Escaping On The Black Dragon

Yesterday, in those wee morning hours my eldest and I seem to habituate, I received this FB message from him: "And it came to pass in her 21st year, that she constructed a bridge. Not merely to ford the small brook, but to escape the gloom that had set upon her and the paper lion.

But, alas it was a trick, set out by the witch, for she had strewn thorns along its path, and she was hobbled by them.

They had to escape on the black dragon, instead."

Every once in a while Douglas sends me one of his poems. So my first thought was that this was one of those. But I pondered its meaning for a few minutes before replying. I was getting the hint of a memory from his childhood.

"Is this about those planks I put across that ditch east of the house at the Odell place? The one where I stepped on that nail and had to have so many penicillin shots that I developed a rash and now can't have penicillin? And we took the black Plymouth to the Dr. almost every day? That 21st year? How do you even remember this? I love you sweetie."

In my 21st year, Douglas would have been three years old - about the age he was in this picture of him and my Dad, his Grandpa Louis, holding a big fish. I'm surprised he remembers much from that age.

My bridge building was going to be the first step in creating a new area for a shade garden. It never got any farther than those planks and that rusty nail. In addition to the penicillin, of course I had to have a tetanus shot.

And this is the black dragon we escaped on (in). Dougie and I had many adventures in the '57 Plymouth Belvedere. He wasn't just my little boy, he was my co-conspirator, my confidant, my co-pilot, my reason for living.

In looking through previous messages I found another poem he sent me in 2019. At that time I didn't catch a couple of the references about me.

Shipwrecked Soul

Corked empty, contained the words,

If this finds you, then you'll know...

Abandoned to share the ancient scroll.

I fell into the finality of a shipwrecked soul.

Ocean sunrise, sunset, Island beauty,

So like mine tho years apart.

Perhaps adventure or a life anew.

But, in the end the bottle he threw.

Flying home, the note still haunts,

Its plea for someone to know.

The bottled letter, its gripping spell.

But who am I to tell?

I can't rid myself of the shipwrecked soul.

Nor the bottle or his note.

On the ground the first glints of snow,

If this finds you then you'll know.

Rusted wire, twisted repair,

Much like the gate across my soul.

The barbed wire doesn't stop the wind and snow.

If this finds you then you'll know.

The lines, "Ocean sunset, sunrise, Island beauty, So like mine tho years apart" is a reference to his trips to the Virgin Islands the past few years and my one trip there in 1968. The time he tried to visit The Baths at Virgin Gordo, BVI, the sea was too rough for a safe docking. It was a magical experience for me, one I trust he will know, perhaps on his next stay on St. John.

And the "rusted wire, twisted repair....

....relate to the time when he was 17 and I was 35 and took on a job of repairing a fence for the $$$ we both needed.

We've both been through alot more since then - one of the roughest when he graduated from highschool and began his own life.

I am so grateful he is my son, but even moreso that he is my friend.