Indelible Marks II

A smoke only seems appropriate now, so I light one in my head.
I hear the soft puff and the slight wheeze as you inhale.
You took more breaths through a filter than you did without, I think.

The mill runs, and the saw whines.
We work, this motley crew.
The college boy, soft, fat, and useless.
The dwarf and the simpleton, hard, lean, and tireless.
The drunk, the dope fiends, the Jesus freak.
The one who has been a bit of it all.
We breathe cedar and strain our backs.
We swear and tease and laugh.
We do it for the pay cheque,
but we do it because of you.
These mills are obsolete now,
but yours works.

“Six be sixes to the Germans.
They turn ’em into camps
and sell those to the Japs!
What would Henry and Eddie say?”

We both know those old vets would say the same thing.
“Work, and damn the rest.”

I see you at your perch.
One elbow on the table.
One hand on your knee,
cigarette burning.
Coke bottle glasses on a bulbous nose.
You’ve just made a point. Taken a drag.
You squint your smile. I nod.
You speak of horses and sleds and old trucks with no brakes.
You do it with authority.
You value hard work, and the men and women who do it.

You curse those who don’t, who won’t.

We share your bottle, small glasses of rye and Pepsi.
In my mind we’re always alone, though I know that’s not true.
Dad is there in the rocker.
Edna bustles about the kitchen chatting politely, lighting you up with her smile.
(Her faded shadow filled you with grief.)
People drop in to pay for loads of wood,
to pay back money they’ve borrowed,
or just to have a drink with the Squire.

I’ll tell you something now,
something I could never have said when you were alive.
(Men don’t say such things
they shy away from them like they would
from the blast of a furnace
or a bucking chainsaw.)
I loved you like a father. Like an uncle.
Like a friend.

A long time after and half a world away,
and I’m crying in a bar in Kowloon.

Your saw is silent, Squire.
Seven quiet, lonely years
we’ve not heard its whine.
Blades are rusted, belts are rotten.
Nothing works.