Pt. Reyes Station Part Five

I was in seminary in the town that ironically is now my home in San Anselmo.

I hated it. The classes were antiquated and boring and utterly lost. I could not stay awake and God seemed absent though there was much sincerity.

I was saved by a little boy. Adam.

During my first semester, back in school, my wife told me she was pregnant. I was ambiguous until he emerged and he is one of the great lights in my life.

The "Wange" as we called him.

Not long after his birth I was still in school and Miles and I hit Vladimir's late one night. It was cold, rainy and mostly deserted. We were both poor.

We shared a drink at the bar. Vladimir, who we now had come to refer to as the "Czechoslovakian horny man," poured all of us a drink and we dried off and talked as men sometimes do..laughing, ribald, teasing.

I new we did not have the ante for a full spread of food...not even close.

But Vladimir is old school and I know a bit of old school myself. So I invited him back to his own kitchen, but my arm over his shoulder and told him our plight.

He laughed and said we should find a good table outside.

Kaebassa, kraut, a good bottle of wine, lots of bread. Miles and I ate like kings and thanked God for Vladimir...a man I had first met when I was ten and I was now fast approaching 40.

I wrote the following poem for my son Adam that night as the rain fell down and Miles sat back:

THIRD ADAM

Little man

With no words

Your eyes sign

The final joy

The intimate curiosity

The simple relationship

And love

Which all the lost sons

Yearned for.

Not Beyond words

Not despite them

Nor denying

But before them

In your living

Being

Adam.

Joy and Light

Amid the darkness over

The Face of the Earth

You are the kick

Of Future Faith

The hope to be held

In anxious hands

The love to be given

Beyond, despite, and before

All words.

We alike await

The gentle

Hands and

Word of God.

____________________

Next...treasure hunting and falling out of the bed.