It was a tough year to give thanks.

Grandmother had seen it in the depression,
but she learned a long while ago to stay out of it.
The teenage daughter wanted a Blackberry
and the mother used to like an Italian Prosecco
before Thanksgiving dinner,
but after being out of work for nine months,
worried the unemployment was going to run out
he took a job at ShopRite bagging -
and they gave him a free turkey for Thanksgiving -
that was the only way they made it.

When he was a young boy, his parents had little.
He was happy then with little.
They were happy then with little.
Gave thanks for the little they had.
He and his family now had much more
and would not be happy until they had much more yet.
These are hard times….

Ray Brown

I remember the yellow and gold mums
that adorned the mothers’ sweaters
in those autumn days of the early 60s
when football games were played in the sunlight
on a Saturday afternoon.
Times were more casual,
although the games just as intense. 

Then they were known as
the Delaware Valley Regional High School Terriers.
40 years later, Terriers are not
an aggressive enough mascot –
so now they call themselves “the dogs”. 

Then, mums told all there was to say
about a mother’s pride
a sense of loyalty to the hometown
how beauty was displayed in simplicity
and wearing flowers at a football game
was still touching. 

They were all there, in the bleachers,
the day when Rick Jones had his concussion.
He got kicked in the head
tackling the fullback
for South Hunterdon Regional High School
on Thanksgiving Day. 

The mothers gasped,
as he lay so motionless on the field.
Then applauded
as he walked off in a daze
to wander the sidelines. 

The whole group consoled Mrs. Long
the sorority of strong women
there for their children,
not because they particularly liked football. 

The next morning, a floral arrangement
arrived at Fran Long’s home
just in time for Thanksgiving dinner.
This one had the yellow and gold school colors,
but also had the deep crimson and white
the pinks and oranges,
and the little yellow popcorn mums
to fill in between. 

Fran was touched by this all….. 

and now – 40 years after Rick’s passing
she tends her bed of mums
on the hillside near her driveway entrance.
She has not been back to a football game since.
Today new lights from the field,
blaze and announce the Friday night games -
she lives close enough to hear the crowd roar
after each good tackle,
as they first cheered, then grew eerily silent
after Rick’s. 

She knows some young high school girls
undoubtedly still wear the mums
since she finds her yellows and golds,
missing from the hillside garden on Saturday mornings,
plucked at the base
by high school boys
who stop quickly after school
and furtively snips a stem or two
on the afternoon before the Friday night game. 

When she notices, she is not upset.
She smiles but a wry little smile.
Ricky, she images, would have done the same -
stopped quickly at someone’s Mum garden
and clipped a few without asking -
as he was driving past
in his 66 Chevy Impala
on the day before the ‘67 Thanksgiving game.

There are things we think will never change.

The staples of our lives that feed our souls.

The certainty of love.

Our children’s footsteps in our heart.

Parents there to always welcome a return.

I have a friend, a confidant,

            who through the years was there to share in laughter and in sorrow.

Two lives entwined, story written on unending pages of a journal.

             Scripted by a destiny we could not control.

I never paused to visualize a time without her.

The friendship enduring.

A safe harbor through all storms.

Glistening when clouds lifted in the early morning sunlight.

Life has now chosen distance

            as points for us.

Is the world as small a place as others

            lead us to believe?

Does friendship change with distance?

Or is a distance in miles not a distance in the heart?

Having once written on the pages of my soul,

Heartstrings provide the vibrato.

Our stories having been written.

This friendship cannot be lost.

But can a friend?

Ray Brown

He was a typical 20 year old college student.
She was a serious runner, bedecked in Nike.
Although his age, she had already
run in the Boston and New York City Marathons.

Both home from college,
in Union Township NJ for Thanksgiving
they had a custom of running together
the Thanksgiving Day 5K Turkey Trot in Flemington,
4,000 runners from 30 States.
For him it was just an opportunity
to be with his girl,
for her, a serious affair.

This would be their third year.
The first two years she had insisted
on not spending the night before at his place
- they were athletes in training –

So last year, after they said goodbye
around 6:30 the night before
he went out drinking with the guys
and came home 5 o’clock in the morning
though she was supposed to pick him up
at 7:30 am.

When she arrived he was still snoring away.
She paced the living room floor of his apartment
while he tried to clean up
throw on some cloths
and a dirty pair of sneakers.

They rushed down Highway 31
and between the crowds near Flemington
she would later complain:

“We were so late
we had to run to the starting line
and just keep running from there.”

So this year, she told him
he could make his own way there.
She would drive with her girlfriend.

Wanting to redeem himself
he had trained for months
shopped at Efinger’s Sporting Goods
in Bound Brook
bought himself a completely new outfit,
and the best of running shoes.

He was ready in Flemington
an hour before she usually planned
for them to arrive,
sat in The Great Lodge Coffee Shop,
relaxed with an energy drink
taking in the scene on Main Street
through the large plate glass windows.

Then he actually warmed up,
did some stretching exercises
in which he never believed.
When he spied her at the scorer’s table
getting her entry number
he walked up, his number already snuggly affixed
to his cotton shirt, wondering whether she
would notice the new doo, which she did.

She speculated whether he had done this just for her,
now so curious her first words were:
“Have you been here long?”
although she dreaded the answer
since she noticed that he had
worked up a slight sweat,
had he been warming up?

At the starting line he stood next to her
as was their custom, surrounded
by runners dressed up as turkeys,
ax men, Pilgrims, and a few Indians
although being an Indian
was no longer politically correct.

The starting gun burst
in the brisk Thanksgiving day air
he pacing himself a few steps behind her
as was his practice.
In front of the County Courthouse
he usually fell way back
and last year had actually dropped
right out of the race.

They approached the intersection
just past the front portico
filled with cheering on lookers
and a few dignitaries.
She glanced back and saw that he
was still just a few paces behind.
She turned it up just a little
only to find that he came up abreast of her.

Stride for stride they met each other’s pace
except that he with longer legs
moved out at one point
as much as 15 yards.
He could have stayed there, but eased up,
let her in the last 3/4ths of a mile
cross the finish line with him
and for a moment in exhaustion
fell into each other’s arms.

When they married the June following graduation
they each wore their running shoes from that day -
he with his tuxedo
and her below her wedding gown.

Ray Brown

I have never been a soldier except in my childhood games.
I have never pushed my physical endurance to the edge.
Only theorized about the forces of good and evil,
    never confronted them face to face.
Never looked death in the eye
    to determine whether I would blink.
Never had to ask myself whether I could pull the trigger,
    to take a life.

Never had to test my metal in the face of the enemy.
Decide whether I could lay my body upon a grenade
    so others might live,
discover whether I could subordinate myself to the good of all.

    - after having endured all this,
    - killed for the greater good,
    - saw friends expire in my arms,
    - watched my duty commingle with evil
        and worry whether I could tell the difference….

I was never left to wonder,
about the essence of my being,
and whether it all made any sense.

These things were never in my childhood imagination.
Battles were always won.

I never came home to a sleepless night.
Never dreamed myself in a cockroach infested
    VA Hospital.
Never walked the streets
    looking for a quarter for a cup of coffee.
Never envisioned a marriage
    that would not survive the nightmares.
Never in my synapses
    felt the presence of an arm that was not there.
Never felt ostracized by those
    who lived back home in comfort and safety
    when all I did was perform my duty
as well as any common man when put to the test.

Humbled now by those who lived these things.
In awe of what they have endured.
I salute their valor –

ashamed that all I have, are the war games of my mind.

Ray Brown

Just 19, I was ferried through the desert
in a copter, where we worried that the eternal sands
of this enemy’s land would choke the intakes.

I had prepared for this,
sharpened my shooting eye,
learned to clean, assemble and disassemble,
mastered the correct hold
to choke the air intake of the enemy, to bring death.

Honed my physique,
fine tuned my body to pain,
practiced war games on the video screens,
bonded with these comrades
with whom I would shortly alight.

Now as we step onto the battle field
I am taken aback by the immediacy
of the enemy’s onslaught.
I had worried about how it would feel
the first time -

But found there was no time to feel – or think.
Instinct and reflex governed.

I simply killed for you.

Ray Brown

In silence and dignity
at 17:00 hours
while the sun
sets in the west
they lower the flag
marking the entrance
to the Veterans Cemetery
in Virginia.

Again in Missouri
then Nebraska
throughout the broad expanse
of these States
whose stars mark the
meaning of the moment.

Below the earth for
which they gave their lives
they lie
from whose blood
springs forth
our steps
to American Freedom.

At the Tomb of One
Unknown – except for his sacrifice -
Sentinels move in steady rhythmic pace
and every thirty minutes
salute these fallen nameless comrades
another silent,
and in the darkness of the night,
unseen tribute
to those who today,
we honor as having
come home.

Ray Brown

On his lapel, stood pins of distinction.

Signaling fame, however ephemeral

cast in the communality of the iron of endurance

bred by those who walked before him.

He did not know them.

In fact, many have long since been forgotten.

As will he, when his pins are left discarded

in a tiny felt lined box

in the attics of memory

where the nuisances of unimportance

are moved with a shambling gate

from one corner to another.

Then one day, the curiosity of youth stumbled upon the box –

Blew the dust into the air, opened the lid

and aired the memories of forgotten ideals

cast aside by the arrogant certainty of purpose,

so much a part of the youth’s father.

The grandson’s eyes lit up with undoubting gleam –

the brilliance of hope – of endurance beyond adversity.

He grasped the pins and wore them to school the next day –

and into the school yard.

From thence, he set his course as if for mankind

to achieve some deed beyond his means.

As he grew, he treasured those ideals and pins.

Walked steadfast in his grandfather’s footsteps with pride.

For humanity he eventually touched this terrestrial sphere ever so

perceptibly.

When he breathed his last sigh, they placed the pins on his lapel

and put a folded flag at his fingertips.

Before they closed the lid, his son removed the pins –

and they gave him the flag.

And – as was the custom – with complacent smugness and disdain,

The pins were thereafter sold at the next garage sale.

Ray Brown

As I yawned my thoughts escaped me.

Involuntarily trapped within my wishful thinking,

I’d kept them prisoners, lest my companions

appreciate I was someplace else.

Now summoned by my boredom,

some audible phrase of 3 to 4 words

left my brain and ventured into the airways of human discourse

to be treated disdainfully by my associates,

adsorbed in their own words –

startled by my yawn to begin with.

Having intentionally been ignored

my thoughts travelled on the words,

through the air,

as if on the foot of a carrier pigeon.

On the way, they found shelter from a storm

within the beams of a barn

atop a field of once cut hay,

where he reached up before the pigeon could alight

and grasped the words within his calloused hands,

and contemplated the thoughts

as he directed the horses of the hay wagon

through the hillside fields, now fallow –

Where the thoughts were lost as he,

unloaded the bales onto the stack.

And somewhere in the farm fields of Iowa,

My thoughts lie crushed between two bales.

Fodder for a mushroom farm in the adjacent county.

Ray Brown

Joe mooned the audience at the Open Mic reading
the other night at the Millburn, NJ Library.
I knew he had it in him,
I was just hoping that I would never see it.

Joe always complained
about the “Intelligentsia” in the poetry world.
We would go to workshops,
they would give him some mundane topic
and expect that he would write in esoteric terms
that not even a swami could interpret.

“These people would expect lyrical phases
even if the topic was to write about a fart,”
he told me once.
“Some things are just what they are,
and they aren’t lyrical.”

So when he read his poem at the library
about the outhouse
that was on the Western Pennsylvania farm where he grew up
he started to hear some snickers
saw those condescending smiles in the audience
like “here goes Joe again,”
and all of his William Paterson College A.A. bred inhibitions
broke down, he just lost it.
There at the podium he mooned them,
and that just about said it all,
but it didn’t really.

For you see, if certain writers who were acceptable to
the Intelligentsia had done that, it would have been innovative,
avant-garde. They would have put his picture
on the wall at Poets House in New York
written about it in Poets and Writers Magazine.
But Joe had the wrong initials behind his name -
A.A. instead of M.F.A.

So now as we have a beer at Mechlin’s Corner Tavern
Joe asked me about the old poetry haunts
and Mrs. Snooty who black listed him.

Afterwards he jumps into his chauffeured driven limousine,
he now having become quite the cult idol,
much sought after reader,
with his own booking agent, traveling first class
from college to college throughout the United States.

That’s what one minute of fame, on You Tube,
“Mooning the Intelligentsia”, can do for you.

Ray Brown