Beneath Chicktawbut
This weekend I attended A family wedding on the South Shore.
At a golf course Atop a high hill
Created
From the debris of the Big Dig
Burying
Our childhood swimming holes,
The Quincy Quarries.
I surveyed the Blue Hills
Enthralled by their low line
Stretching west To Big Blue.
My old neighborhood lay beneath Chicktawbut Hill.
Invisible beneath the trees.
The world of my youth.
I knew this view well.
But from a different angle
And another time.
June 1960
My mother sat me
Her second son
In the family car
A Ford station wagon.
Alone.
Her
Saying two words.
“Chaney’s dead.”
Her parting steps silent.
Chaney was my best friend.
I prayed
Alone
To God
For Chaney
To come back
From Lake Sebago.
Silence
I knew Death
There was no God.
The hump of Big Blue filled the west.
Chaney gone forever.
God too
October 2023
Now the same view
From a different angle.
Big Blue
In the autumn afternoon light.
Boston Harbor a deep Atlantic blue
To the northeast.
Behind me
The wedding swirls in dance.
I am happy.
No, joyful
To be here
To see the Blue Hills again.
To breathe the familiar air
To feel the approach of the colder season ahead.
It was a good day to be alive.
For me
And for Chaney.
He was never gone
Forever.
I am never
Alone.
Never.