf, the cat,
the clutter, the attempt at writing,
a life of letters.
The older brother, far far ahead now.
Your own fault, or flaw,
and now it's come to this.