Twenty two years after his death,
I sit on the weather-stripped bench.
At my feet a small plaque commemorates a man I never met,
whose family and friends chose to mark his life.
To mark his death, really, as that’s the only year engraved.
Chose for strangers who never knew he existed
to know
that once there was a man named John Butler,
who must have sat just about here
gazing out across the water
seeing much the same view I’m seeing.
The View We Share
The sun’s blinding reflection off the Sound
two post-season sailboats
tiny white triangles
glide atop undulating waves.
A vista wide and sea-drenched as Turner paintings
I couldn’t appreciate
standing before them in my 21st year of life,
having not yet lived through the tempestuous storms and squalls
that came later
heavy and dark and relentless
the way sorrow becomes
when we’ve lived enough years
for losses to take up the whole sky.
Two sailors – not Sailors, who inhabit stories and paintings –
people who woke up to a glorious 10-hour reprieve
from the encroaching El Niño
piled beer and snacks and sunscreen into the car
headed to the marina
to take their boat out for the day.
Like John Butler perhaps grabbed a coat
headed to the bluffs
felt the smallness of being a solitary person
on the edge of a continental land mass
eyes moving across the expanse of water
trailing the white triangles
ears alert to the sound of wind rustling the trees
birds calling and cawing
skin both warmed under the bright light
and cooled
by the breeze.
I transform John Butler from physician to poet
altering his essence to suit me better,
a move so common it barely registers
as I envision both our hand-held pens moving across paper
that curls with the breeze,
the shadows of both our hands dancing with the drift of clouds.
Tied together
across time
across identity
across a fundamental alteration.
Moving from unknown to known.
To unknown.
John Butler will never know me.
Twenty two years after his death,
I contemplate his life
As I contemplate my own.
Twenty two years from now,
the next poet will inhabit this place
we both visited,
during a sunbreak from the devastation of dark storms
so heavy they threaten to take over my whole canvas,
push my water and light to mere tendrils near my lowermost edge,
and alter my essence
to suit a new poetic arc.
The vista seemingly permanent in place and time
can only be permanent when captured on film, or canvas, or page.
In real life
heavy clouds blanketing the sky are in constant flux
storms come and go
the tide ebbs on even after the seagull is gone.
At least that’s what’s written on John Butler’s plaque.
John Butler, in memorium