Part 16 (1/2)
”Father Chee?”
”Yes, Amber?”
”Why are dogs more humane than humans?”
”I don't know.”
CHAPTER 24.
Right about the same time my mom's name starts showing up in the news, Private Jackson begins sending me one haiku a day in the mail.
He doesn't write a letter stating that he is sorry for my loss, nor does he ask how I am doing or any of that other c.r.a.p that doesn't help. He just sends poems. And his haikus are not aimed at inspiring me or making me feel better or helping me deal with the loss. With words, he simply takes snapshots of simple things for me-like a leaf, a bottle cap, a snowflake, a bird in flight, an ant, a single breath-and when I read these haikus I sorta trip out on the image that is never good or bad, happy or sad, exciting or boring.
These images just are.
I begin to really look forward to reading PJ's haikus, and going to check the mail is the only time I leave my new bedroom other than to use the bathroom.
Covering the four walls with Private Jackson's haikus-one page a day-I slowly make my room into a coc.o.o.n of poetry.
Here is the first one he sends me: I WAKE AND SIT UP.
SQUIRRELS SCRATCHING FROM INSIDE.
MY WALLS ARE ALIVE.
At first, I read it-like a million times, wondering if Private Jackson was trying to communicate with me through metaphor.
I puzzled out all sorts of interpretations too.
Maybe it was a metaphor for the madness-or the chaos I was feeling as of late, which is sorta hidden in my chest and mind, but real?
I had been in my new room for days now.
Maybe it was a metaphor for the madness of the man who killed my mother?
Maybe PJ was telling me that I needed to wake up and see that things were still alive and moving around me, even though my mom was gone and I felt so all alone?
Maybe he meant something else, and I was just too dumb to understand?
But then I remembered what Private Jackson stood for, what he was all about-all of the Zen stuff.
I instantly understood that PJ woke up in the middle of the night and heard squirrels in his bedroom walls, so he took a mental snapshot of the moment and wrote me a haiku.
Nothing more.
The moment just was-free of the emotions and judgments or any of the other illusionary things we humans feel the need to attach to everything we encounter.
Reading Private Jackson's haikus after my mother's murder-I totally got why he had been writing haikus all this time, ever since 'Nam, training his mind to allow things to exist without all of the complicated emotional baggage.
Everything simply is-always and forever.
THE FALLEN LEAF FLIES.
LIKE A YOUNG ICARUS AND.
THEN DISINTEGRATES.
I totally get haikus now. True.
And Private Jackson is my favorite writer.
CHAPTER 25.
”Father Chee?”
”Yes, Amber?”
”Why does G.o.d allow horrible things to happen to good people?”
”I don't know.”
CHAPTER 26.
One day-on Donna's iPod-I listen to Dinosaur Jr.'s ”Puke and Cry” a million times in a row. I just set it to repeat the one song over and over again, and then I listen for several hours-tripping out.