Gym Class, Hippies and a Fat Library Volunteer

Once upon a time there was an oak tree. It stood next to my high school, and perhaps it still does. Minuteman is an enormous school, bigger than some community colleges and just as full of mediocre minds. The middling mind in charge of my hideous body decided to drop out of school, since I weighed 450lbs and was failing a required class, gym. Whatever douchebag made "physical education" a required class should shampoo my crotch. When my gym "teacher" asked me once, "Why can't you just come to class?" I should have taken all my clothes off, pointed to my rolls of fat, and shit on the floor in contempt. Instead, I just left. But I went back to night school, and the tree.

Every night I would take classes and then volunteer 2 hours in the school library, mainly putting books back. So I mastered the Dewey decimal system, and had some great conversations with a teacher I had who happened to be a hippy. And I read a lot. I forget why, but I compiled a list of public companies that sold stock and private companies that, of course, didn't. It had something to do with my early socialism. I was trying to make a point long forgotten.

If an alien race ever floats over our greatest cities and explores our cathedrals and museums and malls, they'll almost certainly come to the conclusion that we were trying to make a point about something long forgotten.

After an evening of classes and volunteering, I would wait outside, usually in the cold, at the front entrance. Out in Lexington it is far enough from the city to appreciate the bright stars and darkness around it. And the bright, white moon is burned into my memory. It was mezmerizing. And now the black oak tree comes into the picture. A black oak is a species of oak tree, by the way, and isn't just me trying to relate how alight the moon seemed in comparison. If I stood in the right place, the moon rays would cut through the bare branches of the tree. Sometimes I could obscure the moon entirely behind a thick branch, and the light would put the branches in bold bas relief. The light was flat and the dark weaved atop it. On a special night, the tree was covered with ice from a storm, but the sky was free of clouds. It was magnificent, and made me swallow hard and I even found myself getting truly emotional. And it wasn't a faux profound moment where you feel that you should be emotional, so you pretend you are. This was different. If I could explain exactly what it is that got to me so, I could author a masterpiece. As it is, I'll just leave it alone. But I did write a poem about it long ago.

Still black oak along a path
denuded branches arc and twist
against the frozen white face
of the moon
A glowing Siren's call, tempting us
to step outside ourselves
And see everything we love
as the moon does
All framed in time and space
in nothingness
We try to resist the void it speaks of
while the black oak stands
and pays no mind.

Isn't that uplifting!