Spring 2015
this moment out last night in bed, certain this would be the day, could feel victory in his match with this
particular stone. But no, even with all his efforts it only rises and trembles and falls back. No more.
He takes a break from wall building for some light weeding. Even this is according to plan. To sit
comfortably on an old camp stool he keeps close by. To rest yet not appear at rest. Admittedly, the boulder
has taken it out of him. Beyond the back fence he can hear the scuffing of shoes, running and otherwise,
on the winding gravel trail of the Conservatory. Vanity, yes. One of the sentimental sufferings. Again, she
would laugh. They were not the sentimental kind. They were not a couple who spoke in that low whisper
of lovers that only two sets of ears could hear. He had not even bothered with a headstone. Not their way.
Her ashes remain here in the herb garden. He putters. Emeritus. The question of vanity is not a valid
argument. Validity. Likelihood. Cause and effect. The forces of life. Momentum. Movement. Inevitability.
Again, he feels there is piano music somewhere. But he cannot really say for certain that he is hearing
it or is just aware of it. Yes, a piano. Somewhere, someone playing a piano. He also hears a car door slam
and an engine start but isn’t sure if this is happening now or several minutes in the past or if these things
happened at all. Maybe he has thought them. As in, thinking they should have happened. In probability.
Yes, the maid service should be leaving about now. Yes, slamming her car door. Yes, starting her engine.
Yes, this all should happen. Yes, this is the natural movement of things. Yes, this is the likelihood. This
is the direction of prevailing forces in effect. And here sits Isaac Stritch at the bottom of the yard weeding,
hearing all these things, thinking of hats, thinking of fences, thinking of levers, thinking of stones,
thinking of likelihoods, and thinking of carrying Patricia over the threshold. And considering his vanity.
His view of the side door and the side slated terrace and the drive and the carriage house is obscured
from the bottom of the hill where he sits. Assumptions can and are made. He will make one more effort
to move the big rock before he goes in for the day.
Isaac Stritch stands from the campstool and his legs waver. He cannot find his balance. The earth
rolls. He looks up. A bright day still, the leaves dancing slightly. He looks lower. Yes, the tree trunks and
the back of the house and the garden shed seem to dance a bit, too. He is unsure of himself. Not exactly
dizzy but off the usual level of life. No longer the man of a short time ago with two big sweating hands
that could lift the world. The unlikely possibility of an earth tremor crosses his mind. A seismic event
here in the calm Midwest. The fact that it seems so unlikely does not help his orientation. And yet. He
can see just over the fence now into the Conservatory. Strollers. Joggers. They seemed unaffected. Unaware.
He does not know what to think or what conclusions to draw. The history of the world is low and rumbling
in his ears. And subterranean. The sound is heavy as if taking place in the basso registers and at first he
thinks it is some ragtime rolls being performed by that same unseen piano player on the very bottom
keys. The sound of something ancient and low. The scenery slants abruptly and Isaac Stritch falls against
the stone wall of the herb garden, first striking one of the iron bars, loosening the rock he has been trying
to move all morning. And finally it does move, rolls over twice, and pins him against the wall.
To his credit he holds no anger toward the rock. That would be misplaced. So rampant. So rampant.
But how to tell how much of the day has passed as he lay between the thing and the stone wall? The
shadows are long now and the sun hidden behind the house at the top of the hill. The back of the hou se
is all he can move his head to see, that and the dominant thing directly below his chin that pins him to
the wall of the herb garden. He cannot even cough, such is the weight of the rock. Only his left calf and
foot and left hand are free. No doubt the hour is late but he does not remember time passing. He holds
a curious attitude toward time and toward that bit of his own history. Somehow, lost. As if for the first
time in his life he senses that he is unencumbered, unfettered even, to the temporal and to the ground
The Linnet's Wings