And I’m gonna change my fate
I’m gonna get out before its too late
Said its all over but the shouting’ yall
– Joe Cocker, “It’s All Over But The Shouting”
I’m a man of a certain age and I can wish you well from the heights of wellness to the lowest depth of the water well’s bottom that old buckets descend to retrieve, by the gallons, what was needed aboveground to replenish a home’s supply for a few or many and
the wish could change just as the bucket gave way to the mechanics of the manual hand pump that revolutionized, at the time, the way my 3rd and 4th generation grandparents accessed the needed resource… but my wishes are always that others be at their best with or without me because
I’m a man of a certain age who at a certain time
(or three)
way back when wished for salvation over a porcelain bowl for hours the day after several ladles of punch poured into
(then)
clear plastic cups from bathroom tubs in houses/apartments I didn’t know who who lived there; where my friends and I showed up with bottles of grain alcohol to add to the skyline of bottles of proofs higher than unseasonably warm
(close to 93 degree)
weather days on the cusp of spring and
mornings
(over the course of several years later)
I can still wish you well up-close, though mostly from afar
(to protect everyone involved directly or loosely, believe me)
and I have been okay with both the kind and unkind narratives I never chose to be placed among beings who didn’t consider that I’m a man of a certain age who takes books page-by-page to savor meanings and leanings of subject-verb agreements
(and understandable disagreements)
in stanzas spoken out loud by those who hid their voices and hands after throwing rocks
at this age, I have mastered catching many of these stones thrown midair; crushed them into powder for years while cheering on each of us who wakes up to live another day
despite the timeless breaking points anointed as normal by familial/nameless ones whose claim to notoriety is believing that becoming a man of a certain age isn’t worth celebrating I send well wishes across distances when and where I can in wordy sentiments or silent intentionality even when
their berating antics continue as if they have ever had the luxury of thinking time is on either of our sides
truth is I cared until I didn’t have to…
if witnessing days’ dawning all these years has taught me anything, it’s that men of a certain age know when to let memories of things and them(s) rest inside graves they’ve dug, finally, become overgrown into unmarked, indeterminable ones because
the Earth has a way of making sure that man’s missteps of breaking and fixings leave no traces as if they were never there to begin with
H. Walker 1-15-2023
BEING 40 SOMETHING 