The 19th Hole

(prose poems to my dad)

Teeing Off - Heads Up Ball - Ristretto - Bases Empty - 7th Hole

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Teeing Off

In my mind’s eye, I see him there on the 18th tee, standing unsteadily, sometimes not even sure if he’s on the tee or somewhere else, deep in left field or at centre ice, hovering uncertainly, above the ball with its million dimples.

I too will be there one day, tottering, just as his father was, and his father before that, and his father before that — all the begats of England and Scotland, back to the original course in Saint Andrews, with its wooden clubs and its whiskey on the 19th hole.

I remember how uncertain I used to be on the first tee, back in the 90s when I started playing golf. He only encouraged me, as on the ice, the diamond, and the badminton court.

I remember the pints of beer on the 19th hole with his friend Stan, who tried to tell him about the books he read, in his thin whisper of a voice. My dad would sit looking at him, smiling, as good as deaf, next to a bowl of peanuts, chips, and Canterbury beer.

I remember the holes in between, especially the one with the cliff on the left and the ocean beckoning the golf ball like a siren into the waves that spread out across the horizon like a million dimples.

And I remember the next three holes, with the ocean surrounding us, and the salt air and the green turf beneath our feet. It seemed we had all the time in the world. Yet now, like Hamlet, I know not seems, and at my back I truly hear Time’s wingéd chariot hurrying near.

Blinded by the sadness of the moment, I can only think of the 18th hole, and how painful it will be, to watch him zigzagging to the green. I'm deaf to the wisdom of Shakespeare — But you must know your father lost a father / That father lost, lost his ... — ad infinitum, past Saint Andrews, through Stonehenge and Sumer, all the way to Olduvai Gorge.

I grit my teeth, to suppress the tears that keep blurring the screen, and focus on the tee, which is also the drop of the puck, the ball flying downward from the mound, and the feather bird slipping between my fingers.

I imagine us on the 18th tee, myself in the skin of my father, as he once was, as he is now, weak and fragile, as I will be, and swing.

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Playing Heads Up Ball

All those early evenings (as the stars threatened to scatter us away from the field and into the alleys of our less noble pursuits) my father stood there with his bat and brainwashed us into remembering that if we kept our heads down and gazed at our navels, or if we looked too high into the god-filled clouds, and not at what was coming at us, life would smack us in the head.

Or we’d miss what’s flying by: the way the game’s played, the joy of making a perfect catch, the satisfaction of leather on leather, and the beaming smiles of our teammates as they shouted Three up, three down! and we threw the ball from base to base around the diamond.

A diamond, rare indeed, in our world of obscurity and self-loathing that led us toward alcohol and drugs, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, like a zeppelin downward into the nightmares of Castaneda and Sartre.

I’d like to pay homage to that rare diamond in my father’s eyes, to a man whose satisfaction lay in our common good, invaluable instruction on how to live both for yourself and for your team, night after star-coming night, dirt and leather lessons on the balance between individual skill and the loss of ego in a finer game; implicit lessons that all came together, all made sense in the umpire's cry: Batter up!

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Ristretto

~ after wheeling my dad to the ground-floor cafe at the Royal Jubilee Hospital ~

Confronted with a cup of espresso, he can’t articulate what it means. Once a master of lexicography, he’s now stuck for words. The Italian styling might as well be the clay cup he made at school when he was six years old, or Keats' beaker full of the warm South / With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, no matter which.

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Bases Empty

It’s been months since you’ve died, and yet I dreamed I met you again, with my headphones on, along the avenue.

The day was white, you had a bluish hue, as if your face was slightly powdered.

I asked how your day had been, doing business at some downtown office. You said it wasn't easy, as you leaned on your cane and looked me in the eye (the old you, the one that was starting to worry about going insane) and then you went down the stairs, from the office on the first floor. I followed behind you, as we descended, as you slowly pushed open a door that lead from the stairwell to the white day.

I woke up and went through Kleenex after Kleenex, thinking each time I'd tossed one away that I'd cleared my eyes and could see again.

But the tears welled up again, and soon there was a scattered landscape of damp white snow cascading from my pillow to the floor.

I finally had enough and got up from bed and walked into the den, with the pile of Kleenex still in my hands, compressed, moulded in my palms.

In strange tribute, I assumed the old pitcher's stance, rolled back and forth, and with the Kleenex now a tight white ball, I leaned back one more time, although I had no signal from the plate, and let go.

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From the 7th Hole

~ months later, I’m at Northview in Surrey, still thinking of my dad ~

Dad, you’re the only one I know on the other side who never professed to know what’s on the other side. So tell me now, if you can, is there anything to see?

Are you mute as a block of uncarved stone, or is it just that you can’t hear my question, there at first base, amid the chatter of the infield?