Don Gray
Art Essays, Art Criticism & Poems
I, Too, Once Fished the Tidal PoolI, too, once fished the tidal pool, pulled passive flounder from the deep to leaky boat of faded blue. I, too, once sought the sun, the air, clean, clear, bright, the light that gives us hope, trust, joy in life, each daily quest. With head of yellow curls, perched up second-story stairs, three years old, saw, with quaintly serious mien, passing worlds below; ice cream cup I spooned into my thoughtful mouth. A park, mom, dad, friend old man Mac, who later died, non compos mentis, burned, sitting on a radiator, not strong, unable to get up. I searched the mysterious way of the crystal set, companion in wakeful pre-World War II nights; fulfillment in fantasy, music, sound; noise from the distant ether, cosmos, perhaps, far-reaching, beyond knowledge, expectation. Bring mysteries of radio from around the world, through earphones, in our family's troubled darkness. Heard my parents fight. Soft, running bathtub water from another room, some way oddly comforting. I filled jars with colored water, red, green, yellow, blue, and set them in my basement window, stained glass, for sunlight to shine richly through; made cities of Arizona mud, towers of caliche clay, moved molded cars through streets of earth. Went from asphalt play yard, walled in California, to acres of open, raw dirt, kid-battered remnants of worn Bermuda grass in Arizona; huge release from foggy prison; revelation. Early in the war, two sisters united their families, in case Uncle Lewie, married to Eula, the oldest of three good brothers, was called to fight. In his thirties, he was deferred by age, wife, kids, but tough Jim and Clem, unattached, marched away to serve their nation. I played the games of childhood, youth, that energetic children play, thinking they fulfill important destinies, expressing themselves as virile men they'll one day be. I climbed the chinaberry tree, carved initials, my nickname deep through leaking white wood, later years that swelled to heal such childish wounds, made deciphering hard to see. Rescued a dove, Sonoran dove, tiny, that limped in gasping flight, BB wound round and raw, gaping in its buff-grey, afflicted breast. But, I, too, shot my share of birds by slingshot; carved a wooden Y from the dark oleander bush, somehow obtained old inner tubes at a filling station, I cut in strips to propel my stones, held in a leather tongue from a shoe. (With his faithful Indian companion, Tonto...) When World War II, I recovered old newspapers, flattened tin cans, pulled my wagon, bought saving stamps; nickels, dimes my mother gave me. Covered with eagles, hateful faces, Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini. "Step on a crack, break Hitler's back." "Jack Armmmstrong, the Alll Amerrr-iiican Boyyyy." (the daring and resourceful...) Radio adventure programs, conceived in the 1930s, continued, in war, on the home-front. Needed age of helpful sidekicks... buddy in muddy jungle trails, holes hacked from frozen Europe's soil, pilot, co-pilot, B-17s. Someone sharing bloody travail, hard questions of savagery, death. (masked rider of the plains...) Fellow actor to by-play with, allow dialogue in a script... Batman, Robin; The Green Hornet and his trusted valet, Cato; Red Ryder with Little Beaver; The Shadow, lovely Margo Lane. By far the greatest of them all, gripping, lyrical, poetic... stirring symphonic intervals... The Lone Ranger, Tonto, Silver. Divine nature disguised to hide, safeguard dazzled humanity, that intense luminosity might not blind. "Who was that masked man?" (led the fight for law and order...) A mythic figure, Apollo, sun-god's flame in the Golden West; justice, redeemer, Jesus Christ, armed with magic, silver bullets, extensions of divinity; astride a luminous white steed, fiery horse with the speed of light, winged Pegasus from ancient deed, transcendence; man's evil vanquished. (in the early western United States.) Ten, twelve years old, I collected Army unit patches. Where I got them, I don't know. Two uncles warred on Pacific islands, Marines; Okinawa, Guadalcanal; Jim shot in his right forearm, twisted, shortened an inch or two, Jap sniper-shattered, missing bone. Young Clem fought from filthy foxholes for months, just nineteen – an old, old man – fired past tangled, high-piled bodies, surviving mass Banzai attacks, screaming, machine guns, hand grenades. The first desperate year of the War. (Nowhere in the pages of history...) I covered my Levi jacket, front and back, with insignia -- stained glass jars of tinctured water -- colorful, peacock proud display, parading luminosity, divinity's identity. I glued a Squirt soft drink sticker to the front fender of my bike. How far is this from tatooing, the aborigine who hangs chrome-bright hubcaps from his neck? (can one find a greater champion of justice.) Saw countless movie Japs grimace in agonized cockpits riddled by vengeance-bound Americans, flyers in P-41s, P-47 Thunderbolts, sleek, twin-fuselaged P-38s. John Wayne was there. Saw Wake Island fall, Bataan. In real life, helpless, kneeling prisoner heads hacked off by arrogant Samurai swords. (Return with us now...) A grieving mother, known to us, published his journal, her captured civilian son, construction man, trapped on Wake by the Japanese invasion. He was forced to build their fortifications; three years later, starved to death, transported near war's termination, Japan. Sadism, treachery, cruelty know no bounds; like things biblical, the earth...no beginning, no end. (to those thrilling days of yesteryear.) On single sheets of large paper, my brother and I drew pictures, great air battles, sky-filled struggle. He drew one side, I the other, each hiding our aircraft placement, aim of their guns. When finished, we drew lines of fire which missed or hit, intercepted each other's planes, relishing vigorously drawn bullet paths, flaming explosions. In hot desert heat, I played in cooling irrigation ditches, languid, muddy-bottomed streams, scorpions lurking in thick grass, in coarse shade of cottonwood trees. Promiscuous, laughing minnows flaunted white bellies at a fierce, insistent sun, ferocious, known to them only as appealing, endearing light, a high, strange realm far from their own. Lucid, mounting magnificence that overlay the shadow of their umber world, cowling of luminosity. I, too, flew kites -- some homemade -- feared losing them (who cares, silly boy?) in competition with strong winds, extended over distant, famished neighborhoods on dubious string. As if I might lose some morsel of myself in mysterious, wind-borne quest, should threatened, slim strand snap, and kite slip in sidling fall, lose its contest with hard, blue sky, disappear behind far rooftops, badly injured red diamond-bird, species unknown from brilliant skies. I clutched the bulky eight-inch stick with crisscrossed twine so tautly linked to tugging, wind-plowed, prodded kite, tail made of heavy, girded cloth, that pinned it tightly in the air, not diving in stiff winds, but which light breezes might not take aloft. Yet, some kites, no matter what you did, would fall in great looping dives, in series, one, then another, plunging ever farther earthward, unless more tense, terse cord paid out, buying moments, only slowing gyrations, which ultimately must be reckoned with; no more string wrapped around the stick, but final knotted turn kept the leaning kite anchored in the harbor of my fist. (From out of the past...) I early felt life's poetry, but, of course, did not call it that; lark's fluted, poignant song from weedy desert field beyond barbed-wire fence that bordered road of dirt, dust, stones, soccer-kicked ahead, thrown pebbles testing patient telephone poles. As today, when I watch and hear young instrumentalists expound, mesh deep souls of great composers with their own; their need of beauty conjoins fine art, bird, tree, rock, star, the feeling in our hearts, warm light; despite horrors of man, god's world. (come the thundering hoof beats...) I lived my life in dream, the world of nature, without extensive companionship; there were few friends. None my age, boy or girl, dwelled there on my house-sparse, road-graded road. Later, escape from fearsome contact with troubling world, humanity, an ultimate need, instinctive, at war with, but beyond the claims of fellowship that loneliness might have bought, made living fruitful. I grew alone, in emptiness, a family fearful of feeling, too much dangerous emotion, withheld, unexamined, unexpressed. (of the great horse, Silver.) Inward, solitary, with few available social skills; by parents unprepared for life, but by omission, absence, loss. While necessarily tribal, smiling, to outward appearance, during the tribal years of youth -- part of me thought of me that way -- when that harsh, sad time came to pass, army barrack life come and gone, I sought as much to be alone with art, my wife, our life, the dog. Survival in grey man's brown world. (The Lone Ranger rides again!) Maple, oak, ash, elms immense, alive, rejoice in sun and wind in summer foliage fullness, green; burning autumn, gleaming orange; winter muscled trunks and reaching limbs; young spring's return, eternal life. Help farmer bring in humid hay on afternoons before the rain. There are stars, in the darkness, vast distance, the void; constellations. Orion, Taurus, Leo, faint light of slight, brief Rigel, Regulus, Aldebaran, triangle of Betelgeuse, Sirius and Procyon... dutiful hunter, his dogs. I, too, once fished the tidal pool; once lived, like ancient Roman, Greek; worked, painted, played, heard the sad creak of crickets dying in the fall, piercing song of peepers vivid from summer pond; saw ice and snow crusty in the field, breathed sharp air, miraculous, with lungs now filled by dirt and worms, or turned to ash. I once was here on gracious earth. I saw the rising of the sun. ("Come on, Silver; let's go, big fellow. Hi ho, Silver...Away!") Copyright by Don Gray
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