I thought I had forgiven everyone, but there are still places in my heart where I hold a grudge.
One such grudge is against a poet I knew, and I am reminded of it this morning by pulling out a thin chapbook of his poems from my bookshelf.
Have I read these poems before? The chapbook is personally signed with a brief note to Adrian and me.
I think, when the book arrived, I must have refused to read the poems because of the grudge.
Now I read one about dying in the kitchen, a place I’d be happy to die in as well. The poem enables me to understand that--to see the sanctuary in a kitchen.
This poet and I shared a bond and a trust, sometimes broken—perhaps by both of us. I expected more than could be expected.
The rest of the evidence was assembled through gossip and conjecture, second and third hand.
Best known for his silence and brooding, this poet saved his material for the poems.
I didn’t really know the man. I built his story with the blocks of missed appointments and connections, wives and children left behind.
I once drew my sword for him and won the battle, but my act—as such acts often are—was unappreciated.
The missed connection, perhaps, is what I hold the grudge against. I was there. I was open. Where was he?
One of his poems has the words “threats by phone” in it. I can imagine he received many threats by phone. I can imagine his silences on the other end.
It is the silences we are against—we who don’t know him. We who hold the grudge.
In his portrait sketched on the front cover of the chapbook, he appears haunted, perhaps by all of us holding those grudges.
I read more of the poems.
I still don’t find him.
I go back to the dying-in-the-kitchen poem.
It will have to do.
