Facebook has recently connected me with one of the most important people in my life and I’m a better person for it
I met Nicky at a time in her life marked with tragedy and loss. We didn’t know each other at all but I found myself in the right place at the right time and despite my usual inability to connect with others on a real human level, I somehow managed to contribute a small part to her healing. We quickly became close and formed a profound friendship.
When I was around 20, I moved to the t New York town of New Patlz on the banks of the Wallkill river. My time spent in New Paltz was one of the most tumultuous, confusing and self-destructive of my entire life. Upon crawling back home, I experienced an additional blow and went through very difficult time. Nicky was there for me and was instrumental in my getting though this time in my life.
During this time in my life, Nicky game me one of the most amazing gifts I have ever received, a poem. I have never before or since been the subject of or had a poem written for me, much less one as skillfully composed and as lovingly connected to my life. The work was an allegory of the pain I had suffered that past year combined with the painfull events connected to my birth that I will carry as baggage until I die. She managed to turn these events into a heroic epic, casting me s the hero I only wish I could be.
I have recently discovered that in all the moves I have made, the hard copy of her poem has vanished. I was afraid I never see it again. Yesterday, in my inbox, I found Nicky had sent me a surprise. In case it ever disapears again, I have decided to immortalize the work on the web, knowing the the indexing magic of Google will archive and preserve the work for as long as the Internet remains.
The Wallkill
In the Highland
stretching from the breasts of the valley Bird
to her fertile delta in the east sleeps the dragon Wallkill.
Mired in black scale
and leather wing
his form swells with every prehistoric breath–
winds that shudder the wilderness
around his body,
disturbing the trees with thick, phantom fingers.
From the banks of the river that surrounds him,
only the arches of his wings are seen:
mighty slabs of slate that once eclipsed the sun
(it is said even the foam that breaks around them is black dead).
***
Bird had boasted no city or village
before the luIling of the monster.
Even so, the solitary hamlet of Cantus
rests at her perimeters–
seemingly in preparation of swift flight,
should Wallkill’s wings rise again.
Converse to her present vefdant body,
until the sleep
Bird was alI ravaged wasteland;
her flesh Iived a backwards clock of ruination.
The poison breath of the lizard
had damned her from fertility.
Wallkill was as dragons are–
the rapists of humanity surrounding them
Wallkill was as dragons are not–
his gift formless as he was solid,
its wake the curse of the Highland’s every generation.
Year following year
on a night never the same with each passing,
the WalIkill would raise himself from his wastelands
and hang like the blackest of fruits
in a barren sky.
The snout would point to a heaven
the beast would never see,
and from its mouth would
tear the Scream.
Heard from every edge of the Highland
its malice woul’d f al l I ike rain
into every home,
wringing sheiks of agony from mother and father alike
for, Wallkill’s Scream was such that
no sleeping child would wake the morning after.
That night, a thousand beds or more
would be coffins by daybreak.
Two thousand coppers would rest on two thousand eyes.
Twenty thousand fingers folded into one another
on little chests that would rise no more.
***
On the night of the Great Storm
came the man of twenty-and-one to the edge of Bird’s body
and Wallkill’s lair.
Staring down into the opaque expanse,
he felt the heavy sword at his side,
and the heavier revenge in his heart.
Lark smelled the sulphur that ringed the air of the valley–
a warning that told now was the night of the Scream.
A lifetime of labor drew him to Wallkill;
the odor was a secret he had kept hidden.
Tracking had gained him lhe key to
the ritual
for, in a crib beside him a score of years ago,
his only brother had died in the sleep of the Scream.
Tonight would be the dragon’s final slaughter-song.
The Storm ripped open the sky’s membrane
and water shattered around Lark as he
made his way into the heart of Bird.
The dead tree trunks split with lightning on every side of him;
the grim warrior lras untouched by pale stalks of fire.
He trundled through the underbrush with sword
clapping against thigh like an eager dog.
At the end of his descent
he stood before the monster,
the weapon weighing his hand.
He had met the beast in its moment before
flight–
its body all drenched plate and paused sinew.
Upon sighting the mortal,
the reptilian eyes narrowed with avarice–
its roar turned the Storm’s thunder to whispers;
the mighty head dove.
Attack was rushing its snout to the prey–
Lark swung his sword high:
a church of man crested by a deadly steeple of steel…
The arc became a circle.
With the same swing, he brought the blade down
driving it, hilt high, into the blackened earth before him.
As the rain bled from the sky
and flooded Bird’s dry womb
he stood back and cast out his true weapon.
Above the thunder of nature
and the roar of the dragon’s descending furor
Lark began to sing
Friendships forged during trials and tempered with pain can often be those with the strongest bonds and this has proved the case with us. Somewhere along the way in life, we lost contact and had not run into each other for almost 15 years. However, once we connected on Facebook and began talking it was quickly apparent that in some fundimental way, it was like no time had passed at all. I feel lucky to have been able to make a friend like that as I belive they are few and far between.
I’m pretty lucky.
Enough being so serious and sappy. Next time I post I’ll make some poop jokes, I promise.
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