Wayne Michael DeHart   (2020,2021)

Unlike the picturesque SnowSleeves of Winter, the poetic pieces constituting WordSleeves did not arrive, nor will take their leave, with the whim of the weather. They are for all seasons; responses to a series of unrelated creative writing “prompts” in 2020 and 2021.

Like the SnowSleeves of Winter, the selections appeared and accumulated at their own pace – irregular in size, sequence, substance and significance.  Each passage, like each snowflake, is distinct and different than the next – in the form of sporadic, disparate observations, thoughts and musings. Random and casual in presentation, the Sleeves meander and wander aimlessly in search of a friendly fit.

(All prompt poems below were written by Wayne Michael DeHart, thus the writer’s name will not appear on the  individual “Sleeves” that make up this post. The fifteen sub-posts appear in chronological order. Selections were chosen  without rhyme or reason, time or season, blending form and format into the literary version of a potluck gumbo and jambalaya combo. Sample each, consume what looks good, pass on what doesn’t. Bon appetit!)

______________________________________________________________________

 February 2, 2020

In Response to a YouTube Viewing of Captain and Tennille’s “Muskrat Love”:

The Dragon said “Toni, my dear.
What crawls yonder – a rodent I fear.”
But she didn’t respond – his wife didn’t hear.
So he inquired again, drawing her near,
and whispering his ask into her ear.
She simply smiled, and said with good cheer;
“Worry not, dear husband, it’s perfectly clear.
It’s a sign from above,
it’s what songs are born of,
it’s a diamond, a dove,
it’s a …
muskrat, love.” ¹*

_______________________________________

February 2, 2020

In response to this long-ago page:

Favonius, humming a hymn,
took to the sea, for a midnight swim.
But in the dark, became entwined,
in eight-ish threads, and lost his mind.
Struggle he did, for the rest of his days,
erratic in thought, engulfed in a haze.
Blinded in blackness, turned Brutish in view,
took his last breath . . . in ’42.

________________________________________

April 30,  2020

In Response to a Poetry Challenge Re: the following photo:

Mike DUKAKIS, on a whim, went to France
one day in search of him.
“DUKAS?” they said, “you’re late my friend,
he’s gone, finis, he’s dead.”
Traveling on, you see, to find what’s lost,
he ended up in Germany.
He wined, he dined, at a DUISBURG pub,
fell into the river, sadly, Rhine-d.
Then he had an idea, after being rescued
by a friendly chap – from Tanzania.
“Let me, dear fellow, come home with you
to chill out, calm down – to mellow.”
And so, they flew, to Dar es Salaam
for him to make a memory or two.
They drove south, tout suite, toward Malawi,
then stopped at a cafe for something to eat.
They ordered, then talked, till the food arrived,
and Mike chewed on the meat but suddenly balked.
“Ugh”, said the Yankee, “what is this stuff?
“It’s DUIKER stew, my man, it’s what we eat,
when famine pervades this beautiful land.”
“Duiker, what’s that, sounds nasty to me”
“Well” said his friend, “it’s better than rat.”
The man from Mass. just sighed, and ate on
but that night his gut really hurt inside.
“Enough for me!, I’m leaving, I’m gone”,
he told his companion, then started heaving.
No Dukas, alas, and Duisburg was damp,
and the Duiker filled him with gas.
Then he came home, to his tank, and knew there
was someone he really should thank.
So he called me, today, and said “My friend,
I read what you wrote, and it was as you say!”

________________________________________

June 10, 2020

In Response to a Modernist Poetry Challenge Re: the following photo:

Eliot and cummings woke me this morning
to tell me that nothing I will see today is real.
I listened well then told them both to go to hell
and step away from my view of the clouds and the sun that Camus
told me the day before weren’t really there anyway so
I now embrace the decorations of the sky
knowing that it’s not what The Greats of times past
promised me it would be in my youth, but only a
visual perception before my eyes only and not yours.
It is what I say it is, it is what I see it as, it is
my one and only reality as I drink my mourning tea.

________________________________________

June 15, 2020

In Response to a MENSA Poetry Group Challenge –  Re: the photo

A wordsman of wisdom, born into the book,
he grew to know just what it took
to examine and study, to describe and define,
uses and meanings by intent and design.

A sculptor of sentences, a litterateur,
he Rambled for readers in his forty-first year.
Growing older and wiser, his standing unmarred,
he took the bold step of critiquing The Bard.

Now certain of purpose, aware of the path,
he chose to expose the poets of Bath.
From Milton to Dryden, from Swift to Hope,
he gave us the scoop, he gave us the dope.

When Boswell penned his story, with maxims galore,
his friend, his companion, added much to Sam’s lore.
But alas, as is written, in this history,
It was Walter not Samuel, who always struck three.

__________________________________________

August 29, 2020

In Response to a Mensa SIG Haiku Challenge  on “Colors”:

Tints and tones rained on
shades of hue and me in days
before darkness came.

___________________________________________

August 29, 2020

In Response to a Mensa SIG Haiku challenge on “Silence”:

First thing I could hear
were birthing screams whispering
aloud the sounds of …

________________________________________

August 29, 2020

In Response to Mensa Poetry Group Challenge from Bruce Miller- re: the photo

Small of feature
is this creature
who poses for the camera lens
and artists bearing pens
to show the world – mankind,
that if ye seek, ye shall find
a woman that sits and rests
with pointed eyes and perky breasts
that beckon and stare, here and there
at we who look and take the dare
of one Bruce Miller’s daily fare.

_________________________________________

September 25, 2020, response to Poetry Group Haiku prompt “Red”:

Cincinnati Pete
Burns the game he play’d and luved

like a Red, Red Rose.

– Pete Rose, 1974

– Robert Burns, 1794

– for “burning” the game

_________________________________________

January 24, 2021, response to Mensa Poetry SIG photo prompt:

Lady dear, I neighed so long,

but no one came, to hear my song.

So I peeked inside, to see who’s here,

but saw no one, not a soul was near.

I’m hungry you see, with no hay to be found

so I poked my head through, and looked around.

But just as I readied to resume my plea,

A squirrel or chipmunk goosed me, you see.

So forward I pushed, to escape the attack,

but I couldn’t go forward and I couldn’t go back.

Stuck and confused, I twisted and turned,

my head spun around, and I was really concerned.

The attack had subsided, so my direction was clear,

and with one final burst, I fell back, on my rear.

Undamaged I am, but not so your door,

it’s not as stable as it was heretofore.

I’ll make it good, yes I’ll find a way,

then resume my song, my endearing neigh,

if you’ll do one thing, without further delay,

get off your ass, and bring me some HAY !

________________________________________

January 29, 2021, response to Mensa Poetry SIG photo prompt:

Picket fence of white, lawn of green,

flowers of gold, and a girl in between.

She sits so still, this maiden fair,

secured in place by the knot in her hair.

But what is the reason, what is the cause,

the story behind whatever this was?

A cynic might venture a guess it’s a pose,

a plot for a shot, that she herself chose.

But what if by chance it just fell into place,

as she took her seat in that serene little space?

If she lowered herself with style and grace,

and the post extended a simple embrace?

That would be charming to the nth degree

but what would happen if a bee stung her knee?

I fear she would rise, with uncommon haste,

her hair and the fence still interlaced.

Something would give, something would take,

and then we would know if it’s real or it’s fake.

But while we wait, we can imagine the scene,

fenceposts and ground, and a girl in between.

(If those last words sound familiar to you,

just look up above, to the end of line two.)

_______________________________________

February 16, 2021, response to Mensa poetry SIG prompt (based on original “Deer, Boy”):

A Polish child, often reviled,

uniquely bred, with antlered head,

he counts the deer, as they appear,

across his dreams, and fields and streams.

His mother cries, his father tries,

in foot pursuit, to make him shoot,

to no avail, he won’t prevail,

the boy stays one, rejects the gun.

He runs in stride, eyes open wide,

sounds the alarm, miles from their farm,

for them to run, this hunter’s son,

true to his breed, so they won’t bleed,

from bullets fired, his call inspired,

they hear his plea, the deer run free,

buck with a rack, doe in the back,

one thing is clear, he holds them dear.

His father’s glare, and endless stare,

offset by wise, motherly eyes,

leave him alone, though barely grown,

to breathe relief, feel disbelief,

the day has passed, dusk comes at last,

he touches his head, prone on the bed,

one of a kind, mood undefined,

his tale is rare, his tail unfair.

_________________________________________

March 20, 2021, response to Mensa Poetry SIG Haiku Challenge for “BEES”:

“Excuse me, Honey,
but Hive wanted to Mate you,”
he Droned to the Queen.

________________________________________

March 26, 2021, response to Mensa Poetry SIG Haiku Challenge for “BLUEBELL”:

The beast from Bordeaux,
on the flowered forest floor,
asked, “Feeling blue, Belle?”

________________________________________

September 24, 2021, response to Mensa Poetry SIG Haiku Challenge for “SHADOWS”:

Non judgmental, fair.
Unlike mirrors and photos,
they conceal our scars.

________________________________________¹*

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Wayne Michael DeHart   (August, 2022)

(This was written in August of 2022  as an entry into the 2022 National Veterans Creative Arts writing competition for a category described as “Military Experience – Not Poetry” with an 850-word limit.  I have since made a few small edits that slightly increased that stringent number, and very recently added a series of significant Writer’s Notes, with photos. (The competition was text-only.) The Notes complete and complement the narrative. I tried to lighten the mood at the end of the notes, for both myself and the reader. But the hourglass is running low, and this one time I’ll “go there.” This is not a war-story website; never was and never will be. They’re a dime a dozen and enough is enough. My next post is also Vietnam-based, but it is light-hearted and hopefully witty and that’s the direction I’d rather go on this topic. The only thing they have in common is that neither are fiction.  This one touches the fringes of events which led to my poem, “Incoming” – https://wordvet.net/2022/02/22/incoming/ .  It describes in just 174 words the fear, the “crap,” that permeates my mind in the darkness and the depth of most of my nights and which has ruled my life for so many years. And will to the end. I recognize that the relentless river of severe panic that consumes and threatens to drown me can be disconcerting and misunderstood, and thus I generally live in self-isolation to avoid creating uneasiness for myself and others. “Incoming” was written in an attempt to convey the callous, controlling complexity of the poem’s Beast as succinctly as I could. The success or failure of that endeavor can only be determined by you, the reader.  WMD 12/27/22)

In the early evening of December 26th, 1970, at a small Army camp across the road from the Marine helicopter facility at Marble Mountain, just south of DaNang, five of us were kicking back with Cokes and beers and stale cookies someone had received from home. The conversation was rambling and the topics random, with multiple voices speaking at once. It was like we were all talking aloud to ourselves, unable to focus on the messages or the messengers in the plywood-partitioned, double-racked quarters.

An intermittent, light rain pattered across the Quonset hut’s tin roof, calling to mind the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Rain on the Roof” and The Cascades’ “Rhythm of the Rain” – two well-worn 45’s of mine left behind in a New Hampshire closet, boxed into silence – amid fleeting flashes of familiar faces back in “the world.” 

“Dee, whatcha smiling about over there?”, came the thundering voice of “Baby-San,” still just 19 almost a year into his tour – a brawny, fearless Texan with boyish (hence the good-natured nickname) features and a confident swagger. He was physically intimidating and sometimes volatile, but was generally an affable and likable kid. “Sure ain’t that burnt beak of his,” jabbed Steve from Wisconsin. I had been one of two guys from our advance platoon whose names were drawn to catch the Bob Hope Show at Freedom Hill on Christmas Eve. I lingered so long under a scorching sun that it sautéed two layers off the ridge of my schnoz. I countered with, “Hey, no skin off YOUR nose, Sailor.” Pretty decent comeback, I thought, knowing Steve was still irked about being rejected by the Navy in the summer of ’69. He swigged some Pabst and tipped his boonie toward me in a touche’-like acknowledgment of shared, requisite rapport.

After a prolonged pause, Baby-San and I (the Coke guys) remained in the makeshift room as our beer-drinking compatriots adjourned to a sandbag bunker with the rest of the cookies. He and I exchanged thoughts on who we were and where we might be in ten years. He wanted to be a forest ranger somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. “Exchange this uniform for that one. Exchange this reality for that dream.” “Sounds good, man.” “Yeah, you got that right.” But he looked somber while adding that it was just as likely he’d be hauling trash for a living. “Ain’t no lie, there’s always bugs in the butter.” His tour was almost over and this outwardly-confident short-timer had revealed an unexpected uncertainty about following the path back home, and once there, finding himself. I could only nod and say the obligatory, “Don’t mean nothin’, man.” It was the go-to generic response when one didn’t know what to say, at that time, in that place.

“How about you, Dee. You’re always writin’ letters and stuff. Must have a pack of girls back home, you dog.” I tempted fate, feigning umbrage and giving him a poor man’s stink eye before good-naturedly shaking my head. “I wish.” I joked that this mutt had been kicked to the curb long before being sworn in, then described that “stuff” as what we called “prose and poetry” back in high school. “Would kinda like to be a writer sometime down the road, have lots of thoughts and ideas running through my head. But the truth is I’ll probably be working that garbage truck alongside you, clanging can covers to a Creedence Clearwater song.” He wasn’t buying it. “Seriously, you should write a book about THIS crap. Give ’em the dirty details – the reckless, anything-goes, no-holds-barred shit. Keep it real. No John Wayne jive.” I told him I was thinking more along the line of conventional “word fare,” as opposed to unconventional warfare. “Not looking to make waves, just rhetorically ride them.” He stood and flexed, striking an exaggerated bodybuilder pose. He grunted, “Mention the strong and righteous ‘BS’, as in Baby-San, and we’re good.” (Rest in peace, Al, and I just did.)

“Gotta come up with a good title, title’s everything, Dee.” I pulled out my wallet and handed him a folded index card with a proposed book title from two years earlier  – “Three Times Sadness.” “Jeez, man, sounds depressing. Ain’t gonna sell no books that way. What’s it about? What’s your sadness?” I shrugged, telling him I didn’t know yet, that I always write titles before I write stories or poems, then write the latter to fit the former. (His expression read, “Say again?”) I told him I might have a shipload of sadness to write about by then, but he seemed to have checked out.  “Dee?” “Yeah?” “Sometimes I wonder: do the guys treat me good because they like me, or are they just afraid I’ll beat their ass?” For a few brief moments, he appeared weary, fatigued, vulnerable – and old beyond his years. “Both, I think.” He let the words sink in for a minute, then his eyes came alive and he nodded approvingly. “Hey, nuthin wrong with that, works for me, brother man.” It was his turn to smile. “Twelve and a wakeup, GI. See ya on the other side.” And then he was gone.

Hours passed and then came the sirens. Showtime. The skies lit up. The images blurred. The night roared.

Christmas was over; the crap was not.

Today, more than five decades and seven seas of sadness later, the book remains an elusive pipe dream.

But I think I know where I can use that title.

#

WRITER’S NOTES:

********************
RIP “Baby-San” – Alfred “Al” John Kappus, 1951-2014

Thanks, “brother man,” for the ever-present banter and repartee, and specifically for that oft-remembered conversation. Yours was the classic “larger than life” presence, energy in overdrive. Though our paths crossed for only a brief period of time, your encouragement and your inspiration left its mark in a way that you would have wanted, and that I welcomed and understood. And, yes, I will “see ya on the other side”  –  and it will be my honor.

********************

(Artwork: Charlie Thibodeau / 2022 / painting in his own vivid colors, back here “in the world”)

Charlie is a Marine who came of age just down the road from me in a nearby NH town. We never met in our youth, despite the proximity of our age and location. Soon after first meeting at the VA about six years ago, we stumbled into an awareness that we had dated the same shy, brown-eyed girl way back when Hector was a pup. 
Bonnie’s smile made you instinctively smile right back, whatever your mood. And when he and I talked about her, of course we smiled too, remembering her fondly, respectfully, as older gentlemen remember a young lady from days gone by. She very recently left this world behind, but had she known that an unlikely pair of long-ago beaux still reminisced about her warmly, half a century later, I suspect she would have flashed that contagious smile one last time before departing, expressing  the sentiment and substance of Baby-San’s words: “Hey . . . works for me.”

Turns out Charlie was serving just up the road a bit from me there in I Corps on that December night described above. Now, despite 3,000 miles of America stretching out between us, we stay in touch, share some late-night laughs and catch each other up on news both mundane and meaningful, while mutually keeping “the crap” out of the chatter, though we both know it lurks like a cancer just below the surface – and always will.

Darkness be damned as we two remain thankful to be among the fortunate ones still blessed to breathe the air, catch the wind, hear the rain on the roof, and behold a sea of stars in the clear night sky. We fight against, and survive, the dangers of the night. Then we embrace the sweet, saving grace of  daybreak’s first light. And in those inevitable, recurring moments when the world is too heavy and our resilience is too light, he eats ice cream and turns to his canvas and I eat dark chocolate and turn to this keyboard – both of us coping and fighting the good fight, a day at a time, as best we can, each in our own way.
**********************************

These first four photos were taken by me, using a Kodak Instamatic camera, from a Camp Baxter guard tower fronting the Marble Mountain Air Facility (then home to Marines MAG-16, supplemented by an Army helicopter company & 5th Special Forces), with the South China Sea in the background. There are actually five fabled Marble Mountains, the northernmost of them standing strong in the distance in the first pic, which was taken facing south along the coastal road. (Seventeen Green Berets were killed at Marble Mountain on August 23rd, 1968 – the largest loss of life in a single attack in Special Forces history.) Several choppers can be seen “forming up” above the facility in the second photo. The two bottom pics show fortified, armor-plated, 10-wheel “deuce-and-a-half” gun trucks traveling north toward DaNang.  These trucks were rigged out  –  uniquely modified and equipped, each with a catchy name emblazoned boldly on the side. They primarily protected transportation units, serving as escorts for convoys, and were not to be messed with due to the trucks’ maneuverability and formidable weaponry, matched by the aggressive, “bring it on” mentality of its crew.

The last photo was taken by me from one of two towers that faced northwest into a tiny civilian/drug sales area next to a seemingly out-of-place and unattended temple. The camp’s “cursed tower,” visible just to the right in the pic and further away than it appears at that angle, was the site of several personnel losses during my time there, one of them highly personal and particularly distressing to me. Roger arrived in-country just days before his 19th birthday and took his last breath in that tower just two months later – on my own birthday, nine days before my tour ended. Though Baxter served as my “home base” for most of my 365 days in-country, my classified courier designation had me in unrestricted movement status, traveling alone around RVN for 5-10 days each month, which proved to be both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was simply time spent away from the camp, which gained a lot of notoriety for a series of reprehensible events and situations that coincided with my time there. The curse was feeling disconnected and isolated out on the road by myself, engaging in fleeting interactions with nameless faces in  unfamiliar places, with too much time to think but not enough time to understand. The saving grace was that I did my job and I did it well. Then I came home.

Thirteen years later, the Beast burst into my life, and I realized I had never left, and now I know I never will.
So be it.
*********************************************************************************************

Hitting some lighter notes . . .

That night it was Coke, but sometimes it was Pepsi, sometimes a Fanta flavor. A-V-A-I-L-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y !
( I have no clue what was going on with that center-forehead clump of hair. Looks like a burnt chicken leg.)

The occasional silver linings about being in RVN: avoiding haircuts, wearing weathered and worn boots, saluting maybe two times per month, with half of those being of the one-finger variety. Nobody cared, except on those one or two days a month when I was in Saigon. Some of those junior officers down there just couldn’t resist enforcing the saluting part of being a soldier. I humored them to avoid barriers because the warm, welcoming ladies of Tu Do Street were waiting and offered a far better evening ambience than the usually-empty transient barracks.
Silver linings, indeed.

“These Boots Were Made for Walkin'”
(Here I am pondering my existence while in a horizontal position. I got no answers.)

******************************************************

Taken right after I got back from R&R in Taipei. Reality check. Hard eyes. Cold stare.
Go ahead, make my day. “Frick this crap” mood. (I didn’t like this guy. Routinely cursed him out, to no avail.)

*****************************************************

 

 

And of course I still have those original, referenced “two well-worn 45’s of mine” – only now in a different NH closet. Bought both new from Greenlaw’s Music Store in Laconia, NH. “Rain on the Roof” in 1966 and “Rhythm of the Rain” in 1963. 

Even better with sound . . .

#

Wayne Michael DeHart  (August, 2022)

Are you still there? Are you okay?
Do you rue the day? Have you gone astray?
Do you have someone to light your way?
Is it a he or a she, or maybe a they?
What can I do? What can I say?
Are your skies blue? Or shades of gray?
If I deal the right cards, will you play?
If I say the right words, will you stay?
And the clock ticks fast, taking time away.

Why don’t you answer? It just isn’t fair.
I’m here for you. All’s forgiven, I swear.
I’ll do anything. I’ll go anywhere.
If you won’t come here, I’ll go there.
I’ll travel by train. I’ll get there by air.
We can find a bench in the city square.
Sit close and hug, get take-out to share.
Whatever it takes, to show you I care.
And the clock ticks on, no time to spare.

Why won’t you call, why don’t you write?
Tell me, please, what you’re doing tonight.
Are you sick? Do you hurt? Are you alright?
Can you see my face when I’m out of sight?
My nights are dark, the stars aren’t bright.
My colors surrender to black and to white.
Don’t want to quarrel, don’t want to fight.
You left. You’re gone. Turned off the light.
And the clock ticks forward, while I sit tight.

You primped like a Queen, spurning her King.
You took what I had without giving a thing.
Do you heed what I say? Hear when I sing?
Cruel words cut deep, and yours still sting.
Was I shelter in your storm, a passing fling?
You sold me a story, so I bought you a ring.
You promised we’d marry in the early Spring
Then flew away fast, like a bird on the wing.
And the clock ticks wane, play out the string.

You flaunted the role of a runaway bride.
Shunned the sun for the moon’s dark side.
Said you’d come back, but again you lied.
Took me for granted, took me for a ride.
Yet I always pursued, swallowed my pride.
Searched every hole, where you might hide.
Now I’m turning the tables, turning the tide.
I’ve opened my eyes, I’ve opened them wide.
And the clock ticks not. Our time has died.

“Are you still there? Are you okay?
What can I do? What can I say?
Can I come play, Billy Ray?
I’ll stay, won’t run away.
Say ‘Yea,’ I pray.”

Hey, no way, you’ve become passé.
Just too risqué and bound to stray.
Nope to “Yea.” I’ll go with “Nay.”
A happy yay and a hip hooray.
Time’s up, Mae. Adiós. Olé!

“But Billy, I’m lost. I’ll do anything.
My only dream is to be Mae King.”

Awww, Mae, my love, yes, come back.
I miss your smile and I miss your rack.

“Hold on Billy, I’m coming anew.”

Gotta say, angel Mae. I am too!

• The End (of the poem, yes, but wait . . .)

Writer’s Note:  Thirteen years after their 1976 wedding, and ten years after she divorced him for messing around with Molly, a female waitperson in Baton Rouge, Billy Ray King disappeared while aimlessly roaming the salt flats of Utah, in deep despair. Never did get his mojo back and Miss Molly had already moved on to a bigger and better tipper. The increasingly magnificent Mae remained a King because it carried a more refined and less cringey vibe than her maiden name, “McSnottery.” Lady got her head straight, earned a business degree from Florida State, and settled in Lake Delford, Florida, where she made a name for herself and got quite a bang out of it. When time allows and if your curiosity is piqued, you can catch up with her improbable goings-on here:

Mae King, Out at The Kabb Inn

Wayne Michael DeHart   (June, 2021)

Grabbed bread and milk and some orange juice
and asked for a six-pack of bananas for the road
but Minnie snorted and said a no-use recluse
should stay out of sight, not leave his abode
(so I wouldn’t be subject to verbal abuse
from a mean-spirited, spiteful nematode?).
My response was brisk, blunt and profuse:
“Milady (a title befitting this ominous ode),
I’m going home to seduce chocolate mousse
and then double down with pie a la mode,
giving you some time to produce an excuse
for the way you’ve let your manners erode;
to reflect on your words, conclude and deduce,
you crapped on me like a commode overflowed.
She recoiled in anger, said “Get out – VAMOOSE,”
calling me everything from a turd to a toad.
She slammed her size 12 right up my caboose
so hard and so swift I felt my innards implode.
Still, I returned one night for gas and produce,
but my butt once again got firmly steel-toed.
Minnie Smart was combative, her lips too loose.
Her anger flashed fire and her rage was a load.
Then came the night she booted Mayor Bruce;
he fell on his head and his heart soon slowed.
They took her away, she cooked her own goose.
Her weak side showed and her tears free-flowed.
She played her last ace, dropped her last deuce,
checked out in her cell, ducked the dues she owed.
The store was sold and razed, but the land’s in use –
a park for the people, that the buyer bestowed.
The widow of Bruce
had honored his code
of living life’s truce
in true giving mode.
#

Wayne Michael DeHart ( September, 2021)

 

Fear

cannot

be ignored.

It mauls my mind

and torments my soul,

brutally, through the night.

Vicious, venomous, vengeful,

the Beast backs off at day’s first light.

 

Sleep

drops by

for a spell.

Does not settle

or stay long enough

to calm stress or ease angst.

Sandman moves on, in search of

tired, restless souls in safer spaces.

 

Clouds,

lonely,

wander past.

The poet’s gaze

fills with sparkling waves

of rays dancing, glancing

off watchful, weathered windows.

His eye light dies, and dread draws near.

 

Throat

spasms

choke me hard

come twilight time.

Winter’s early dusk

prolongs night’s terror siege.

Fret festers. Fright fills this room,

where madness wins and mayhem rules.

 

Fierce,

frenzied,

fire attacks

blister my brain.

They rage in hot bursts;

flaring fast, flaming out.

Enough, can’t take any more.

Then comes Hell, and burns down my door.

 

Crushed,

consumed,

for so long.

“Shake it off, boy,

it’s all in your head.”

Panic reigns, peril rains.

The Beast bites deep in the dark;

where no one sees, when no one hears.

#

 

 

 

Wayne Michael DeHart  (September, 2021)

Though none were inclined to agree, the brash braggart boasted he’d be
a man in command; leading the band, living his life so high and so grand.
A weed devotee, at eighteen he was free, to chill and get stoned by the sea.
He tanned, and rolled reefers by hand, as he manly-manned a lifeguard stand.
Five years into a toking spree, he was busted, mistrusted, at age twenty-three.
Canned, banned, he split the sand of the strand to seek and seed fertile land.
Due west from Myrtle Beach he did flee, past the lea, to Big Tree, near Elloree,
to try his hand (poorly planned) at planting and growing his very own brand.

This jobless jackal named Jake, a snippety snake, a claim he did stake
on an expanse so divine – eight acres of pine, or perhaps it was nine.
He hoped for fresh water – a pond or a lake – befitting a Walden remake,
but away from the brine, his stars didn’t align, and his moon didn’t shine.
Told he could neither borrow nor make the big bucks that would take,
said, “okay, fine, if but one acre be mine, dinky and dry I cannot decline.”
A fake, a flake, a walking mistake, hallelujah, the dreamer was finally awake.
He dragged his own line, hell-bent to define, to design, a brand he’d refine.

Sharing here what I hear, he and John Deere, they launched into high gear, 
felling trees left and right, till sunlight took flight, giving ground to the night.
He pledged to persevere, and in just one-sixth of a year, he was able to clear 
a feasible, functional farming site, the prize for his fight, a freewheeler’s delight.  
Jake toasted himself with beer and a cheer, and Ms. Mary Jane abuzz in his ear.
“A joint venture bright, airtight,” mused the mock, mythical, modern-day knight.
Then from his rear did appear a doe-eyed dear, a damsel top-tier, à la Guinevere,
attired purely in white, to excite on sight, so slim and slight, a spellbinding sprite.

His eyes were aglow, this swaggering schmuck/schmo, as he hungrily hollered hello
to the enchanting young maid who coyly displayed genteel jewelry of genuine jade.
He could not know what quid pro quo this vivacious vamp/vixen would deem apropos,
but the guy never frayed, stayed stoic, stayed staid, smugly sure he couldn’t be played.
She sipped Bordeaux, he slurped Merlot; when they gave it a go, she snatched his dough.
He strayed and got meekly Miss-laid. Dismayed, disarrayed, the fated flier felt his fire fade.
The faux Thoreau became a kept beau, a weak bro, a punchless putz in her puppet show.
Unforgiving, unafraid, on a crusade, “Jen” disparaged his doobie till he sadly “oy vey!”-ed.

But wait – what was his quo, and what was her quid? Jake didn’t know, but Jen sure did.
From whence had she come, with her cute little bum, bearing a pear as sweet as a plum?
Well, think back to your time as a kid, when your ego was battered, and twice so your id.
Remember the boy who called you dumb, and tangled your hair with goo, glue and gum?
Milady didn’t forget, so heaven forbid, what havoc she’d wreak, way out here off the grid.
By nine Jake had become a nastily numb, callously caustic, cruelly crude, sick sack of scum.
Transfigured, the now lovely, lithe lassie let loose her lid, and into her quid, his quo she slid. 
She gave the crumb “some,” then watched him succumb to her cunning game of zero sum.

The chump learned the tables had turned. His bread was gone but her butter got churned.
That acre he bought, financed without thought, was part and parcel of her father’s woodlot.
Jake hadn’t worried and wasn’t concerned, that his payments were twofold what he earned.
A “man in command” he proved to be not, because lessons unheeded are lessons untaught.
Once he discerned his buns had been burned, his botched bid for a brand stood adjourned.
She had cached all his cash, leaving him naught, then Daddy foreclosed on poor Jake’s plot.
He sat sadly spurned, his life overturned. The dope never returned for that which he yearned.
Jen at last got the revenge she sought, wielding her wiles, while lampooning his lance a lot ! 

UPDATE: 

Almost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   forgot:
Jenny hooked up hot, to trot, with King Artie “Wart”, a royal big shot.
They tied a knoble knuptial knot, in a most congenial spot,
where by her own hand, she bred her own brand – “Jen’s Jerky” pot,
before happily-ever-aftering . . . there . . . in . . . Cam-e-lot.

A bit bizarre, sure – but Richard Harris himself says “IT’S TRUE !!!!!”  . . .

Eager beaver Jake flexing for the camera in the act of “felling trees left and right” …

And a quick word from our sponsor:                                                                                                                                          

Wayne Michael DeHart  

(Written July 4th, 2021, in anticipation of the observance of the 20th anniversary of 9/11)

One
they were,
unbroken.
Dark-dazed, dismayed,
enshrouded in haze,
these lionhearts emerged
as shadows from the rubble.
Fueled by fate, faith and fury,
they breathed in fumes from the maelstrom, then
pulled from the ashes – America’s soul.

Safe
in our
homes we watched
our countrymen
unite on the ground.
Citizens of the world
paused their own woes, felt our pain,
as borderless empathy reigned.
The ache and the hurt never lessened
– ever – but the path to healing began.

Rise
from the
deep anguish
to the challenge
was the call we heard.
Unwavering, nameless,
faceless first responders mourned
their silenced brothers and sisters
present on the roll call of lives lost.
We stood with them as they had stood for us.

Some
signed on,
took up arms,
in those first years
after the planes came.
Wars ensued, burdens were borne.
Though worry weighed heavily
on loved ones back home, undaunted
men and women nobly gave back to
their country, their allies, as one, as all.

Time
has taught
us – you, me –
to remember
the day the earth moved
as more than a datemark
for flags that gallantly streamed.
Those who served then, those who serve now,
and those who served in-between hold fast
and firm, fervent among compatriots.

We
honor
The Fallen.
Lament their loss,
each in our own way.
The deceased from that day,
and the uniformed thousands
who followed, await our salute.
Though the dust now be settled, the light
back in our days, still, the memory stays.

On that day of chaos that blocked the sun,
the peerless, the fearless, second to none,
raised themselves up, said “there’s work to be done.”
September eleventh, two-thousand one.

# 

Finalist: US Army Veteran, Wayne Michael DeHart

Wayne Michael DeHart   (June, 2021)

 

May 17, 1811, City of Leeds, England

 

Said the Lad to the Lady:

Dearest Elise, the blue in my skies,
I bring to you this birthday surprise.
It’s neither silver nor gold,
but this day I’ve been told
it will bring tears to your emerald eyes.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

Dear Aidan, the light in my darkest of nights,
the one who has turned my wrongs into rights,
any gift you bestow
will delight me I know,
you’re the finest of my acolytes.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

Please my lady, please my love,
I fervently pray to the gods above
that you not think of me
as just one of the three
who serve the needs that you speak of.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

But what would I say to your peers in grey
if I took for granted what they do each day?
Your heart is pure and true
and I highly treasure you,
and so I wish not to lead you astray.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

What am I hearing, what might you mean
when your words cut like daggers, swift and keen?
I delivered each time
you searched for a rhyme
when you wrote that poem for the wake of Colleen.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

My sweet lad, for that I’m in debt to you,
your words so tender, offered on cue,
but Colleen would feel so sad
if she knew her young man had
used them to barter, used them to woo.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

When my mother abandoned me at the age of four.
It was you who found me outside your door
and welcomed me inside,
though my spirit had died,
and I couldn’t have been blessed any more.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

Then listen and learn from the one who knows
why a woman with the love of a Burns red rose
chose this place, this face,
she knew would embrace
her laddie when her ill-timed sickness arose.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

My father died in the war before I was born
and mother Colleen cried every morn
missing his courage, his grace,
missing the smile she couldn’t erase,
near the end, most cheerless, lost and forlorn.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

Ten years have passed and it’s time you knew
that Colleen had a sister and a brother too.
His name was Alec Erick
and when Colleen got sick
he came from Scotland to bid her adieu.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

I have an uncle, is that what you say?
Where is he now? Will he come this way?
And an aunt as well?
Please, I pray you tell,
why at fourteen, do I learn this today?

Said the Lady to the Lad:

Dear Alec Erick, I must sadly report
has gone to his Maker, his life cut short,
not unlike his sister Colleen,
he left the earth at only nineteen,
leaving you here for me to support.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

My mother was nineteen at the time she departed?
She gave birth to me when her life had just started?
I arrived here at four,
she lived eight years more,
This news is not for the fainthearted!

Said the Lady to the Lad:

No, I meant like his sister, he died far too young,
Colleen was twenty-five when her church-bells rung.
He was seventeen, in Glasgow for school,
when he came back that day to Liverpool
to hear once more, her song left unsung.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

Well, that’s a relief, her age I mean,
that she didn’t die when she was nineteen.
Would have had me at twelve,
a thought I’ll just shelve.
Go on, and I won’t intervene.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

You are so young and it’s confusing I know.
So prepare yourself for an emotional blow.
Colleen and her brother,
from one to the other,
once viewed their older sister as foe.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

Though it’s still far from clear, it would appear
that this sister is someone I don’t want to be near.
I’m glad she went away
to no one’s dismay,
at best insincere, a woman to fear.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

Dear Aidan, she never left, she’s not gone.
The poet would say she’s hither, not yon.
Colleen saved you for her
and lost her own sir
when he left one morning at dawn.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

You mean he left for the war, a hero so brave,
a man for his country his life he gave?
It’s sad I never knew him at all,
still unborn at the time of his fall.
She lost her sir – my dad – when he went to his grave.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

Colleen wasn’t married, nor did she bear a child.
She was a maiden lass, pure, undefiled.
Her sir walked away
when you went to stay.
She made you her life when her sister last smiled.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

My mother Colleen did not give me life?
The man who died at war- she was not his wife?
Those tears that she shed
when she lay in her bed,
pierced my heart, like the blade of a knife.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

The brave man was not his wife, but he was your Dad.
Her tears were for you, so don’t feel sad.
Abandoned you were,
but not by her.
Your Dad was another woman’s Sir Galahad.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

So for ten long years, I held hate in my heart
toward a woman who saved me from some cheap tart?
The world is cruel
and I played the fool,
I’m young but I’m strong, I’ll tear her apart.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

Cast aside your anger, it’s ill-mannered and wrong.
You were birthed by her sister, alone and not strong.
Just six weeks after his flag was unfurled,
you picked up his mantle and entered the world.
And now at this hour, I’m singing his song.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

You knew him before Colleen left me here?
You know where she is, this woman I jeer?
Tell me straight out
what’s this all about
and please be perfectly clear.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

I’ve no place to hide, no place to run,
I am your mother and you are my son.
Your peers are your brothers,
from unknown young mothers
who gave them up when their demons won.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

So it wasn’t fate I was left at your door.
Colleen did for you, what you’ve done twice more.
In time I’ll be proud to be
an equal as one of the three,
but how do I fare, losing the one I live for!

Said the Lady to the Lad:

You’ve not lost a thing, you’ve found your mother, a friend,
A new book has opened, its ending yet to be penned.
When you see me that way
in the light of the day
you will find fitting presents to bring and to send.

Said the Lad to the Lady:

Dearest Mother, the blue in my skies,
I bring to you this birthday surprise.
It’s neither silver nor gold,
it’s my heart that you hold,
seeing the tears in your emerald eyes.

Said the Lady to the Lad:

Dear Son, the light in my darkest of nights,
the one who has turned my wrongs into rights,
this gift of your heart
is a true chance to be part
of your Galahad dad, the finest of Knights.

#

Wayne Michael DeHart   (March 7, 2021)

From nineteen fifty-four through nineteen sixty-two,
we roamed those halls, and that schoolyard too.
Some years a lay teacher, but most with a nun,
some years a split class, but all remained one.
As we grew up together, we lived by one rule:
this fortress, these bricks, were more than a school.
Discipline was swift and the homework took hours,
as lessons were learned, their values became ours.

The public school students threw us a glance,
as we engaged in our pomp and our circumstance.
Though we learned with grace in that parochial space,
Sacred Heart School enlightened at much the same pace.
The “Irish church” (St Joseph’s, right next to the school)
and the “French church” (Sacre Coeur) were utterly cool.
That’s what we thought, so that’s what we said,
when asked by others if we saw transfers ahead.

Green was our color, gold were our stars,
we led with our right, and we left without scars.
Some departed, some came, (“Hey, what’s your name?”),
but most stayed the course, the bond stayed the same.
Some struggled to keep up, to fit in, to belong,
but we weathered the storms and we all got along.
At some point in time, grade five or grade six,
we knew we’d be fine and we knew what to fix.

The nuns seemed more gracious as the years passed by,
and we all got smarter, as we reached for the sky.
Crushes were born and notes would soon pass,
as flirting at recess became flirting in class.
Our last two years we learned compassion and care
but that life could be daunting and not always fair.
The eighth-grade teacher, Scholastic and stern,
pulled me aside, told me “write what you learn.”

We graduated and moved on to Laconia High,
with new friends to find, with new things to try.
We brought memories born of eight years a team,
but were starting all over, swimming upstream.
Our academic foundations served us quite well,
we knew how to think and we knew how to spell.
Some of us went one way, and some went another,
but she stayed my sister, and he stayed my brother.

What strengths will we have, which skills will we lack?
What point might we miss, if we never look back?
“You reap what you sow”, “You are what you know”,
“To fail is to grow” – perspectives gained so long ago.
So we turned back to the books, heading into the turn.
We had courses to conquer, and a diploma to earn.
Some days tested our mettle, but none brought us down,
thanks to family and friends and the good folks in town.

Our grammar school home from those formative days,
now renamed and relocated, has evolved in its ways.
The students are fewer, but the same standards apply.
Do your best, help the rest, and still reach for the sky.
I’ve heeded her words and written down what I’ve learned;
respect is earned, trust returned, and bridges get burned.
I walked the halls of the decayed building before it was locked.
Felt their presence, heard their voices, as they listened and talked.

We choose to remember things we’d rather forget,
because we treasure the triumph of challenges met.
The forty-seven students who shared their last days there,
have traveled different pathways, have breathed different air.
But one thing has stayed constant, across life’s many lawns,
whether I’ve stood up with knights, or stood down with pawns.
From so many sunsets, through so many dawns,
I’d still see the faces of the kids of St. John’s.

#

(Writer’s note: “The eighth-grade teacher, Scholastic and stern,” – the word “Scholastic” is capitalized for a reason, i.e., the 8th grade teacher was a nun who chose the vocational name Sister Scholastica, who truly was both scholastic and stern, yet a true and dedicated educator with a passion for music on the side.)

The 47 faces of the kids of St. John’s School, Class of 1962, Laconia, NH:
To those who have passed, may their stars burn bright.
To those who remain, keep reaching for the sky.
In spirit, the bond remains intact, and the 47 remain as one.

Wayne Michael DeHart  (February, 2020) 

I

A learned yet awkward soul seemed he.
Never seen with a smile, never seen with a frown.
New to “The Rivers” in May of Eighteen Sixty,
with shoulders so broad and eyes so brown.

He kept to himself, for the first several days,
before venturing out, before walking the town.
He addressed a young lady as she passed him by,
but his voice betrayed him, slurring the sound.

She did not understand the unsteady words,
so she kept on walking, kept going around.
Embarrassed he was to cause her concern.
He first looked back, and then looked down.

But Susan Daniell, noting the stranger’s dismay,
turned and stepped forward, onto his ground.
She could see he was nervous, and his tongue had been tied,
and knew right away that his graces were bound.

His shoulder she touched with outstretched hand,
turning him gently till his courage was found.
She smiled and asked “Your name please, Sir?”,
and his head lifted up; his graces unbound.

II

“Alvah” spoke he in his clearest tone,
as his presence in town he tried to explain.
The river he said was a powerful tool,
a force of nature, fueled by the rain.

Confused was the lady but curious too,
“Farming you mean? A man of the grain?”
“Making, not growing” he was quick to say,
“I learned it in Enfield, it’s become my domain.”

Susan studied his face and liked what she saw,
his words now just noise as they began to wane.
For she was distracted and starting to tire,
cramping and wincing with a familiar pain.

She tried to dismiss it, to stay the course,
but he sensed her stress and he saw her strain.
“May I help you, M’lady? May I see you home?,
May I walk with you? May I see you again?”

She removed her glove and extended her hand,
taking his in hers, telling him to remain.
“I live close by, it’s just down the street,
so come by tomorrow, to 10 Webster Lane.”

III

Four years his junior, a gentle seventeen,
she greeted him warmly, in the morning light.
Her mother watched over, uncertain at first;
he had to be good, he had to be right.

His disheveled appearance belied his virtue.
This, Susan had sensed the previous night.
They talked and he loosened and even once smiled
at this pretty young lass, clothed entirely in white.

He told them both of his plans for a mill
he would build, sturdy and strong and watertight,
with a man named Aiken, who knew hosiery well
and had proposed the idea that they unite.

Miss Susan, she knew in her gut, in her heart,
that this man would become her forever knight.
They soon became close, over the months and the years,
and as he worked his dream, she remained in his sight.

Though that first enterprise struggled and closed –
it was revived in Sixty-Five in a union so tight.
A brother of Susan then partnered with Alvah,
creating Shaker half-hose to the town’s delight.

IV

A year into that venture, their finances secured,
each pledged to the other “I will” and “I do”.
As Alvah matured into the pride of this town,
he thrived in his role – the man everyone knew.

His time was shared ‘tween the mill and his wife
and he melded with both beyond his purview.
Susan readily, reliably, stood right by his side
as Fortune smiled down and the mill trade grew.

He traveled the state and brought Franklin renown
as a welcoming place for folks to come to.
Good jobs for the masses in buildings of brick
bettered the lives of the old and the new.

The couple fit in – liked, respected by all –
by neighbors and merchants, and workers too.
Simple yet elegant with their very own style,
they worked and they weaved and delivered on cue.

For themselves and the people who helped them succeed,
they stood steadfast and strong and saw everything through.
With three children to light up their darkest of nights,
the couple often were tried, but always were true.

V

With the mill standing strong with a life of its own,
Alvah moved on and enhanced his career.
A banker and a railroad man, he was also elected
to the Legislature in Concord, not far from here.

Through each of his callings, each of his roles,
The Man of the Mill remained focused, sincere.
While others gave speeches and danced to the drum,
Alvah kept to the task, and kept Susan still near.

His party ran him for Congress, more than one time.
At Nominating Conventions, three times he’d appear.
Back home in the town that had taken him in, he
championed and cherished the church he held dear.

The decades passed by and Susan passed on.
She stared down her fate without fright, without fear,
with stature and station, with status and strength.
Alvah granted her wish – that he not shed a tear.

Though three years later he took his rest by her side,
their spirit, their presence, did not disappear.
Their vision lived on ’til the day the mill died.
Farewell and goodbye, in its eighty-eighth year.  

#

Wayne Michael DeHart  (May, 1998) 

Settling onto the smooth surface of the rock nearest the edge,
I took my rest in the sheltering shadows of those who came before;
seeking answers in the splashing symphony of the Emergent Sea.

Northeast winds gathered and guided the sun-glistened swells,
adorning the vibrant waters with brilliant diamond sparkles
not unlike those that danced across her eyes at touching time.

The hours drifted as the gulls grew accustomed to my stillness
and coasted in to reclaim their roost and take a closer look
at the encroaching stranger staring vacantly into the distance.

The autumn afternoon faded gently into unwelcome twilight,
obscuring the horizon and enshrouding both vision and view.
The dusk lingered, intruding upon my thoughts and solitude.

The shoreline withdrew its welcome when sundown retired the day.
Disrupted and displaced, I rose to bid the Emergent Sea goodbye,
then tarried long; uncertain of my future, unsure of my return.

How striking was that first step back toward the weathered cottage
as my sudden turn revealed a moon immense and full, brilliant and swift
in its sudden ascent and capture of the silent star-struck sky.

Its luminous glow returned the diamonds to the surging sea.
They glittered softly upon the black surface behind the breakers;
undisturbed by the fury and the passion of the powerful tide.

The smothering darkness had surrendered to the lucent lamp
and resettled in places far away and unknown to me that night;
my only selfish concern being the illumination of the pathway.

When next we met I told her about the skylight and my awakening
midst gales and gulls and writhing whitecaps on the Emergent Sea.
It was a full and familiar moon that exposed her knowing smile.

As her words remained unspoken, my thoughts remained unbroken.
Then, in a musing moment, she asked why I had not seen it all before
in forty years of days and nights and suns and skies and seas.

I realized it was because my eyes had looked inward
each time I sought refuge on a soothing sunlit rock;
too secure in the daylight and too afraid of its passing
to reach out and grasp the grandeur of the sunset
and understand its place in the circle and cycle of my life.

Today, my eyes look outward, and upward, and afar.
Now, my vision is unveiled, my view is enlightened.
I transcend the darkness and embrace the essence of the night.
My heart pulses to the rhythmic tides of the Emergent Sea
and my spirit sings the silent song of the emerging moon.

Wayne Michael DeHart   (May, 1997)

Fired he said, you’re fired he said,
so drop what you’re doing and clean out your desk
and be gone by noon without disturbing the others
with shallow goodbyes and stuff like that
because you’re f ired , he said.

Six years of coming in early and leaving late
and skipping lunch and busting my butt for him.
Six years of showing up when I was sick
and missing vacations and covering up for him.

Tired he said,  I’m tired he said,
of your wrinkled shirts and worn-out suits
and Walmart shoes that don’t present
the proper image to our clients but no more
because I’m t ired , he said.

Six years of working at home at night
and neglecting my wife and kids for him.
Six years of waiting for a “reserved for” space
in the company parking lot for him.

Required he said,  it’s required he said,
that you turn in your name–tag along with your keys
and fill out some forms and aren’t those company pens
I see in your pocket so best hand them over
because it’s requ ired, he said.

Six years of concessions and wounded pride
and loss of self-esteem for him.
Six years of cheap motels and burger joints
to lower expense accounts for him.

Retired he said, Black’s retired he said,
without warning at mid-morning
to move to Scranton or some such place
and now the reports won’t get finished
because Black’s ret ired, he said.

Six years of torture in this terrible place
had greatly increased my disgust for him.
Six years of suffering in submissive silence
had nurtured a nagging contempt for him.

Expired he said, White’s expired he said,
dropped down to the floor at ten forty-four
clutching his chest and gasping for breath
without giving notice so we’re short one more
because White’s exp ired, he said.

Six years of timid yes-sirs and no-sirs
to display the proper respect for him.
Six years of flattering his unsightly spouse
so she’d always be in a good mood for him.

Re-hired he said, you’re re-hired he said,
it’s been a long morning of stress, strife and tension
but there are Black and White issues that need your attention
and  you’ll be forever indebted to me for saving your pension
and work even harder,  so you’re re-h ired, he said.

(How the tables had turned! I wanted to smirk.
Too often scorned, now I’d deal with this jerk.
Whatever the cost, it was my time and place.
But … valor was lost, when he snarled in my face.)

Inspired I said,  I’m inspired I said,
by your faith in me and this second chance
to prove my worth in this wonderful job and great career
to a man I trust and revere, respect and hold dear,
and I’m so incredibly insp…

ired, I said.