There was a message I knew as a boy and forgot as a man.
It’s odd how no number of prosecutions can retrieve the lost memory that time
stole, but we roll with the punches so I grew up without it. What a painful
mistake. So I take one look back and see that I’m beginning to fall into the
wisdom of childhood, and it is a testament to you. You, sir, were man enough to
be a boy, and that’s why I remember that time of brokenness in you. It was
years ago, and every tear that flowed over the news of broken marriage and the
terrors of life was never seen by any eye but your own, and even those had
drowned them in a sea of joy. So the story goes that a child got news through
some game of eavesdropping that some awful illusion was set to be
performed—your house was going to disappear before your very eyes. I still
recall the paleness of my own skin. Who would dare take what belonged to you?
So all six years of mine emptied all six marbles out of that leather bag.
Fingers tore through every crevice that only a child’s fingers could find to
gather everything you would need. Some two dollars and thirty seven cents later,
I wrapped my fingers through those leather straps and pulled the mouth shut on
your new mortgage, hoping that every ounce of pull would embrace you tighter,
assuring you that nothing could take you away. A six-year-old child trying to
bring solace to the halls of that home we would save together. I sent it with
some confident words as a letter that the bank could read when they brought
their surefire apology. I’m still not sure why you cried that day before the
face of another—my mother knew our plan would work. Time proved our efforts
true, and to this day you’ve never moved. Apparently, though, I lost my marbles
when I poured them out and never could remember why I gave you that bag.
Fast forward fourteen years, add a beard and I’ll tell you what I learned. That
unmoving man across the street never changed. Your house grew wild and free and
beautiful trying to match its keeper. I learned what it meant to pay bills and
grow up, and you didn’t age a day. Your soul is deeper than time and younger
than a weary earth. And that sweetest birth of springtime is caught in every
gleam that you give back to the soil you work. As those months passed by, you
watched me grow as a tree that hadn’t proper roots. So that one day as you knew
I might be felled, you walked out to anchor me. The small treasure I’d given
you once had left my pockets empty, so I rode my motorcycle in tattered clothes
hoping my gas tank would stay full and my body far from blacktop. And I cannot
forget the man who skipped out as a schoolboy with a gift in hand. You must
have planted that leather coin-purse I’d given you because it had grown into a
jacket that you placed in my foolish branches. It hugged me tighter than those
leather straps that held you from my youth. I’ve worn that embrace ever since.
I’m learning to remember, now, how to reap my child-ness. And as I’ve grown
into a boy I’ve stuck closely to the story of a God who gave His Son as Christ
to die and bring new life to fallow ground. I’ve thrown off death like Jesus
threw away the stone and found that His words echo today: “The Harvest is ready
but the workers are few—now love one another and do as I do. Serve the broken,
bless the lame, for God has spoken in His name that each shall slay his own
desires and give himself to something higher.” But sweet brother, I have
nothing to preach to you, for this is precisely what you taught me as a man.
For we each have sacrificed something small as gifts to bless each other in
time of need. And though I forgot every word of this as I grew old, your fierce
youth has brought the age out of me and I’ve begun to grow, as but one sapling
in a forest. So rest now, Good Harvester—the crop is gathered, the feast
prepared. The time has come to celebrate. Precious Bacchus, know this: that
tales make rivers run with wine that we may recall for a moment that they run
with water, and a sweet, sweet flow it is.
