December 13, 2004

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  On the sill, between two portraits, she landed.  She was white like stone and as she cooed, she pecked on crumbs of dirty bread.  Humming, tying knots, and repairing backpack wicker baskets, I was caught off guard by her sudden arrival.  As my neighbors knew, I had been waiting for some time, worried about the myriad of flak – multiplied a hundredfold in her case – that might’ve clipped a wing and sent her tumbling in a burst of feathers.  See, earlier in the morning, I woke startled by a dream of an eagle tearing in her direction where she was just content and unaware, proud of her courage and our friendship.  And though it hasn’t lately been in my nature, I couldn’t hide my good feeling: I’m glad you made it.

   

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  I was happy to see her and I quickly ran to the window.  Her coo was sweet and it was like the comforting drone of a feline purr, or a mollifying motor.  The sun was clean and long-reaching as it bounced off her wings; it was pretty and it was a reminder that she had traveled far.  Miles away she had begun her descent and through cloudy wisps, she made her way past the steeple.  Trenet was on the radio and douce France! we were together again.

   

  I brought her inside and her prickly feet danced on callused hands.  My uniform was in disarray as she picked at shredded cuffs that wore like burlap, olive-grey and drab, nag-nag-nag.  It was Sunday and while most were off at chapel, I was long removed from that whole way of thinking.  Even for all their weekly debauchery and wildness, I understood that the tail end of a weekend could bring a fresh anchoring.  Was it hypocrisy?  Maybe… but I wouldn’t judge it.  And perhaps it is a bit too self-aware to qualify as irony, but I’d go so far as to say I was tempted to join them in the pews.  But it is a cold march to the chapel and I could do without God’s winter stare.  The bulk of life’s decisions are visceral and that fact alone is enough to overcome any personal (and probably misguided) theology.  I checked to see if she was injured and in turn, cooed words of praise.

   

  Faith was a cornerstone, that integral piece of life’s narrative that worked to make sense out of both the tragic and mundane, sometimes one and the same.  Was I proud of letting these things go?  Maybe for a time because it was a secret, a glimmer in my mind’s eye even in the midst of chaplain conversations and church pastries.  Working through the hymnal, competing for every listening ear, devolving into the sound of my neighbor’s cracking voice, I had a growing knowledge, a secret.  I learned recently that secrets are a source of some perverse strength.  The waiter who spits in a rude patron’s food, the student who knows more than his teacher, the wife who knows of a cheater’s ways, the quiet boy who scored higher than the talker, or the man who learns there is no God or none like the one he worships, each finds varying degrees of pleasure in the knowing.  The rightness of these secrets matters little; what matters is that they’re hidden.  And as I mentioned, it can be seen as perverse.

   

  As expected, on her leg was a message from a neighboring unit where they were still lobbing shells and angry words at each other.  It was urgent so my day would now begin.  They were in need of supplies – water, food, medicine and gasoline.  Still cooing, I placed her in her cage and scrambled out the door.  I would go to the chapel after all. 

   

  Nearer my God to thee, they were singing and the commander sang like a true martinet.  The creases in his face were deeply set like a man in constant worry or maybe, constipation, but today it was supplication.  I leaned in his direction and cupped my hand to his lambchop burns.  Back out in the lobby, we could hear the organ straining and the sound of cockney voices lifted heavenward or at least in the direction of the pretty Sunday school teachers.  I would make my way to the supply train by way of bicycle and requisition their demands.  With a salute and clap of boots, I was eagerly on my way.

   

  I ran upstairs and grabbed my pack and I brought her along for company.  It had rained just a day earlier and the muddy roads were dried in awkward dimensions.  Imagine riding a crooked bicycle on the backside of a granite prune and you might gain a sense of the related bruising.  Two miles yet to go, I remembered that the supply clerk yet owed me a bottle of spirits – bourbon or whiskey, it didn’t matter.  He took a bet and lost a gamble on a fortuitous pair of aces.  What were the chances?

   

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  Having laughed over this story as she flapped to gain balance in her cage, we moved to a discussion of Rilke.  Wasn’t he wrong?  Solitude was not always difficult and sometimes, exactly what you wanted.  Embrace your solitude because solitude is difficult, is what he said.  The beauty of faith is that you are never alone so this aloneness may have been uniquely mine. 

   

  Then, there was an explosion.  We were in the rear so I was confused.  It must’ve been the work of saboteurs or then again, a stupid accident.  Regardless, one boom was followed by another and in the distance, I saw a large plume of dark smoke but in my hard thinking, I became another Absalom and I ran straight into a low hanging branch – smack! – straight on the nose.  The bicycle continued forward but that’s where I remained, if only for a wavering moment.  Like that, I was on the ground, my face alternately throbbing and numb and there was blood everywhere.  Henceforth, I would have a boxer’s nose without the boxing. 

   

  I came to my senses and sat up to see more smoke and the distant sound of sirens.  And then came heartbreak, as I noticed the flattened wicker behind me.  I gingerly opened the basket to find her struggling to move.  I picked her up slowly and found she had a broken wing.  As she flapped, she span in circles.  It was a pitiful moment; a brave spirit dodges the shots of hunters, bored soldiers and is wounded only under the weight of my rump.  She was calm but occasionally panicked as I held her in my palms. 

   

  If faith is a gift, it is born in quiet moments where light bounces off a windowsill or where a dog’s bark makes one laugh just as the doorbell rings.  Faith might be a matter of coincidence.  But it’s born in an instant and leaves you just the same.  That morning, I left the bike on the side of the road and I walked my way toward the fuel fire.  Though in pain, we shared our disarray and I kept her in my coat pocket.  Douce France! I sang.

  Even when hurting, to walk in peace and quiet, away from barking instructions and the degradations (though not the responsibilities) of rank was nice.  Everything would be fine and surprisingly, even the fire left only two injured.  The supplies made their way to the front and for me, despite the expected madness, it would be a strangely lasting memory.  This was grace too.

  
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  Somme 6 (Max Pechstein )

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  But the worst thing I ever done – I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa – and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life.  – Chunk
  
  

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  woman holding child in rebozo (jean charlot)

  
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  Matt11:28

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