The InditeCircle

Old Uncle Gus and I had a Nice Talk

“Das Eichhörnchen is the German word
for squirrel, you know.”
Uncle Gus smiles, waves his gnarled,
liver-spotted old hand towards the window,
at the squirrel outside, gnawing peacefully
on an acorn. “And acorn is die Eichel,
and flowerpot is der Blumentopf ,
and roses are der Rosenstrauß,
don’t you just love roses,
and an oak tree in German is die Eiche.
Old Uncle Gus who was born in Germany in 1878
told me a lot of German words that day,
back in the spring of 1969,
when I stopped by to visit him and Aunt Queenie.
They lived close to my college
in a quaint old brick house
with a white picket fence
and window-boxes that Norman Rockwell
would’ve loved to paint. Aunt Queenie
was my great aunt, my grandmother’s sister,
and the sweetest person
who ever lived. She served me milk
and homemade oatmeal cookies that day,
after I finished with Old Uncle Gus.
He was almost 90, but had spent the last 30 years
stuck in bed, like a beetle (der Borkenkäfer)
trapped forever in amber (das Bernsteingelb)
after he shattered his hip by falling down
the stairs in his house and he wasn’t even drunk.
But his mind, I could tell was still sharp,
yes sharp as a tack (der Täcks).
“And chair, in German that’s der Sessel,
and table is die Spielgesellschaft . . .”

Barbershop

Raining when I get to
the barbershop. The guys
are rearranging
the display windows,
dusting, setting up bottles
and brushes in
a more interesting way.
 
Todd the Barber smiles at me,
his white teeth flashing,
as he clears a chair,
as he pumps me up,
and begins to snip away
at my ever-thinning hair:
around my ears,
an inch above my collar.

He doesn't talk thank God.
I'm tired and hate
small talk in barbershops.

Instead I listen
to the old songs playing
on the AM station; listen
to Carly Simon's warm
wonderful mouth,
and wonder as Todd the Barber
snip, snip, snips, how
what's-his-name Taylor
could've ever let her
get away.

Dinner after a day of business meetings,
only 8:30, the boss pushes away from
the table, returns to his room to work
on his presentations. Most of
the others go back to their rooms too,
to catch-up on email, and besides,
they’re tired-out after all
the meetings and travel.
As I return to my room
to watch a rerun of Two & a Half Men
and finish off a bottle of Poland Springs
fresh mountain water, I laugh out loud
thinking back to earlier years
when we’d all go out most of the night,
getting hammered, with hangovers
throbbing through the next day.
Amazing how different things are
these days, how changed
we’ve become over the years.
Back in my room I find myself alone,
depressed, lonely, thinking about you,
missing you so much after only
a couple days, wanting to see you
and be with you, actually aching for you.
Obviously everything hasn’t changed
since the old days, since
the good old days.