3-yr-old Thanks

Sunday, Nov. 5th, 2006

Today I returned home
from a retreat which in my 1966 Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary
has seven (7) meanings as a noun: the first of which is “the act of
[going back or backwards; withdrawing; retiring]” and the last
“an establishment for the mentally ill;
for alcoholics, etc.”,
and in between,
“the retirement…from a position of danger or from an enemy”,
“retirement, seclusion, solitude”, and
“…a refuge; haunt”—
retreat: re-, back, plus trahere, to draw—
funny.
Are we alcoholic crazies in need of a secluded haunt?
Are we retiring from engagement with a dangerous enemy?
Are we going backwards?
Funny, because during this retreat, most of us chose
to engage
to enter into new and dare I say sometimes dangerous conversational territory
and yes to get a little alcoholic and/or crazy
and yet for me at least none of it felt like going back
so much as catching up—
catching up with a 2-year-old a 7-year-old and a soccer ball
with non-pumpkin spice pancakes served piping hot
with the rain we so seldom take the time to enjoy
with laughter
with love
with friends and their families and I find myself searching
for a word that means the opposite of retreat
and the best my 1966 Reader’s Digest Dictionary has to offer
is pro-, forward, plus gradi-, to walk:
progress and this non-poem should end here but it doesn’t:
doesn’t because today I returned home
not from a retreat but from progress
returned home and almost retreated into the all-too-familiar
solitary backwards haunts of my mind where the whole world
seems a dangerous enemy and I lose sight
of friends and family against the wave
of unanswered unavoidable questions—

will the world survive to see my grandchildren?
will my children grow up amidst peace or not at all?
will I find that special someone and have have children?
will I survive—

this residency, this month, this present moment?
Is it possible for one man to change
not the world, or the dominant paradigm, or his clothes
but oneself?
and as I find myself retreating from the progress of the weekend
there are two things that pull me onward, upright, even forward:
one,
the attempt to try and begin to start to articulate this,
and two,
you,
for being willing to listen, to hear, and to forgive
when my vocabulary fails to capture my inexpressible
thanks.

Sunday, Nov. 8th, 2009: Thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU, my special someone!!!