September 7: "Statues in the Park," Long Day, Creatives

It is the end of a long day.

I just got back to my hotel room after performing in a show in Calumet.  I've been doing The Red Jacket Jamboree for almost eight years now.  Most of the people connected with the RJJ are like family to me.  I love being around musicians and performers and writers and creatives.  It's my jam.  Truly.

I'm still feeling punky.  My voice is shot at the moment.  Just had a sneezing fit and empties my head of mucous.  (I know, I know.  You don't read this blog to hear about my bodily fluids.)  My energy reserves are running on empty at the moment.  I need some rest.

I got a text this morning from my oldest sister this morning.  She traveled to Detroit yesterday to help care for my aunt who is in hospice care.  From what my sister said, it doesn't sound like my aunt has any fight left in her.

Billy Collins contemplates mortality . . . 

Statues in the Park

by: Billy Collins

I thought of you today
when I stopped before an equestrian statue
in the middle of a public square,

you who had once instructed me
in the code of these noble poses.

A horse rearing up with two legs raised,
you told me, meant the rider had died in battle.

If only one leg was lifted,
the man had elsewhere succumbed to his wounds;

and if four legs were touching the ground,
as they were in this case-
bronze hooves affixed to a stone base-
it meant that the man on the horse,

this one staring intently
over the closed movie theater across the street,
had died of a cause other than war.

In the shadow of the statue,
I wondered about the others
who had simply walked through life
without a horse, a saddle, or a sword-

pedestrians who could no longer
place one foot in front of the other.

I pictured statues of the sickly
recumbent on their cold stone beds,
the suicides toeing the marble edge,

statues of accident victims covering their eyes,
the murdered covering their wounds,
the drowned silently treading the air.

And there was I,
up on a rosy-gray block of granite
near a cluster of shade trees in the local park,
my name and dates pressed into a plaque,

down on my knees, eyes lifted,
praying to the passing clouds,
forever begging for just one more day.

It's an interesting idea, isn't it?  Everyone getting a statue that somehow symbolically represents their demise.  Right now, I'm exhausted.  If I die tonight, my statue would be me standing in front of a mic, script in hand, gazing upward as I recite a poem straight into the eardrum of God.

I have a really good life, filled with a beautiful wife, amazing kids, jobs that fuel my creative spirit, and some pretty cool friends.  I was reminded of that this weekend, over and over.  My cool RJJ friends are currently having some drinks at a local bar.

Saint Marty is saying two prayers of thanks tonight:

1. For the wonderful life of his aunt, who loved her family fiercely.
2. For the acceptance and love of his friends, who let him play in all the reindeer games.