Yeamon Fitzgerald

The Lips That Can’t Kiss Back

It all seemed so easy
And broad and open…
(And most of all I recall)
Liberating.

I would fall
So easily in love
with a sheepish but beautiful
English major.

She didnt have to be my age,
or share the most particular academic passions
(In retrospect, likely not)
As we both found ourselves

In Keats, Wordsworth, Shakespeare.
The true and honest stimulation of
such a magnificiently turned and revealing phrase.
Or idea, emotion.

One that hits the heart and
pulls back the shades of the human condition
with one swift motion.

Like a mother on a winter’s vacation
to reveal a fresh snow.
And the commraderie and warm company
of family and familiarity.

And in it, that light reflected from every surface,
its subjects left basking. Together
there is such a moment, a clarity,
and unbreakable bond of shared experience.

Such warm lips (I know! I heard and saw the discussions!)
there were in that English hall
througout those devastantingly quick years.
Such ebbulient minds and kindred souls.

But I passed them in silence
As I waded begrudgingly to other pursuits.
And left my heart- what must have been
such a kind and open heart-
to slowly fade, to follow a derailed  and wayward compass.

Oriented so dangerously
Around the lips that kissed first.
But not the ones that kissed back.

Substance in Nothingness

This was usually the time of night, he thought to himself, that was best suited for weaving in and out of his brain. Exploring and picking (like berries in a forest he supposed) the memories and snapshots of weeks, years, a whole lifetime. The mind a template; a conglomerate of thoughts, ideas and recollections all jumbled in that tiny space together. Stretching out various elements and laying them to paper. Peeling layers back and stacking them. Sometimes neatly and coherently atop each other. Other times ripping them out with abandon and hurling them against the wall with an almost violent vigor. Then stepping back to bask in the calming ether that such an exploration and dismantling of the head could provide.

Memory of a Winter and a Wagoneer, 1981.

There was a winter storm that hit us during our second year on Layman’s Hill. A big one, the biggest storm we ever saw there if my memory serves me correctly. It was January of ‘81 and Elaine and I had just driven the kids back up from visiting their grandparents in Raleigh, North Carolina. We had that Grand Wagoneer, cream with the beautiful fiber wood-paneling. Not something folks from this generation would find particularly appealing, but it held a quiet and rustic elegance to us back then. Gates had said it would get by during the cold Vermont winter and it did for the most part, save a spin-out here and a jumpstart there. How it purred up and around the hill of that long driveway. I remember a warm satisfaction in the feeling. Returning at dusk from a day of teaching or writing at the college. It’s gentle grinding, so steadily in the darkness after picking up Thames from practice. Returning him to his mother and a hot meal. Such quiet reflection in the beams of those headlights scanning the white stillness. A sort of blank canvas for the young man’s life I often thought.

I sometimes wondered if he ever saw it that way. Or if the hunger and homework and sweat were more than enough to consume his thoughts after a long day of algebra and athletics.