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ROADSBy Robert Durborow

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Table of Contents

Mimesis 2

The Box 4

Singularity

Sunrise, Sunset 6

Grandma’s Magic Soup 9

Transmission 11

Did You Know? 12

Pyrotechnics 14

Places in the Mind

Two Suits

When Bullet Hits Bone 18

The Face of Evil

Second Son 20

What it takes

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MIMESIS

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The camera’s eyesees more than I,a dream long past,in the hourglass,a dusty postcard in living hand,drawn from a drawer filled up with sand,an open wound confined in space,scattered with thoughts so out of place,snapshots of reckless, heady days,caught in the camera’s watchful gaze,recorded history, faded here,mimetic constructs no longer clear,spark memories of happy times,a sandy beach in warmer climes,transport to this weathered bin,no clamor heard of pictured din,silent faces laughing there,long stilled by time, bereft of care,but turn the feeble photograph,and see the power of echo’s laugh,scrawled in faded ballpoint ink,nine words to make one stop and think,to bring the past from far to near,“Having a great time, wish you were here.”

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The

Box

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I open a box of my favorite things,finding the familiar with the strange. Blue Bear, my old friend, threadbare and worn,but still there, waiting,lopsided smile of black yarn,pleased to see me after all these years,as if only moments had passed.

My first kiss gave me that necklace,amber and butterfly wings,tarnished with age, but brightwith the luster of fond memories,a meeting of the lips, never be equaled,never forgotten.

A sudden enchanted whiffof Cody Wild Muskdraws my attention to a blue stick pen,the one The Artist sent all those years ago,still impregnated with her perfume,essence preserved, hauntingthe senses, hintingat what was, what iswhere she is, though I am not.It still writes.

A large button that thinksI should recognize it,disappointed I do not.Does a keepsake remain sowhen the memory is forgotten?Is the heart constantthat has moved on, outdistancingpassionate moments,gone stale in the atticwhere discarded feeling goto die?

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A clay frog, eyes peering fromartificial waterof the same fired silicate,glazed in time and eggshell white.The words, “Love, Your Wife” etched in the pondignite the memory ofan imagined union I wish were real.I saw her, years after the giftwith a small blond haired boythat could have been mine.

Other items press to the fore,but I close the box, unableto face the shoelaceshe broke on that hike when we met the rattlesnake,the ribbon she took from her auburn hairthe day I left to become a man in war torn countrythat was not my own,the golden band she left on the fingerthat could not bear it’s touch,when she passed beyond the veil, beyond the reach of menor me.

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Sunrise, Sunset1.Dawn of that day was unremarkable,but for the piercing cry of the last child,echoed by his bone weary mother.Their voices mingled, mother and babe,ghosting through streets empty of listening ears,whispering toward the rising Sun,who took them in his warm embrace,and soothed their fear and pain,until both feeble cries were content to fade.

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Morning strides with confidence to greet the Middle of Day.Noon awaits the arrival of the no-longer-child,watching Morning guide him throughhis preparation for the real education of life;experience and pain. His father passes at 6am,two brothers at 10 and 11 as he nears Midday.Fear exerts his draining pull around 9, only to be thwartedby the courage of a math book across the nose of an assailant,who howls to his own noon as Fear claims a different victim.The journey of the shadow of day from beginning flatto tall and straight uses no more than six short hours,but the condition of the more-than-boy upon arrivalvalidates the efforts of Morning to bring him thus far.Morning passes her charge to Noonand dies in peace.

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Critical hours pass to Afternoon, as the journey proceedsin the direction of Twilight. Minutes flash past at

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the breakneck speed of growthand maturity. The now-man navigates the tides of war, the perils of wifeand job, the jungle of children,all the while keeping the raft of family afloat,though it tilts and whirls through the currents of life, at times threatening to founder or break apart.Afternoon helps his charge keep it together, even thrive,through judicious doses of courage, risk, and determination.The man guides his children toward their own noons, knowing he can but show the way and teach them to stay the course.Other forces vie and striveto pull away the man and the attentionof his brood. Stand or fail, he does his bestto teach what he has learned,to live the life he should,to be more than what he is,that they may never fault his example.

He succeeds.

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Twilight welcomes the elder-man.The cool caress of his wife, Evening, envelopes the Waning Light and his charge.As Twilight falls, the elder bids farewell to his own eveningwho slips the bonds that hold her to lifeand floats peacefully toward her waiting nightto await the arrival of the elder that gave everything to ensure her happiness,while she wore her mortal coil.She glances back a final time, pressing slender fingers to ruby lips.

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The kiss she offers, guided by her delicate hand as it parts her pursed mouth,carries the love of forty years together,with the promise of eternities more to follow,from the moment they meet in night’s embraceto start another day.Children have grown and now approach twilights of their own.One has fallen into darkness deep, with little hope of return,his raft shattered by the lust and greed of his own base desires.Another wears an honest face, that belies the untruth beneath,which robs from the poor and gives to the poorly recommended,unraveling the ties of his raft that will soon succumbto the rocks and rapids of the treacherous flow,or spin endlessly in the eddies.A third puts on a pretty face and marches to the beat of the bandhe no longer hears or comprehends, content to suffer on and fool himself that this,is how it’s meant to be, despite the example of the elder.The last fulfills his father’s dreamand sails the tumbling current of oceans far from safer shoresdaring to dance the tides. In him the elder’s long, hard day lives on in word and deed,honoring the babe, the boy, the man that came before,guided by the children of Day toward the ever present Night to come.

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Night falls. Darkness reigns.But in the darkness dwells the old-man,carrying with him the light he forged through the endless day,eighty years in the making. Fear holds no sway, sorrow cannot touch him.The end of this journey leaves him content to start the next,as he reaches toward the hand that let fly the kissthat sustained him through Twilight’s hoursand brought him safely to his Night.

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Pop says the soup is magic.

Grandma just smiles, with a thick German accent.She moves to the white washboard cupboard and leans,bones creaking with age and love,retrieving a large stockpot and placing it carefully,on the front burner of the ancient gas stove,all white and black enamel.A quarter cup of real butter plops into the depths of hercauldron, followed by a large yellow onion,peeled and cubed by weathered, practiced hands.Blue flame that matches the tint of her hairerupts in a puff of soundfrom beneath the pot, as aged as she,though free of wrinkles and laugh lines.Six potatoes, scrubbed and diced, join the brew,with thinly sliced carrots, water,and the near naked carcass of the chickenthat gave its life to feed us all the night before.

“Waste not, want not,” intones my favorite witch,as if she’d penned the words herself.

“A little spice is all you need,”she explains as she sprinkles black pepper, thyme, and dried parsleyinto the aromatic steam rising like dreamsfrom the vat of making. Three cups of milk,drained from the cow lowing in the backyard,and a little flour complete the recipe,handed down through ages past,from German dame to German lass,a history of kindred feast,to make kings slaver with longing to satiate royal appetites.

“But what makes it magic?” I ask in the innocence of youth.

Grandmas’s Magic Soup

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“Wait,” she says, “just wait. ‘The proof is in the pudding.”

Though we’re making soup, I know what she means,she’s said it a thousand times. Wisdomspouts from grandma’s mouth like water from a fountain,refreshing all who hear the words,spoken as if from a book of knowledge,memorized to teach the next generation,what should never be forgotten.

Minutes pass, spent in pleasant conversation,as the ingredients stew into soup.A happy grandson worships his grandmotherat the altar of her kitchen table,scratched an faded,bowls set in anticipation of the magic soup.

The hooked ladle dips into the finished amalgamation,depositing savory contents into my bowl,I lower my spoon and slurp up the hot broth,tasting generations, feeling the stock of warmththat runs down my throat to rest in the bellyof the newest generation.

My father walks through the front door,dirty clothes evincing the morning’s labors.He stops, inhaling the deep the scent of ancestry,that smells of potato, onion, and thyme.A great sigh explodes from his lipsas he reaches for a bowl and spoon…

…and suddenly I understand

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The hood stands open, fiber insulation frayed and wornclinging desperately to the underside.Dirt and grime add character to the six cylindersarranged in the classic V of powerthat provide horses for this steel chariot that needs none.

Power lies dormant, headers mottled from the heat of ten thousand milesdriven on layers of asphalt, black ribbons stretching from town to townover rolling hills that promise something new over every rise,adventure in every valley. The open maw of the engine compartment revealsthe digestive tract of the machine for which these roads are meant,hungry for the next trip, eager to chew up that road.

Familiar hints of motor oil, gasoline, and radiator fluidpermeate the confined space beneath the watchful hoodunder which a young man labors to resolve some minor glitchthat challenges the performance of the little engine that could,often has, and will again for many years.

A sober look of serious intent adorns the clean shaven face and conservative haircutof the man who will see many more years, many more cars and trucks,but none as loved as this, the first of many mechanical lovers,worshipped at the altar of the Grease Pit he names his two car garage,that temple of cement and wood and steel, in which he prays to the godsof Craftsman, Benchmade, Snap-on, and more.

The man I see in the black and white window before me is not my father,but he recalls me to the fender I on which I used to sit, legs dangling next to the alternator,to watch in fascination as Pop explained the magic of the internal combustion engine.The man in the picture is unknown to me, but he wears the same intense expressionmy father still dons when he opens the hood of a car, wrench in hand,the very face my own sons see in the eyes of their sire... ...sitting on the fender of a faded old truck......legs dangling next to the alternator...

Transmission

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DID YOUKNOW

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Did you know,as the sun rose on that April day,far from your Pennsylvania home,climbing into the co-pilot’s seat of the Cloud Hopper,preparing to give all for your country,for freedom, for the family you would never see again?

What were your thoughts,as the sky dropped down to meet your winged fortressof metal, guns, and destruction?Did you think of family, friends,the wife you would never have?Were you focused on the mission,the lives you might end today,leaving other families fatherless, brotherless, sonless?Were you afraid?

How did you prepare,On April 8th, 1944to do what you knew had to be done,for duty, honor, country,to preserve your family and the world from a madman,bent on purging the earth of impurities,without which it could not exist?

What did you hear,in the acrid sky over Brunswick?Did the explosions of your enemy’s gunsrock your fragile perch,crack the glass through which you viewed

the coming doom, the rocket’s red glare?Did you see Death, cloaked in black, tattered clouds,sweeping toward you in the deafening silence,whetting his scythe on the bursts of flack?

Did you die well,and quickly, with no anguished screams,just a sudden end as your B-17 bloomed,in flame and fragment,consigning your lifeless body to the ground far below, and your essence to its final reward?Did you wrestle with the wreckage of torn wings,the inferno of faltering engines,to the last second, in effort to save your valiant crew?

Did you know,that years after your fiery death,your nephew would ask the same questions of himself,as he sweated in a different uniform,a thousand miles to the south and east of your final resting place,as he hesitated to let loose the fury he con-trolled, wondering if he had the right,or the responsibility?

The past has past,the future stretches forth in uncertainty,and your nephew sometimes wondersif the end of his uncle wasn’t the better way to go.

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Fire.A chemical reactioninvolving oxygen and some fuel,producing heat, light, smoke.

This, then, is the extent, all that is all that can ever be of noble furen, the exciter, the arouser a cold, hard definition, neither here, nor there, forever in between…

Fire.Considered by the Greeksto be the most powerful of elements,companion to Earth, Air, and Water.

The greatest of all, fallen from grace, a child, banished to a lonely corner, humiliated, diminished. Sea and Land cast their derision upon the mighty wind, who carries their taunts, mingled with her own, to exiled fire, expelling them with such force he dies in agony and shame…

Fire.To talk incessantly without pause for breath to continue without slackening pace to ask a series of questions to write quickly and send hurriedly.

Pyrotechnics

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What is to say carries weight, as if the whole of all rested upon brilliant shoulders, yearning, desiring, demanding release from bonds of confusion, doubt, and uncertainty, to enlighten, banish fear, educate the child and warm the intellect, to shine from atop the tower, never cower beneath a shroud…

Fire.Discharge. May be appliedto the expulsion of a projectilefrom a weapon,or dismissal of an employee.

Sent as on a mission, strife to end strife, violent nature revealed in virile futility, for everyone shoots back, the cycle repeated from eon to age, rendering what is what was, now in search of another target, a cause, a battle of survival in a world, that bites and tears, oblivious to the varied pulses, that give it reason to be…

Fire.Cause to take action,work faster, act quickly,create enthusiasm.

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in unseen halls of thought and idea,internal flame, as real as the onethat warms my frigid hands,rising from ground as frozen as my thoughts,slowly warming the id of the idiot,lightening darkened recesses that containuntold treasure with its ethereal glare,showing the seeker what could never be seen,without the illumination, the power, the majesty, of fire...

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theBullet Hits theBone

When

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Target acquired, finger caresses trigger,spanning the abyss between isand is no more.Tensor flexed,release the fury of fire and plumbum,clad in a steel tuxedo,all dressed up with places to go,people to kill.At three times the speed of sound,the objective resigns well beforethe announcement of his retirement,a nearby wall, the only witness,blushes scarlet in the wake of passing.Mortal coil leaps off,too startled to shuffle.The raptor vacates his useless nest,fading into the obscurityof distant trees,carrying a new face to haunt his dreams,unable to rusticate fault,damned to view another end,in a long list of curtain calls,orchestrated by the index that lets flythe bullet that hits the bone.

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Second Son“…for which these roads are meant.”Eighty years the soldier wanders,to shed light, meaning, to what has been,that which has been done, andcan no longer be prevented.Memory screams down the corridors of time,words of warning, ignored by menthat would have lived, had they but heeded,hesitated, considered counsel.Man of peace bows his weary head,grey from counted years of pain and trial,the torch must soon be passed to the second son,of the last child, grown aged in duty, honor, family.

Questions plague matters as grey as hair:Have I done enough?Have I been enough?Have I raised the better man?Worry is a needless foe,born of confidence in doubt,his part has been morethan the less he thinks of it.The second of four sees the worthof the thirteenth child, the father,the shaper of dreams, the exampleof the value of duty, honor, family.

Roads stretch out before the second son,as varied as those of the father,the soldier, the last of thirteen,who knew no father, only worry for his sons.The highways, paths, and trails snake out,endless options of rough and smooth,

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arrow straight, twisted serpents,challenges to make or break, build up or destroy,but the no-more boy stands strong,prepared by the father who had none,to navigate obstacles unknown with the practiced handof wisdom gained by experience.

The greatest of the great,in the admiring eyes of the second son,who esteems him more than himself,looms mighty in humble meekness,by virtue of lessons, hard learned,paths trod with bloody feet,sacrifices that proved worth beyond words.The second praises the thirteenth,for blazing the arduous trail that leadsto recognition of duty,satisfaction in honor,the endless wonder of family.