Craig Goodworth, Untitled, 2010
At the Pruitt Nursing Home
Feeling good was never good enough.
Amos, my roommate, has an ongoing cold.
His mind has been better. And his hearing.
He does not use Kleenex. He likes to make important points about Matt Dillon
or the Rifleman and shake hands
in agreement.
We cannot leave our rooms.
The coronavirus pandemic rages
on the evening news. The nurses
wear masks and continue to take our
temperatures. I have been okay.
Fundamentalist preachers say
the pandemic is the anger of God. They
watch for signs. Jesus spoke about
the siege of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 AD.
The Gospel has yet to be preached
to the whole world.
Pain meds make my bowels sluggish.
Where is the man of sin? He has also
yet to appear. There has been no great
falling away from the faith. No one claims
to be God except the usual loonies.
I have nothing really to read but the Bible.
God has drawn me deeper into it. I no
longer think of suicide. I am beginning
to care for my fellow man.
I will leave next week and go to Macon.
I was born and raised there. I knew it all
then. I felt good without effort. Life
revolved around my long-time girlfriend
and Schlitz beer. We smoked mostly
Mexican pot. We lost our virginities at
the Weiss drive in.
Cars. I knew them. I knew motors and
sound systems. And fat tires with raised
white letters. Loud mufflers. These were
signs of muscle. Anyone could be strong.
CSN&Y Déjà Vu was my favorite 8-track.
“By the time we got to Woodstock…” and
so on.
Somewhere off in the middling distance
flashed a green light brighter than the ones at Lake Sinclair marking the boat
channels. I was assured of it. There was
something called better. The fading hippie
dream still spoke to me. “Come on people
now…” The guys back from Vietnam never
smiled. I yet knew everything.
In 1974, I went off to Summer Quarter at
the University of Georgia. The green light
was closer there. I bought pills off strangers. I smoked pot before class.
The last week of summer, I spent in
Panama City Beach. I did mescaline
on my birthday.
I do not know Amos my roommate’s story.
He was a preacher. Janice died of cancer
over a year ago, after 37 years with me.
I am older now than I ever dreamed of being. I will take an Uber car to Macon.
I will look for no green light. My only goals
are to write poetry and go to daily Mass.
God and the end are closer. There is
comfort in this. I get my pills from nurses.
I am continually amazed at how little I really know. There is comfort in this.
Comfort may be only feeling good.
______________________
Bryan Merck
Review by Jared Pearce
The poem’s charm is how it appears to wander, as the young man did, across the nation, only to arrive back where it began, but in a new place and under different constraints. The reader feels like we’re reading a story, but really the speaker is offering a sermon.
Review by Dave Mehler
I think Jared may be correct that the charm of the poem is in the wandering–but I get more of a sense of Odysseus than a sermon. This poem brings me in mind of a Joseph Brodsky, In the Lake District, who as a Russian immigrant teaching in Michigan might also have felt a bit like Odysseus. The poem ends like this:
Whatever I wrote then was incomplete:
my lines expired in strings of dots. Collapsing,
I dropped, still fully dressed, upon my bed.
At night I stared up at the darkened ceiling
until I saw a shooting star, which then, conforming to the laws of self-combustion,
would flash–before I’d even made a wish–
across my cheek and down onto my pillow. (Translated from the Russian by George L. Kline)
What I’m getting is a person who has come to the end of himself, whose wife passed on a year ago, and while not healthy is virtually waiting to die. Which is ironic from the standpoint in which the narrator admits he once considered suicide to be an option, perhaps regularly battling the temptation, but no longer. I like the theological reflection about the book of Revelation and wondering about what’s coming eschatologically, and then juxtaposing this with physical realities of the nursing home: Pain meds make my bowels sluggish. / Where is the man of sin? He has also / yet to appear. Or the humor (?) of being unable to leave your room in the midst of a Pandemic when your roommate is described like this:
Amos, my roommate, has an ongoing cold.
His mind has been better. And his hearing.
He does not use Kleenex. He likes to make important points about Matt Dillon
or the Rifleman and shake hands
in agreement.
Since suicide is not considered an option and one is merely passing the time in self-reflection of one’s past and where one has been and theological meditation on where one might be headed, things are not good. However, the speaker rather than resigned or bitter actually seems content and even curious to see how things will play out, planning to go back to his boyhood home, having come full circle, but with no Penelope (Janice) or Telemachus waiting, but hopeful nonetheless, knowing the end of the story doesn’t wait for him in Macon. the speaker feels no fear and views events wryly observing, I knew it all / then. I felt good without effort…The guys back from Vietnam never / smiled. I yet knew everything.
But that in those days,
Somewhere off in the middling distance
flashed a green light brighter than the ones at Lake Sinclair marking the boat
channels. I was assured of it. There was
something called better.
But finally no longer foolishly seeking comfort or a green light calling him to something better, and now even suspicious of comfort he still sets goals and takes some comfort anyway as a weary traveler continuing to travel homeward (in the meantime, he’s being taken care of):
I will look for no green light. My only goals
are to write poetry and go to daily Mass.
God and the end are closer. There is
comfort in this. I get my pills from nurses.
I am continually amazed at how little I really know. There is comfort in this.
Comfort may be only feeling good.
Perhaps not only Odysseus, but Solomon of Ecclesiastes (having exhausted all other pleasures and avenues) comes to mind:
‘Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher,
‘All is vanity.’ Ec. 12: 8 (ESV)
…Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep His Commandments,
For this is man’s all.
For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.” Ec. 12: 13,14 (ESV)
Now, there’s a sermon! Back at ya Bryan (and Jared). 🙂