The Age of Theory

When I think Of nursing homes During the pandemic, Which seemed to transform Into ever more certain Incubators of death, Toward which we seemed To resign ourselves, Taking no measures Except ceasing That last mercy, The last manifestation  Of hope, The act of visitation, I think of my mother. Six years ago today, And as I write these words I wonder what she was Experiencing  Even during these moments. She was dying. I was working My last night shift  At the second of three Locations For a company  Best known  For a rubber and leather boot, A curious creation Always in the middle Of one thing or another. And always, I find myself  In the middle Of that day. When my father and I  Arrived for the first Of our twice daily visits  We found her breathing Heavily, Shallow, Great sucking efforts, Loud, Discomfiting. They told us She was dying. They told us They didn’t know how long It would take. This was towards nine, About five hours From when I am  Writing now, Six years ago. It was difficu

You don’t need whips To be a despicable boss, Slavery doesn’t need chains To be reprehensible, You don’t need to forcibly import the labor To have a workforce that needs to be freed. It’s not good enough to say, “Well, no one else wants to do it.” If you create the conditions  Where that’s even possible, Intentionally or otherwise, Of course that’ll be the result. But you need voices Willing to point this out. The unspoken, The thing So easily taken for granted, Is wrong Regardless, And will always need Correcting. On this soil Or elsewhere, Dignity is a language That must always be  Defended.

I don’t know, I’ve never particularly  Had a problem Integrating the world. But that’s the problem That so often happens  For others, And I think It’s the biggest problem. It’s great to know How things are different  But to keep them Locked up in little boxes, Separate, Apart, Deliberately, Defiantly, Angrily, Defensively, As if something will be lost... And I get it, Sometimes  There have been efforts To lose identity  By force, To integrate By eliminating  A minority’s features, And that was always wrong. But it’s also wrong To repudiate The melting pot. It’s wrong To rob yourself Of the ability To embrace unfamiliar things Because you think  It might threaten  The integrity Of what you’ve got. But listen, You have no integrity If you fear such a world. You lose far more Than you retain If you hide from The possibilities. If all you experience  Is an echo chamber Then eventually  You go deaf. So this is a message For all my sisters and my brothers.

In such an age, Only a paradox Could explain it, Only the New Fade, Which is fast & slow, New & old, Smart & stupid, Left & right, Up & down, Meek & bold, All of that All at the same time, Like the Three Stooges Caught in the doorframe together All the time, The pace of change On fast-forward and reverse, Good & evil Caught up in a trap Together, And everyone labeling everything  To their convenience, The meaning the biggest loss In all of this, Meaning meaningless, Waiting for another day, Waiting for the barbarians, Maybe, I don’t know, The true history Caught up with silly & profane songs, The queen bee pulling faces Setting up the paces Going all the places We can see on a vista But won’t understand Until tomorrow, Much as we believe otherwise Today, An act of faith In a faithless age, The face of Ellah Blazing in a valley Of history, Of Value, Faith repurposed  As something older, Renamed, Made urgent, For the economics, To save time, In case there

Maine’s politics Have certainly been interesting  The past few decades. We fielded One of the few Independent governors, And the man is a prince, But more interesting still Have been Snowe and Collins, Who so often reached across the aisle, But in more recent years Still victim To increasing partisan rancor. Snowe decided To walk away In disgust, And perhaps, after all, It was exactly the right call, For this is not an age That cares For integrity, And so didn’t deserve Such a dignified advocate, Much though she remains  Lamented.

For me  The biggest tragedy In recent American politics  Was the repudiation  Of the best candidate Anyone fielded In the past twenty years, A guy by the name Of Joe Lieberman. It was this rejection That put us On a path Of mounting rancor, The evaporation  Of bipartisanship, Which to either side Looks so good But does both, And everyone, Immeasurable harm.

The idea of The conspiracy theory That has failed To go away In sixty years, To contradict that Lee Harvey Oswald Assassinated JFK, Isn’t to say That there is Or ever will be Some truth Yet to be revealed But that it was  An unsatisfying conclusion For such a consequential life, A giant in his lifetime, Divisive  And yet charismatic, A lothario And yet committed to his country, Capable of great blunders  And yet gifted with incredible vision, Often imitated But never duplicated, An old story, A great one, Still the best one His party has yet produced, A shining beacon on a hill, A true profile in courage.

The French have been Reliably Catholic For many years. The French Who arrived In the New World Kept the tradition Alive. In fact,  On my mother’s side We have an actual saint, André Bessette, Who humbly held doors open For the world. In a French quarter Of an English-speaking world, These were people Who faced Persistent  Persecution. So they migrated To the United States. They established communities That fostered Catholics, Filled with parishes, Where the French language Was kept alive. By my generation, French was no longer Passed down And the parishes Were aging. Like many younger Catholics Ours was vanishing From the pews. And a heritage Fades into history, But not from memory. No, Not from that. There Will be At least  One more To know  Of these things. And perhaps, Just perhaps, Many more. And the doors Remain open.

In the seventeenth century In Orléans, France, Was born Antoine Fissiau dit Laramée, His second surname indicating The features of the land Where he lived. He married Jeanne Millet In Pointe aux Trembles, In Quebec, making This branch Of the family Sooner arrived In the New World. Eight generations later, And three generations  In St-François du Lac, Ulric Laramee Became the father Of Romeo Laramee. Romeo emigrated To America Twice. The first time To Raymond, New Hampshire, Where he worked as a barber, But life proved overwhelming, And so he went back, And then he tried again, With many other French-Canadians, Joining the immigrant community  In Woonsocket, Where he endured the wool mills. He became the father Of Jeannine Laplume, My mother, In lilac time.

In the seventeenth century In Picardie, France, Lived a man named Eduoard Mereau. His son was named Pierre. His grandson was named Mathurin Mereau Laplume; The additional surname Indicates that at this point It was adopted Either to indicate Mathurin’s occupation Or residence. At any rate, Mathurin Is additionally interesting, As he marries Marie-Thérèse Harnois, Who is born Not in France But Quebec, Canada. The second Mathurin, Eduoard’s great-grandson, Living into the nineteenth century, Is likewise  Born in Quebec, Indicating Quite plainly That it was the first Mathurin Who not only obtained The present surname But journeyed To Canada. Three generations later, Wilfred Laplume Gives birth to Ovila, Who is born  In Woonsocket, Rhode Island, But marries Germaine L’Hereux, Born in Quebec, The last direct connection there. Wilfred ends his years Estranged from Ovila’s children, Including my father, The last generation  To speak French. Of the grandchildren  To emerge from this branch So

It strikes me In this climate of change That hardly anyone Seems aware of The streets of Venice, Surely a visible proof Against panic, Against the thought That we have somehow reached The limits of our adaptations. Perhaps imagination, Somehow; A paradox, surely.

What’s so interesting About the modern age Is its insistence at Preserving history. We hear so much About a crowded world And yet much of it Is being kept More or less  Exactly as it was  In prior ages. By this I mean buildings. The Tampa Bay Hotel, In my backyard, For instance. When I first came here Its spires, Fashioned after Moorish minarets, Were immediately Distinctive, So I became  A little obsessed  With finding out More about it. Eventually I learned What it was,  When it was built, And how it is Maintained today. As for being a hotel, That much is obvious. In 1891 It was planted  By a figure Of refutable past, Another reminder That the vagaries of time Are sometimes  To be navigated With precision. It served, At it and the region’s peak, As a staging ground For the Spanish-American War. And the years dwindled From there, Until modern times, When the preservation process Began And it was absorbed Into a collegiate campus And now stands For a series Of classrooms Still in use T

Beware, Ye who enter, For thy guide Is misleading. *** Roosevelt was elected four times, Completely unprecedented  And yet still little remarked upon, Except that it shouldn’t happen again Because he happened to die Shortly into his fourth term. Four elections Because only he could  Guide the ship In such perilous times, And so easy because  He offered a New Deal After a Great Depression But mostly because  Of a Second World War. And the guy that succeeded him Immediately dropped The two worst bombs Ever deployed, And changed the course Of history But has never been condemned  For it. Ever. *** The worst sin Nixon committed  Was continuing the programs Of his predecessors  And having even a hint Of sharing Or even owning The credit. *** The problem of 9/11 Was that it created An environment Where it was no longer acceptable To bow to tyrants, Even those Who may have been fostered In times past. Such was the fate of Hussein. It still bothers me That the narrative Of the WMDs Dismisses t

In the revolutionary Rap musical odyssey  Hamilton  You may observe Elevated to sainthood A man  Who if alive today, Based on his At best troubling  Relationship  With black people, Would be toasted In a far more concise  Mode of entertainment: A heckling.

As since my nephew Has been having so much Unintentional hindsight insight, Let’s add one more: At this same young age I suggested to him Something could be viewed In more than one way. And he was absolutely adamant  That it couldn’t. The idea of growing up Is becoming increasingly  Sophisticated. I would very much hope That if we were to discuss this Again today, That he would have A different perspective. When I was young I craved simple things, But when I grew older I put away childish things.

After seeing the musical, My nephew thought The height of humor Was to sing, “A person’s a person No matter how tall ,” Because for a boy his age That seemed like the height Of satire. And it was funny And I have very little doubt He wouldn’t even remember it Today.

The idea of hypocrisy  Is that convictions  Can sometimes  Be easily dismissed  As paper thin, Even contradictory, Self-serving, Amounting to nothing but a fiction. For instance, The concept of  The “bleeding heart” Cares more about  How Native Americans  Are portrayed in a movie Than how they live In the real world To this day.

When I was in college I tried to have as broad An experience as I could, So of course I took the course On Native American history, Which was even taught By a Native American. On the first day of class The teacher asked us For stereotypes of Native Americans. There was one student who Didn’t follow the intended narrative, And here I will exaggerate for comedic effect: “Oh, Native Americans love puppies!” [Teacher is annoyed] “Oh, Native Americans are so nice!” [Teacher is annoyed] “Oh, Native Americans have really great hair!” [Teacher is annoyed] “Oh, Native Americans are so interesting!” [Teacher is annoyed]

That’s the name  To be found On social media; Not Bruce Lee, Not Bruce Leon, But Bruce Snead, And perhaps this one’s  The real one, And, well,  All I really have to tell you Is even if I barely knew you, I’m glad I knew you, A man in the time  I learned many things, Who symbolized Many things, But a man, All the same, A man like any other, In a strange collection of friends, And in the end, That’s who you were, And I’m sorry it took me so long To think of you that way. That is the shame I now correct, Not that I saw you  As the pimp, As the token, Or even that I didn’t even see you As the dancer, But that for so long I saw you as the victim, And yet there you were And there you are, A man among men, A friend among friends, And I never allowed you  To be merely that, And I didn’t see it that way Until now, And this original sin Now acknowledged Rests lighter on my soul.

Not last summer and nor last week Will I be moved to sanction Modes of civilization  That shrug at unity For the mere sport of politics.

Here’s what I know of it, That on an evening’s night My nephew saw a play When he was young And sat through with impatience  Until the end, And when it was done, This very strange musical, He wanted it played again. Now,  In that moment  It did not matter Where the story began, And that memory will endure Long after my fresh experiences  With those books fade again. Although, To be fair, Nothing could be more clear, However off the rhyme inferred; Very little possible  Could erase them from the stage, Now that their words Have so happily settled.

Too many names hath she, Torn away, A day and a thousand times hath she, Away from me, And forever May, Eternity in misery, Lost and yet found The lady bound As she, set free In her own fair company, A life, alas, her own, Alas and yet, rejoice, A poor player prone And the lady, found her voice.

The easiest way to kill something  Is with emotional lies. These things, Emotional lies Are the kind that  Seem truest, the kind  That seem most dispassionate  But really hinge on a connection You don’t want to lose, even if it breaks Something that’s better, that shouldn’t be lost. And they are the ones that are most insidious  And used, like weapons, most frequently, And are most popular, easiest to defend, Because they’re easiest to internalize, Personalize, feel most natural, Because that’s the nature Of emotion, And lies. And so they’re used only By those with everything to lose.

How do you kill a legacy? You pervert it. You distort it. Somehow we live in a world Where Gone with the Wind Is unkillable. Out of everything  That needs to die This one endures. I can’t even pretend  To understand that. And somehow  A far better book Is reduced To a pejorative, A book that literally  Changed the world Is now condemned As callumny. That’s the kind of power The house of Geisel Unwittingly strolled into, Convinced it was doing Something easy and right. Except in a world such as this, Few enough things  Are easy and right, And usually when they are You can bet  There’s a crazy amount Of opposition  Convinced of moral rectitude  And armed Only with silly insults, Trolls under a bridge With keyboards Standing in the way. Except, well, The trolls Are under A bridge, And you can Take the bridge Right over their head. And reclaim society.

Growing up, I was in an interesting spot. Everyone had godfathers, But only one of them Was a bona fide rock star. And he was mine. There was no better news Than hearing he would be visiting  Or that we would head over To New Jersey (which, for that reason, Never acquired that negative connotation  That others have for it), Right across from the City of Brotherly Love. It was, in fact, My godfather And his relationship  With my mother That did so much To encourage  The enduring bond I share  With my sister. And his family And my family Mesh so well together In general. Growing up with that,  Regardless of anything else, I always felt that something  Was going right. Family is family But no more, in my experience, Than his and mine. The guru of gadgets, The maharaja of machines, The caretaker of cars everywhere, The biggest personality in any room, The legitimate king of thumb wars... So he’s now and forever Champeen of the world. And somewhere  He’s suddenly thinking Of “Louie Louie,”

I happened to be in town For the 2000 Boston Marathon. In 2013 There were very different runners in The Boston Marathon. Last year there was no Boston Marathon. This year they’ve postponed it Until October. So this one isn’t about The Boston Marathon, But my brother, And my nephew, Who just completed His first 5k. I’m no long distance runner. Not at all! But my brother is, And seeing my nephew Become involved In his dad’s passion Is a great way  To observe his continuing development  From a distance. Family is family.

She was born in 2004, And here in 2021 I look back And can’t imagine what my life would be like Without her. I could document  Here, A litany of memory, Or simply note How outsize A role She played. Has played. Is playing. The ending is not yet written. I don’t want To get Ahead Of myself. Not with her. A world without her Is impossible  To conceive, Not merely In mortal realms, But for the immortal ones, For she took permanent residence  Long ago. So no, She is not just a cat. And never was. Such is the role Of a pet.

Twenty years. And now it’s done. Twenty years In service, Twenty years Of sacrifice, Of love, Of horror, Of family, Of country, Of foreign lands, Of discovery, Of reflection. Twenty years, My sister, A journey of a lifetime. Now, Off to new adventures.