Turning Over Stones
Turning Over Stones
I hadn’t seen Mike
at the warehouse
in quite some time,
and there’s something about
a 5-minute conversation
that happens twice a year
that cuts through any formalities
and gets to the point more quickly
than any other type of encounter one might have.
“Back at it, huh?” he asked.
“Well, I’m waiting
until their through deciding
on what to do with me.”
“My step-brother's uncle,”
Mike said calmly.
“Worked the port
for forty-five years.
(Counting on his fingers)
Split shift, night shift, day shift,
one week on, and the other off.”
He stopped as if
a memory was walking
between him and me.
“Gold watch and everything,
they said, ‘We gotta make room
for the new younger crew.’”
I looked up
from the bill of lading
that I was signing
to see a stress tear
travel down the valley
of the wrinkle that Mike has
on his left cheek.
“After retiring,” he said.
“The guy didn’t make it six months.”
“Gotta have something to do.”
Mike shrugged, “He tried walking.”
To the truck driving crew
I am a weirdo
who turns down bar nights to write,
and to the poetry group
I am known as the John Wayne type
to which much romanticizing is done over my drive time.
If they only knew
about each other’s point of view,
and how half my life
I’ve felt that the skin I live in is rented,
and for my deposit to be returned
I will need to prove a clean understanding
of John Stuart Mill’s mentioning of Socrates.
I was thirty-four years old
when I finished my degree in writing,
and it seems funny to me that most people
have no idea what studying English Literature means.
JSM’s
(an abbreviated acronymizing
of the aforementioned John Stuart Mill)
pig,
knowing that we were all once
that dumb warehouse kid
until someone believed in us enough
to let us audition for Cinderella
and see if the shoe fit.
JSM speaking,
“It is better to be a human being
in a dissatisfying position,
than a pig complacent.”
Back in the warehouse
Mike responded,
“I wonder why that is?”
JSM again,
“And if the fool (the pig),
is of a different opinion,
it is because
they know only of their own
side of the question.
Utilitarianism is
knowing the difference between
you, me, and we.
A doctrine stating
that if something is right
then it serves as a benefit for the majority.
Mike said to me,
“You know what Dan,
don’t worry about it,
you can always fall back on teaching.”
I smiled knowing exactly what he means,
and asked, “How’s the gardening?”
He said, “My Dad’s dying,
and when they found out
I had the pot out back
they told me, ‘It’s the weed or me.’”
I laughed.
“Funny thing is he smokes it too.”
“Sometimes people have a hard time
remembering when they were in your shoes.”