On The Sorrow God Pours into the Little Boat of Life

And God was there like an island I had not rowed to

— Anne Sexton, The Awful Rowing Toward God

I stand in the Punk Rock aisle of Rhino Recordsmindlessly watching an old video of a Supremesconcert, trying not to think of anything, really,giving myself to sounds from fifty years agothat celebrate nothing now except my own youth,my own Sixties when the world was endingand beginning all over again, and it would beall about love and the absence of war foreveronce Nam was over, and the lies would stop,and the boys would come back home, and Nixonand McNamara and Westmoreland would paythe price, and that’s of course when it happensand I can’t stop it, my son died last week,until the young woman standing next to mebends down quickly, reaching to help pull me up,and I try to make a joke of it, saying Thank you.You know, fifty years ago I would have asked youto dance, and she says, Sir, I would be happyto dance with you, and so we do for a few seconds there in the middle of the Punk Rock aisle, she isso very sweet, I am terribly sorry for your loss,and I thank her, and once again I know as if byphysical touch alone the innocence and kindnessof the hopeful before the world disappoints themand it all seems like some awful rowing toward Godin a hard rain, one wave, one lie, after another, andthey are so tired, the oars so heavy, that they slowlyopen their hands and pray and lean into the dark.