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Old Man at Midnight Creek
by D. Xavier Bari
I.
When I opened my eyes
(the other night)
an old man stood beside me.
By the woods down 'cross the way,
up north of town.
By the river where that lil' boy drowned--
the one they say looked like me.
The old man turned,
claiming he hadn't seen me in a while.
Say, wasn't I that boy who used to swim
in that creek o'er yonder?
And would fish with home-made lines
during the indian summers in the early morn?
Politely, I told him no.
He said he could've sworn it was me,
as the man stared wearily
at the highway rolling up the hill.
He stood a few steps beyond the overpass,
in the grass leaning on a tree stump.
Turning a little more toward me
in the dim late-Summer light.
But his face was obscured,
buried still in deepened shadow.
I began to wonder
as I drifted there
if it was the early mid just after dark
or sometime just before the morning light.
The road was silent and the night was still.
I listened to the man,
who was now right beside me,
telling me long
how these times where the horizon meets black,
with no haze or headlights
or distant motor cars,
reminds him of the days before
the city reached this far.
II.
He had asked me if I remembered,
and I told him that I did not.
Those were days long before I was born
(though they sounded quite familiar).
Nodding knowingly,
he asked if I'd heard what my elders spoke of it
as they told their stories.
He motioned down the bank,
at a sliver of moonlight shining through the gloom
onto a hook-shaped rock beneath a tree.
The man told me that rock was named for me,
by the man who owns the land
where I swam just after dark.
And where I used to wonder
about skinny-dipping, campfires, and the girl next door
while teaching her how to skip rocks across the water
in the deep part of the creek--
not the part up too close to land.
I said again that I was not that boy.
Who was this fool to keep me out this late,
to waste his time showing me these things?
He asked me if I remembered the day I was born...
I said that no person
can honestly remember such things,
and that if he insisted on claiming thus
that he should reveal himself to me.
He chuckled a low,
mirthless laugh
and asked if I'd ever been fishing.
I replied that I had not ever tried
because I do not like the water.
He paused with a start and said nothing,
turning to me close (with eyebrows raised)
bearing an inquisitive expression and a smile.
The lines within his brow were deep
in a face I could not recognize,
but yet somehow seemed familiar, too,
while staring into glazed, tired eyes.
I asked him if he was that boy of which he spoke.
III.
I had inquired of his identity,
though it were impossible if that boy were gone.
He said that of course he was not the boy,
but added cryptic that he indeed knew him once.
He knew the boy as clearly as he knew himself,
as did I, and couldn't I tell who he was by now?
Perhaps upon inspection he was familiar, I replied,
and he said that one day I would see--
would see and understand when I chose.
Did I know,
in my naive view,
where the old souls go,
the man inquired (as he began to walk toward the road).
Was he questioning where people went when they died?
I replied that I did not know what he meant.
Farther down the road, he called again to me,
wondering if I knew whether there was a Heaven or Hell.
So far as I am told they exist, I replied.
He then asked me what dreams were for.
Tiring of these ridiculous games the man played
I refused to consider his words.
I yelled out to the old man (still walking without pause),
why is it that he traveled this road alone?
This world was no place for the aged to wander about.
No,
it was a place for the young, he exclaimed,
but where were the young and what do they choose?
These riddles he gave were confusing to me.
He spoke three last things to me before he disappeared
That he was not alone and his friends were legion,
I could see them in the space between dreams and life, and--
Wait, had I been dreaming all of this time?!
Attempting to wake and end this diatribe,
my eyes opened
though my body was unable to move.
Hundreds of souls surround staring back at me,
the room gorged with spattered emotion.
Some that implored,
others brimming with rage,
dozens of faces and bodies stood on either side
peering down in silence just overhead.
They reach for me
as I lay before dawn,
and I could see them prod me and caress my skin.
Willing myself to react,
I tried to chase them away.
Nothing responded as I lay floating within myself;
not a flinch,
not even able to scream or breathe.
Then I awoke and launched from my prostrate reins
Sitting there shaken in my own bed, alone,
skin tingling coolly
in the first rays of light
from the touch of a thousand fingertips.
"they wait for you..."
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09/05/2001 Posted on 11/30/2001
Copyright © 2024 D. Xavier Bari
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