Editor’s note: This is a longer letter than we usually allow, however, Albert Reeve was a dedicated letter writer to this paper. His poems sometimes hit a nerve, sometimes urged a smile. Albert Reeve died last week and his family provided us with one last poem. Our condolences go out to his family and friends.
[A journey to die for]
Into the River without volunteering,
We fall and start without even steering.
The journey seems long, as we look ahead,
And short looking back before we are dead.
As baby with diapers, there’s no work to do,
Inhaling what’s offered, producing our poo.
Making some sounds and growing first teeth,
Is the kind of an effort that needs some relief.
So learning to sleep in a regular way,
And knowing the difference between night and day,
Are projects that take up most of one’s time,
And develops the spirit of living sublime.
Chewing one’s food and crawling around,
Are the first signs of action, that soon will abound.
Next on agenda are standing and walking,
And some sort of noise that others call talking.
Soon the adults are ooing and awing,
At our droll efforts, of printing and drawing.
Year two approaches, one gets a bit cranky,
And has a persona just like Eddy Stanky.
With anger and grief as weapons of choice,
We give to adults a new meaning to voice.
When two is behind us, we sit on the John,
And think of potential without diapers on.
The gulf between here and school is impressive,
Freedom is not and we must be passive.
Doing the bidding of parents and keepers,
From the dawn of the day to the donning of sleepers.
We’re pressed into school with teachers and peers,
With knowledge available, up to our ears.
The wisdom of parents starts fading away,
As we talk to our pals and explore every day.
The wandering mind begins to take wing,
And the playing of games is a serious thing.
This part of the journey is so much fun,
In a short space of time, it sets like the sun.
Puberty jumps up and grabs our attention,
Producing events we don’t want to mention.
It’s hard to cover this part in a stanza,
It’s such a horrendous extravaganza.
Fashion and hormones and peer pressure raises,
Questions and doubt and weird sounding phrases.
This part of the river is raging and rocky,
With some of us fearful and some of us cocky.
At the tail of these rapids there is a great pool,
We all feel relieved at the end of high school.
Our twenties compel us to look ahead some,
To study or work or go on the bum.
These twenties will shape our general condition,
And render us fit for the rest of the mission.
The snags and the boulders that get in our way,
Are hormones and finances each night and day.
The currents of thirties are strong and they rage,
At family, career and wealth building stage.
The same snags and boulders, are still in our course,
And lay in our way to cause some remorse.
In the thirties and forties, avoiding a wreck,
Is the riskiest card that comes in the deck.
Frustrations assuaged in the commonest manner,
Can shred and destroy the family banner.
It’s a costly procedure that nobody wins,
With the innocent caught in the transgressor’s sins.
The price is horrendous and often gets covered,
With guilt and ill will, eternally smothered.
Arriving at fifty unscathed and unscarred,
Life’s greatest pleasures should be one’s reward.
But some cannot manage a state of perfection,
And sinking the boat becomes their election.
As sixties bear on us, some journeys are ending,
The obit reports are daily attending.
Surviving the sixties, a prospect to treasure,
To enjoy as planned, some aspects of leisure.
We paddle along around the next bend,
And come face to face with ourselves in the end.
Our minds are not quick, as they were once before,
Our well used bodies are tired and sore.
The roar of the rapids is now far behind,
And managing leisure is now the main grind.
Seventies now before us loom,
We have wisdom, we assume.
Thinking and guessing the boca is near,
The distance to float is not very clear.
We ponder back to days of yore,
When snags and boulders at us tore.
A safe illusion now is ours,
As we tend our golf and flowers.
But deep within us there is a thing,
To take us on adventure’s great wing.
And even though the river is still,
A bar can catch up to the weak of will.
Adventure’s curse and carnal need,
On tired mind and body feed.
Lo these thoughts are wild and grand,
With our ambition out of hand.
We hit yon bar with rending thud,
And sit there anchored in the mud.
Life’s new problems are the old,
A price one pays for being bold.
Should our passion and our pride,
Leave our good selves well on side.
The shoals of body lurk like adders,
Hearts and prostates, brains and bladders.
Should we navigate these bars,
Channel Eighty will be ours.
The quiet bayou’s now in sight,
Absorbing all the river’s might.
Winding looping languid channels,
Reflecting life’s contorted annals.
Some ways are deep and cleanly flowing,
Others blind and not through going.
Some boats are leaking, sinking fast,
As others steered with help go past.
A box of pine’s at some dead ends,
Or institutions found by friends.
Writing now, at desk, in den,
The water’s deeper than my pen.
Albert Reeve, October 5, 2005
