Gould’s Proof

Tonight the dogs and I escape
our torpid lives, the humid land
in search of wind beside the point
we’ve come where breezes flourish
to the promontory sailing forth
imagining Lake Como’s deepest
rock grown waters lap against pontoons
remainders of a sunset fleet
near a swimmer in her backstroke
waving gaily as we pass we sail
in early August Caesar’s barge.

Recalling an old pontoon float
a summer platform I had swum for hard
treaded water, hung from
working off a panicked youth
while holding out for grander
grasping fuel tanks repurposed
from an RB-66 retired from
its recon runs and strafing
Viet Cong across the Thirty-Eighth.

The Colonel had installed
the dogged beast itself to guard
the corner of a local college–trophy
inspiration, cautionary tale–not near
so cool as Phantoms I’d seen lifting
off from runways out at Shaw AFB
rawboned needing heroes.

I’d heard of how the Colonel crashed
was rescued, plucked out twice
a man who’d seen his fate and lived
still listened when a teenage waif
said he understood the bigger story
the Colonel smiled and sipped his whiskey.

The Colonel’s wooden platform
he had bolted to the fuel tanks,
hauled the whole mess up to Wateree
past Camden in the piedmont
launched the clumsy diving deck
launching mates on skies with cigarettes
still lit with beers in hand
fighter pilots, Wolfe’s right stuff
behind his outboard, fully witnessed
by a small black mutt from Saigon
puppy smuggled stateside
who would perch upon the rear fin
barking orders for the whole ride
best commentary on the talent
aft of her position. Near shore
hungry boys were belly flopping
into silty water, and the girls were keeping score, the Colonel’s scamp might wonder
how they’d made it all that far.

The summer hippies found
a gorgeous wasteland down below
the dam where a bewildered river
regathered its composure, crows picked
drying fish feasting on remains
of their unintended last great ride.
The hippies wandered Wow.
prodded desiccated flesh
and shared a photo, joint or two.
They found the red cliffs too
those teenage scavengers with time
and mostly innocence to kill
erosions sliced from clay
a hundred feet or more with spikes
of pines a clinging fringe right at the brow. It was a place to challenge fear
smoke and practice Ansel’s trade
without a decent eye nor Hasselblad amongst the lot.
An Air Force son would test the edge
and be insulted if it gave way laughing
always willing to defy the odds
by twenty Mike flew Phantoms.
The only girl I ever took
there was reluctant with my friends
gimlet clever farmer’s daughter
she’d been the school scholar
a model’s frailty her dark eyes
hair trailing to her waist
withdrew us to the shallows
asked me earnest was I hers
what could I say?
As for the spunky
Saigon pup who’d made it past
a firefight down the street right
where the Colonel’s family lived
breathing gas fumes on her rides
across a flat brown reservoir–it must
have seemed real good clean fun.

The barge we sail this evening
running quiet batteries
if not conspicuously evolved from
biplanes launched from Dinner Key
is not dissimilar in theory
to the Colonel’s diving platform
I’d hung from in the summer
at practice going deeper, getting
tastes and sometimes stoned
on that float in yellow water.

Twelve years ago I drove fifteen
to Arlington, paid witness at attention watched the Colonel’s honor guard
parade ground stiff with horse and caisson
gun salute they laid him
down on Robert Lee’s front lawn
to glory those voracious fields. I choked
to see his daughter cry in winter rain
her brother, younger sister
how they coped
and how I never thanked him
finding courage living on.

These sled dogs born and raised
too far south remember elders
hauled whiteouts in the Yukon
breaking walls of snow and chancing
drowning between ice floes
further back the timber wolves
who’d found Siberia more daunting
than barbarous men setting down to tear
charcoaled flesh from bone and toss
the rest to lucky canines–their genes
will prove their lineage but sure
to take more sorting are my own.

While searching for a tropic wind
we should consider Gould’s best proof
his ribald spin on Cosmos’ joke.
August, ‘03