Seattle to Sitka (Poem)

Seattle to Sitka poem by James C.White

The ration stick on the Windshield during World War Two

asked: " is this trip necessary?" No- it's an impure pleasure.

I'm taking Amtrak to show you what a fine person

Your taxes support; I'm going to Alaska because

several old friends write they are too busy for me to visit.

Since they can't see me, I'll learn by heart:

"At destruction and famine you shall laugh,

And shall not fear the beasts of the earth.

For you shall be in league with the stones of the field,

And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you." 1.

I'll spend my time with warm glaciers and cuddly Black Bears.

I'll see the glaciers calve and pat the new-born icebergs

As they blink in the salt water for the first time.

Old friends, you continue to move across my memory

Like skywriting on a still day: the first word drifts west 2.

And the last letters dissolve:

What is left if the pure blue,

Without cloud or regret or that camel's hump of memory

We thought would last to the end.

1.Job 5: 22-3

2.This image from Linda Pastan

Blessing over the Boxes

A blessing over the boxes, the unruly boxes.

Hm........the boxes...yes...all those boxes of my Dad's. The one's with his clippings, his large 11"x17" papers that hold quips and quotes and favorite poems all crammed every which way into the space of that one page.Boxes that hold a mish mash of papers, some important some not..some gems, some bits of gold and my mother's poems all mixed in as well.

And then I too have one of those boxes...A box of papers marked Emily and Jim that I have been holding onto for years. It's like opening Pandora's box to even glance into it. I suppose I should organize it and eventually I will, but for now I just dive in, retrieve precious poems by my parents. I will share some of them now in the next few blogs...love poems from Jim to Emily. Poems about travel and more.

Yes, blessings on the boxes...precious boxes..

Old age takes what it will. I stand there with my parents at the edge of the ancient sea. Time is running out. I see with foreboding the tide of dementia that washes in around my father's feet and then rises up, starting to claim him. I feel so sad and helpless as I watch this tide sweep in..taking the best bits of his memory and then washing out back into the eternal sea, not to return.
What can I do??
I go through the boxes, retrieving his poems and finding all the wonderful anecdotes of his that I have written over the years. Funny, wise and honest things he's said.
These pieces, these moments, these boxes are like the bright beautiful shells I see floating all around him as the tide of dementia washes in..I gather them up quickly and hold them up to the light...for you dear reader to see....for you dear reader to
see...

a blessing over the boxes, the unruly boxes and the bright beautiful shells of memory that they hold....


hold fast, there is more...