By Paul E. Schindler, Jr.
The scariest moment of my life,
On my birthday, in 1978.
Three months after Ashland;
Three trips to Portland,
Three trips to San Francisco.
A brown envelope.
Brown tree stationery.
A black, black thought
In black, black ink.
“I feel like maybe we’ve reached an impasse right now.”
My heart did not skip a beat.
It stopped.
I couldn’t breathe.
“We are both frazzled by our hectic schedules.”
True.
“We’ve both been burned
In moves to be with someone else.”
First I’d heard of yours.
True.
Your crystal ball was cloudy:
“There does not appear to be
Any foreseeable future
When we’ll be living
In the same vicinity,
Or when one of us
would be likely to make a move.”
You cited your commitment
To house, job and school,
“Beyond what I’ve told you.”
Yet, in four months,
You apply to the U of O.
On this day,
I begin to foresee a future
In which we live in the same vicinity;
In the same house, to be exact.
Your triple frustration:
will something break in work,
will you be going on in school
will there be an us.
My triple frustration:
I’m in Oregon, you’re not.
I’m in Oregon, you’re not.
I’m in Oregon, you’re not.
You stop my heart again:
Your nature in a case like this:
make a precipitous pronouncement,
simplify the equation,
reduce the variables
and reduce emotional pressure.
Then you finish me off with a feather.
“I would like to see a lot more of you.”
[You’ve already seen all of me
there is to see]
“Given that this is an impossibility,”
(Cloudy crystal ball again, thank God),
“I would almost prefer to see less of you,
So that the desire is not so fed.
I say this
knowing that we will shortly be together
and then apart again.”
Thank God and Amma,
Fate and Karma,
You changed your mind
And fed the desire.