Buffalo
Nickels and Steel Guitar Music
by
Michael Brockley
for
Jay Zimmerman
Last
night I counted a buffalo nickel among the change left in my Levi’s.
All summer, butterflies have fluttered from the shadows of the silver
maples that have overgrown my fencerow. When was the last time you
held a nickel? What was the last color of butterfly to land on your
arm? I try to remember your poem about coming of age in Miami, but
all I recall is you cruising in your Firebird along the strip of
motels where Yankee teenagers on spring break gathered to drink local
beers named for hurricanes. In the evening, a jazz combo lost
themselves in “Kind of Blue.” The last time we talked we sat in a
college bar surrounded by board games and used books. We read B. H.
Fairchild’s poem about a young Mickey Mantle walloping a fastball
from the green hell of steel guitar music off a water tower in
Quapaw. “There’s more to it than that. It’s about men playing
for redemption,” you said. The depth you always mined. I spent that
night listening to Over the Rhine’s “I Won’t Eat the Darkness.”
Where did you go to hear them that last time? I hide the buffalo
nickel in a niche where I won’t find it and think about kissing a
woman with luck tattooed on her shoulder. I want to cruise Ocean
Drive in a muscle car with the songs that made me a man shaking the
firmament. This isn’t the last time I’ll try to say goodbye.
Jay’s
Eulogy
by
Michael Brockley
You
stand in against Whitey Ford on a baseball diamond in paradise while
Mickey Mantle shouts instructions to you from the dugout. Keep your
hands back. Follow through with your hips. The southpaw might stick a
curveball in your ribs or knock you down with a “mudball,” but
you’re not a Miami Little Leaguer anymore. You know how to wait
deep in the box while digging in with your cleats. Know how to get
back up after biting the dirt. The last time you faced this lefty,
you didn’t see the ball. Said it sounded liked a strike. Since then
you’ve meditated in the shade of the tree of life. Climbed a
mountain with the man who had a dream. You let your soul catch your
body beneath your favorite light. On the pitcher’s mound, Ford is
nodding to Berra, rocking into his delivery. You’ve learned how to
see the pitch. How to gauge its rotation with the sweet spot of your
swing. You’re standing now on sacred ground where those you cherish
most will cheer you on forever.
Bio:
Michael Brockley is a quasi-retired
school psychologist who still works in rural northeast Indiana. His
poems have appeared in a variety of literary journals, including
Atticus Review, Gargoyle, Clementine Unbound and Flying Island. "Jay
Zimmerman was a teacher, poet and friend whose poems and creative
nonfiction occasionally appeared in Flying Island. He passed away on
August 6, 2018."
Editor's
note: Here are links to Jay S Zimmerman's contributions to the
Flying Island.