The Star Fisher Page 4

  “But I cannot just do that and it happen. And what would it matter?”

  “Well I don't know. Who can know the future. Just call it into being.”

  “When?”

  “Now is always the only and best time. Here and now. Right here, right now, in Blue Water Canyon. And after you do that, then let the stars aid it into being. Like they have done everything else.”

  “Okay then, I call into the world an age of wonder. . . ”

  They sat quiet a minute. He said, “See? Nothing changed.”

  She said, “Everything has changed. . . .”

  The sun was dipping toward the west. There was an an hour of light left. She rose from her seat, set the Indian flower in his shirt pocket and said, “Come on, Wonderboy. We best be getting out of here and back home. It's getting time for my hot bath.”

  The First Spring

  January 12, 1937

  She waited on the back of his father's Model T Ford. He would soon be getting off work at the mom and pop grocery store he worked after school. She wondered if he was expecting her, or if he was preoccupied with work. She wondered what he was thinking. When he ended his shift at 8:30 and walked around the side of the building he saw someone waiting for him and thought it was one of his friends. He opened his mouth to say hello and his heart leaped out of it. As he realized who it was he remembered the letter he had given her earlier in the day, professing his immortal love. A love letter instigated when another began courting her and he realized he couldn't let her go that way without her knowing his true heart. So he wrote past midnight the immortal letter and then went to sleep and wondered what she would say and do about it. This was his time to know her answer and he wasn't ready for it. His heart was beating ninety miles an hour. He wondered what she was going to say.

  “Hello. . . .”

  He cleared his throat,

  “Hey. . . .”

  He stood in front of her and they were quiet a while.

  “Hello. . .” She said again. He smiled. She reached and took his hand in hers. He had never held a girl's hand before and hers was the only one he had ever wished to hold. His heart came back into his throat and he was worried about it; didn't know what he was going to do about all this. He stood there like an ox until she shivered from the cold. He took off his coat and set it on her. The moon was above them and the clouds were passing under it. She pointed at the moon and said,

  “Look, the moon is saying hello to us.”

  He tried to say Hello, old Mr. Moon, but the words wouldn't come out. They had been best friends nearly all their lives and he had never had a problem speaking to her before, but now the vowels and syllables were lost in a jumble of emotion and he couldn't get his head or tongue straight to say a single coherent thought, not out-loud, anyway. He looked toward the moon, nodded at it, and finally said, “Yeah”.

  When he turned back her lips where in his face and she quickly touched them to his. A bolt of lightening shot through him, freezing him and the moment; then the frozen moment passed and he loosened up and melted into her. She pulled him in and bound him tight.

  From then on no words were required, for they were communicating the basic knowledge of life. They were composing the symphony of The First Spring, the notes between them a new addition to the mystical memory of song that blooms in two that are new in love. It was early January and the cold winds whipped around them, but they stood inviolate of the winds, for they were in the one sacred spring that is granted to those who know true love's first kiss. It happens only once to any two, this first kiss.

  The Thief

  September 26, 1960

  He went back the next day and found her at her work: teaching children how to safely ride a horse. There were half a dozen kids and she was showing them how to halter and bridle Stardust. They were all captivated, not so much by the subject matter, but by her observable joy in teaching. She whispered life to the horse and children and they all leaned in and listened. He sat on the fence and watched for an hour as she made her living by living her dream: teaching children and horses how to get along.

  When the last child left she went over and sat with him. He said,

  “You have a good way with children. Have any of your own?”

  “I have one. She is gone from this earth, but she lives in me.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “No need for sorry. Like I said, she lives in me. She is the living dream of life inside me.”

  They sat awhile, then he asked,

  “What happened, if I may ask?”

  “A thief came in the night, crept in through the open window, and took her away. It made not a sound as over the window sill it crept. My young lady slept, her mouth opened, and into her mouth crept the thief. In dream was the young lady, of some beautiful thing, she dreamt. She was too preoccupied by dream to notice the thief who had crept into her being. The thief made its way into the lungs of the dreamer and there began to steal the wares of life and living and dream. Slow and unchecked the thief began to take what now was his, each part of the machinery of breath was his to pilfer. He took his time, for he had plenty of it. He would go slow with his dark work, for the young lady was in dream of beauty and would not waken if the job was done slowly. Better safe than sorry, reasoned the thief. The thief thought if he did not wake the dreamer with too much taken too soon, then he would be able to take all of it by morning. All of her breath was his to steal and nothing left for the dreamer by morning. And so the dreamer dreamt of beauty while the thief took her breath and by morning, all went well for the thief. . . . Dying in one's sleep is not so bad, though, if one's last dream was of beauty. My girl's last dream was of beauty. I am sure of that.”

  They sat awhile longer, then she finished,

  “It was the night of a thousand stars and a thousand dreams for her. It was the walk of a thousand miles. She was dreaming of the vision of life and I see it everyday, what she dreamt that night. She is gone nowhere. She is in me. Her dream has become my dream. Her vision, my vision. A thing will come about a dream that must be done eventually. Whether the dream come true or not, this thing must be done. And that is: we must give back away our dream. And we will find, whether it came true or it did not, that to give back away the dreams of our soul is a sad thing in life we all must do. Life, dreams and love, these we all must eventually let go. By not letting her dream go, she stays with me.”

  She jumped down and motioned for him to follow her inside. Dark wood floors and a dark red brick fireplace with paneled walls and just enough furnishings to make it comfortable but nothing that made for clutter. She didn't collect, only lived. She went to the roll-top desk and took a piece of paper from it and handed it to him.

  “I wrote this for her.”

  It was a sonnet. He read it quietly as she stood looking on. . .

  When, from fatigue, we stand at edge of death

  We do die it seems, for a short while in dreams

  Then to the days light, we rise from our rest

  And seek we our lives, or what life to be, seems

  And we seek, with our being, what is life, or is best

  And we judge our dreams to be the one spot

  Where dreams, love and life mark the treasure chest

  Where treasure, love and life are best got

  Then come we to the end of our little part

  And the treasure inside us, and its purloined lot

  Has been spilled for what was less than art

  And all we have now is death for which to show

  But this may be true, if truth is vital

  Our lives here on earth are Heaven's recital.

  When he finished he looked at her for a long moment, then said, “This is beautiful. . . You are beautiful.”

  She took the paper and as she did, said, “Oh, shush.”

  She put it back away and said, “I have never shown that to anyone.”

  “Thank you for showing it to me. Why have you never shown it to any other?”


  “You must never expect true sympathy from anyone. True sympathy is something only that one who truly loves you can give and to be truly loved by even one is nothing that is common. Nor must you seek to be understood. Few understand even themselves, so how can you expect them to understand you? Don't worry about understanding or sympathy from any other and you will be free to worry about the important things. And that is what poetry is, besides the art of it; a seeking for understanding and sympathy for the human condition. I feel a true sympathy and understanding from you.”

  “I can't tell you I understand you. You seem to be the biggest mystery I ever encountered. But you do have my sympathy. And if you ever need it, just let me know.”

  “I will.”

  “Tell me about your girl. What was she like?”

  She sat in her pink wing back chair and crossed her legs. She seemed very small all of a sudden, and vulnerable. He sat on the bricks of the fireplace next to her.

  “On the day she died it had been hot and the sun was bright and yellow and we had our whole lives ahead of us. We climbed our favorite tree that day, the big one just outside this window. There were white bricks at the base of it then. Our favorite spot was about twenty feet up, where the first great branch forks outward. We would sit in what we called the Cup of the Oak, it was where the trunk and first great limb intersects and forms a sunken depression, large enough for both of us to sit in comfortably. A perfect spot to observe the goings on while not being seen. We could hide there all day, in plain sight, and nobody would notice us. It was our secret and we told no one. But the birds knew all about it and on that day there was one who was not so shy. It tweeted at us and we tweeted back. It tweeted again and hopped toward us. She put her hand out and the bird was not afraid and hopped right into her hand. Her eyes grew wide in wonder at this bird in her hand. This had never happened before, though we had been sitters in the Cup of the Oak for an age before then. An age to us, anyway. It had been at least three years since we had discovered the Cup. She had edged her body out of the Cup and was held up by one hand on the limb, her knees on the cup, and her outstretched hand holding the bird. In that brief moment while the bird was in her hand I was sure I was seeing God on earth, holding a bird in her hand. She was the perfection of gentleness, and the bird had perceived it, too, which is why it had no fear to jump into her hand and use her finger as a perch. It was a perfect moment in this world and few ever see such perfect moments. Time did stop in that moment, for a brief non second or two and that is when we both felt it: that sense of the eternal. The eternal things leave their mark on you as they pass by and that one moment has been with me, like a beacon and a marker, all the days of my life since. We named it the Wonder Tree that day.

  “We were more like best friends than mother and daughter. She was very precocious. She was the one who incited me to wonder. I fed off her curiosity like a sucker fish feeds off the side of a tank. I was stuck on her and her spirit of living. I followed her everywhere and she followed me and I was always curious to see and hear what new thought she had about matters most adults never contemplate. Before her my life was not a happy thing, and then she came and all of a sudden there was more hope than I could hold. She told me a thousand times if she said it once, Believe in the great and good luck of your life. And other times she would say, Remember your destiny. and I would ask, What destiny? and she would say, Exactly. You got to remember it.

  “Other times she would say, This is just the final push. You can't give up now. We got to push on. This is the final push. And I would ask, Final push to what? And she would reply, That's just it, we don't know. It's all mystery. But if we would make this final push, then we would know. So that is what she left me, we have to always make the final push.”

  As she told the story goosebumps rose on his skin and he was made breathless. There was a good reason for this, for he knew the story well. He had once lived the same basic story, with a few changes. He carried that story with him everywhere he went. He decided right off he would not tell her of it. He imagined what the girl looked like and saw her leading her mother on trips of wonder. Her face was cherubic and princely. Her precociousness evident in her bright eye and courtly demeanor. She broke him out of his reverie by saying,

  “She would tell you your calling is to call into the world a new age of wonder. She would say you were given this task by the spirit within you; that spirit that listened to the warblings of the universe's twitterings; that little bird that is in all men if they will listen quietly and close. She would say: What are you waiting for? Call it in now. Now is the time. Now has always been the time. You could have been calling for this age to come into being all along. It is up to everybody to make the age. It is the primary job of the heralder to call for it. And before all that, it is his job to make such an age in his own life.”

  She paused a moment, then said,

  “You have went into the world, to all the great places of history, seeking wonder, so that you would know best what wonder is; to be and become and call into being this age of wonder. But there is no need to go anywhere but wherever you are to know wonder best. That is what my girl would tell you. That is what she tells me to tell you now.”

  She stood and put a few logs in the fire and used the poker to situate them, sending sparks upward into the chimney. Then she sat back down and said,

  “The ancient Chinese said the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And the dreamer must remember this age-old saying on the day he begins walking. All great journeys are like a thousand mile journey. All great journeys are like traveling toward a mountain top, where the treasure waits, or so is said, by the dream in the dreamer. My girl told me a story about a dream once. . .

  “One night a young man woke from a dream and walked outside his hovel to view the stars. He had dreamt of a great treasure on a mountaintop. The dream gave him instructions on how to go to this mountaintop, but it would be a thousand mile trip and he had but a limited time to make it if he wished to gain this treasured dream. The dreamer balked at the great distance and the dream said, If you deem me a treasure and if you will come to me, then the treasure that is me you may have in full. The dreamer replied the distance was so great and he had but his feet to travel by.

  “Asked the dream, Do you believe in your dream, that a treasure awaits you?

  “Yes,” said the dreamer.

  “Then what is a thousand miles to the fulfillment of a dream? For a treasure, one will find the way.

  “The dream ended with this: Remember, there are but two steps to walking to and up a mountain: one foot in front of the other. And repeat.

  “Your girl was wise.”

  “She was a dreamer like you. And it's the dreamers and the poets and the wonderers who death wish for the most urgently. Our world is less because of this. Death seeks the best first. Death seeks your dream, by making you not believe in it.”

  She stood and went to the window, where the moon was hanging below the Wonder Tree. She said,

  “It's why I have gazed so long on the Heavens. They feel more like my home than this place and someday I will go back there. But not yet. For some reason, I must stay. But I choose to believe I am on this earth to do something, and maybe it is to tell you to follow your dream to found an age of wonder, and until that is effected, I cannot leave this place.”

  He watched her watching the moon. She was full of sadness, but kept it deep. He told her,

  “One day you will fly back to the stars. But you must promise to take me. Will you promise me that?”

  “I promise.”

  She turned from the window and walked back and sat in her chair.

  “Her destiny is concluded here on earth, except that it goes on in me. So I am the living, ongoing conclusion of her destiny. She told me once that conclusions are the most important things we come to in life. And one mind in a million comes to the right and wise and best ones. To come to the right conclusion is very hard; to come to the
simple conclusion is very easy. She said the most important wisdom to remember about one's self is this: beware your conclusions. A conclusion is many things; it is a determination, a judgment, a decision. It does, whether based in actual fact or just fancy, become a seeming fact in the mind of the concluder. It sets something in concrete that is perhaps yet sprouted into germination. Give your conclusions the greatest weight of your mind and heart and do not make them lightly. Come to them with great deliberation and fair judgment. More souls have corrupted their chance at greatness, at life, at happiness, from poor conclusions reached than by all other means. In fact, it is our conclusions that make us everything we are, and are not. And our conclusions also reach into other lives and make them everything they are, or are not. Life itself is a conclusion of the universe. All things are conclusions and so by that you might understand this: there can be no conclusions, in the overall scheme. For all is not concluded. All is unfolding. So stop not the unfolding by concluding too much and too soon. Always be open, this is the universe itself. Nothing is finished. If you must reach a conclusion, try to make conclusions an omnipotent and omniscient god would reach. It is very easy to imagine one's self a god. Just put yourself above all things in cosmic knowledge. Now you know all things. Your knowledge has reached beyond good and bad, right and wrong, success and failure. There is no longer any colors to you, you see all things in the primal color. Everything is pure and true. You are incapable of error in judgment or thought. Now you may conclude properly. . . And good luck with that.

  “Truth is, no man will ever be a god. It is not bound in the atoms of man to be a god or even godlike, but only something resembling it, like the leaf resembles a bird when it falls from the twig that one time. But there is grace in every leaf that falls. I never saw a leaf that did not fall perfectly in grace from any tree. No leaf ever falls without this grace inherent within it; it has been building this grace since it was born. It grew by the winds of spring and the gusts of summer to know how to fall gracefully when the time came. Man may be this, by the buffets of life that he may grow by and thus, when his own time to fall comes, he may do so gracefully. The leaf concludes perfectly what to do when forces beyond it have concluded for it. Man, overall, can only do the exact same thing and no other. Man does not control the cosmic forces buffeting him. Man will not control the wind that will pull him from his twig and force him to a falling. This is the gnashing of teeth we have, that we struggle against the buffeting and the falling. We struggle against the winds, when we should be falling gracefully with them. We fly on the winds, but we never control the winds.