Great Uncle Norvell Fast is Dead
When death won out, Norvell was about 80.
He'd been married a long time to great aunt Kate.
At every family party, after the whiskey
Kate would say that her marriage succeeded
because, each morning, Norvell
would sit on the toilet first, to warm
the seat for her, for great aunt Kate.
Every year, we'd laugh, even though
we thought it was pretty strange. Every year,
Norvell would notd, sip his drink, and say,
"I defy anybody to tell me different
It's every small gesture of love
that matters. And besides
Kate deserves a warm place to wait
for the everyday coming up of light."
But now Kate, already older than she wants
to be, must also deal with the unbroken chill
of waking. With the long cool night.
On the same day that Norvell Fast died
so, too, did a friend of mine. Out west
where the land is supposed to expand,
my friend stared into his thirtieth year,
into the sun he saw buried in the mountains,
and he decided that the next step
was too much, was enough.
So he cut himself away from his legs,
away until blood told him all he thought
he needed to know. He forgot
two children. A woman who loved
him. Forgot about a country
that would've waited for him.
At some point, memory fails many of us.
Maybe it even failed Norvell Fast.
But I doubt it. Even in death's face
I expect Norvell refused to claw
at the earth. More likely, he reached
for a drink, said, "I'm still good looking,
I'm still putting my arms around a remarkable
woman who will never stop calling out my name,
I'm riding the edges of the sky, and
I defy, I defy, I defy."
John Reinhard, Burning the Prairie, New Rivers Press, 1988. (winner of 1987 Minnesota Voices Project)
John was my teacher at the Loft. He was wise and astute and helped me give a shape and a voice to some nebulous thoughts and emotions through poetry. That was a special gift. His books of poetry, as fellow poet Jim Harrison wrote for the back cover..."give us something we knew but never thought of before."
Uncle Norvell is the kind of old man that you could pass by on any street and never give him a second glance. Reinhard's poem dresses him up as a gentle hero, the romantic lead in a love story. Maybe we'll look at the next old man we see and consider the possibilities for heroism that lie just beneath the surface. Perhaps we'll consider it in ourselves.
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