'It was late at night and we were secretly baptizing a baby that had been brought along by Omatsu and two men belonging to the Tossama. It was our first baptism since coming to Japan, and of course we had no candles nor music in our little hut - the only instrument for the ceremony was a broken little peasants' cup which we used for holy water. But it was more touching than the liturgy of any cathedral to see that poor little hut with the baby crying and Omatsu soothing it while one of the men stood on guard outside. I thrilled with joy as I listened to the solemn voice of Garrpe as he recited the baptismal prayers. This is a happiness that only a missionary priest in a foreign land can relish. As the water flowed over its forehead the baby wrinkled its face and yelled aloud. Its head was tiny; its eyes were narrow, this was already a peasant face that would in time grow up like its parents and grandparents to eke out a miserable existence face to face with the black sea in this cramped and desolate land; it, too, would live like a beast, and like a beast it would die. But Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt - this is the realization that came home to me acutely at that time.'

-From /Silence/, by Shusaku Endo (trans. William Johnston. New York: Taplinger Publishing Co. 1969.)

BACKROADS ARE OFTEN THE WAY TO HEAVEN

So I come to understand how hilariously meagre my debts are. Most persons seeking 'loan-forgiveness' for religious vocation do not owe family members a few thousand dollars. And yet in this situation, I'm ironically disadvantaged - like the reverse of seeking to bag groceries with a PhD on your resume - because the loans are all undocumented. Any vocational decision, particularly something like the monastic life, takes time in the lifestyle to 'succeed' - 'if the just man is barely saved', and so forth; and hesitance can equate to severe stumbling blocks later. Yet I may not have a choice but wait, and wait, and wait. Again, for the thousandth time, I'm at a crossroads in life in which it seems the route to meaningful-service/heaven - or, rather, what is perhaps my 'on-ramp' onto the highway - is blocked off due to my own decisions or other mitigating circumstances.

But it's encouraging to remember that Jesus Christ our Lord, our example, in the Gospel of St. Luke set His face 'like flint' toward Jerusalem, heading firmly in that direction - and then proceeded to be 'distracted' for the course of several chapters, healing sick people and helping the despondent. The 'distractions' were part of God's Revelation and His will. In this small reflection of our Saviour's journey, I see what seems to be a viable road for me, but my vision is limited; and along the long hard row ahead for me to hoe is probably some way in which I can serve Him meaningfully. The road (as the cliche goes) seems to be a part of the destination.


-r

SLOWLY, ROME GLOWS

Slowly, Rome glows
and while alight
we knock on our neighbours' doors
easing them all into breezeways
away from the danger.

In tenements
two-ply wide
they've berated the
edicts, this
flayed waste
of time ticking
next-door where one whore
reads her theses
in horoscopes;

next-door to her come more
edicts, feverish scholars
reading into these two books:
Hydrolistics, and Fire-
hydrant Maintenance and
Operation, greyed
by fire tides, sounds
of the whore's horoscope
exegesis.

We've no need for these
scholars hurry hurry hurried
fire licks and quick smiles
through the two-
ply dry-
wall.


-r

Excerpt from Part III of Novel

Monday morning was a blinding white, a 45-degree-angled snowfield shooting straight into the sun. Blinding white - for the first time in a year-and-a-half, something moved me. It wasn't quite the old sense of wonder, as I'd known it; maybe it was wonder, but there was something new to it and not quite put together yet. I still felt tired in the bones. Strange old disjointed memories flickered in the back of my skull. Not quite put together yet. 'Sunburn in November' - the words came to mind, and I couldn't remember where I'd heard or read it.

'Are ya gonna stand there daydreaming all morning, Professor, or are ya gonna pass me the torch up here?'

Monday morning was a blinding white tile; I knew I'd be seeing purple upon climbing down from the roof - 'snow-blindness in August' was more like it. Already drenched in sweat, I braced for the weight of the soldering torch and climbed toward my co-worker's operation table. He sat on the edge of the white snowfield with legs dangling over a flatter surface, and he had already thoroughly gutted the 20-tonne air-conditioning unit in front of him.

He dropped the new compressor into position; he shook his head in disgust, 'College.' (I braced for his occasional liturgy) 'Yaknow, it's like I always say . . . ' (and to his credit he did always say it) '. . . too much education makes ya ign'rant.'

I had nothing to offer him - I never did, for such liturgy - and suddenly remembered the fictional images of Dr. Osterman reassembling himself from the sub-atomic level upward, fierce, analytical, self-reliant - 'sunburn in November.' That's where I'd seen it.

'Always lookin' down at the ground, stoppin', holdin' all us normal people up.' He dropped a screw into a compressor mount, 'Yaknow, I'd an ex-wife once - my first one - who had multiple doct'rates and master's degrees. She didn't have a lick of sense. Hand me the ratchet - no, no, the three-quarter-inch.' He shook his head again and dropped another screw into place, 'College.'

That morning in the meeting in the break-room, someone had turned the television onto the History Channel, and there was a show about some mediaeval scandal or another. Pointing at the screen with a smug look on his face, Bill postured, 'See, that's how the Catholics baptized, and that's how they baptized when I was growin' up, and that's how they still baptize: a little splash here and there.' He'd shaken his head as he always did, a sudden hair-pin but purposeful, 'See, I'm surprised after all that fancy studyin' the Bible at college that you didn't become more of a man like myself. I don't see how someone studies the Bible - really studies it - and still's lookin' into those Cattolics.' I was silent then as I always was.

Halfway through the soldering, Bill got a chirp on his work-phone; he was called down to the office. I sensed a storm coming. I was silent as I always was.

To say he seemed nervous would be an understatement, 'You got this now?'

'Yeah,' I said.

'Ya sure?'

'I got this. I've done it before.'

He nodded dubiously, 'Okay. Be right back. Don't screw it up, Professor.'

I nodded and got to work. The heat from the torch added an easy twenty degrees to the already smoldering environment of the roof. The flame and solder and copper and I had been brothers for several months now; that morning, my sweat had reached the point of a cool and constant film coating every fibre of me.

9:30 rolled around - break-time - and Bill still hadn't returned from the office. I sensed a storm. Throat-skin blistering and itching in the salt of my sweat, I enjoyed the notion of climbing down from the roof and going into the air-conditioned building below my feet; but for now I was transfixed: the roof had tried and seduced me.

The white snowfield fell away as I dropped down onto the flat inner roof, where the A/C units and corresponding equipment sat. It struck me as a distant memory, the rocks crunching under my feet, the desolation of tar, the shimmering heat off the flat waste. I had returned to Red Rock, if only a little piece of it, a doorway, an ikon.

After the morning break, before I'd finished soldering, my boss's boss chirped me to come down to the office. There, they told me Bill had been fired due to failing the drug-test they'd administered a week ago; I noticed the disembodied phone, keys, and clipboard lying off to the side of the desk like so much of a reposing corpse politely-enough covered.

Upon finishing the soldering job, I flushed with nitrogen, vacuumed the line, and filled with refrigerant. I was clock-work and efficient and generally in a good mood that Monday. The image of Dr. Osterman had lodged in my mind, the one of him spread-armed and hovering: sunburn in November. He had been taken apart to nothingness; he had persisted; he had lingered in the nether regions of the universe trying and trying to rebuild himself. He rebuilt himself.

I knew it was all fictional and furthermore bullshit. By then, of course, I'd long since known that there are some things sheer will-power can't fix. Hell, okay, most things. But you can't help what images lodge in your brain.

Bill called me a week later; I wished him the best and got back to work.



-r

NEAR SCARRITT-BENNETT AT NIGHT

Moist the tree boughs dangle
laden on the steam
cicada frog croaks,
and old oaks enshrouded lay
the cornerstone for summer,
crickets singing one last hymn
at supper.


-r

VOCA (or, DESERT OF HOPE)

In the Weary Land
slow-beaten by sun and
hedged betwixt burnt twigs and
shimmers: love normalcy 'choice'
blister twist crackle as destiny of some other regions;

lips cracked, all reasons legion,
amid boiling blood and
the burning sand we here hope for the Voice
from some ancient Promised Land.

The Voice - Vox, Voca, Vocis -
is He
here? does He ever
come by here anymore?
can You hear us, hear me?

O come let us reason; O please come
to me as You've come to some,
O Gentle Breeze, O Laughter; but how
terrible You come to this region, how
terrifying these my intended brothers,
O Voice-Who-comes-in-the-burning-scrub.


-r

SURELY

At the airport a
woman waits for a
someone, The Someone, grey
eyes waiting; we all faceless pass
her expectant brow, and
the sparks shoot from her
eyes to her long-awaited lover

-licking asides elsewhere, I'm ever
eternal told by others
that I'm a cistern
of sweet waters
able and dependable, and so
endless praise and cold
lonely spaces translate: you're stock photos,
an excellent extra, priceless stand-in,
worth a little a little open,
a good swig for the open
road while we all wait at airports
for our lovers.


-r