Dear Chicago:

Tonight was my last night with you, wrapped in blankets on the roof of my house, staring at your moon with my friends. It's the second half of May, but you're still so damn cold. I guess some things just won't change.

I sometimes catch myself wishing you were different. That I was different. I sometimes wish humility could have come without the humbling, that friends didn't come with the drama. Sometimes, I wish that your streets were gentler to my thoughts and your songs kinder to my heart. I wish you would have taught me to love rightly and to forget myself more often.

Maybe tomorrow, when I spend my night driving through Ohio listening to Over the Rhine, or next month back under the lights of Tianjin 羊肉 vendors, I won't be so bitter over your painful winters. Maybe, as I look up and see stars under Mongolian skies or neon towers across Victoria Harbour, a smile will greet the thought of my brothers and sisters who all have '08 after their names. After all, however imperfect and odd we were, however fleeting our joy was, you made us beautiful, if only for a moment.

Tomorrow, I'll squeeze the last of Wheaton in my back seat, packed in paper boxes. I'm sure I'll find pieces of you with every familiar face.

I'm leaving you with a broken heart, and I'm not coming back until He fixes it. I'm not coming back until I'm a better person, and your winds no longer cut so deep.

Until then, ciao, buddy. My friends here will hold you down.

Yea, here's to the nights we felt alive.

Love,
Chuck

Remember?

If I slide your picture underneath a frame,
I can grasp within my two hands
the moment we chose to leave our regrets
like muddy shoes at the door,
and let the whites of our teeth,
the creases at the corner of our eyes
select the memories I choose to recall.

Forget
In that moment, anything
but the lilacs lingering on a breeze
that never seems to leave this windy city
Unlike us, who,
with our patchwork hearts,
begin to drive, fly, walk,
RUN.
away from all that we chose not to frame.

If I slide your picture underneath a frame,
We will fossilize our smiles,
reignite our conversations with,
“Remember that time in Chicago...
That night... on spring break...
... Remember?”
We will dance around the demons slain by the Holy Ghost,
and will toast to the amnesia outside the frame.

This is the Way the World Ends, Not With a Bang But a Whimper

What's the point of not drinking if I'm going to wake up with a pounding pain behind my eyes? What's the point of not saying goodbye if I'm still going to think about you?




The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

Praying Our Goodbyes

Here's a prayer that our prof left us with today:

I give you praise, God of my journey,
for the power of love, the discovery of friends, the truth of beauty
for the wonder of growth, the kindling of fidelity, the taste of transformation
for the miracle of life, the seed of my soul, the gift of becoming
for the taste of the little dyings which have strengthened me for this moment
for the mystery of journey, the bends in the road, the pauses that refresh
for the faith that lies deep enough to permeate discouragement and anxiety

I give you thanks, God of my journey,
for all I have learned from the life of Jesus of how to say goodbye
for those who have always stood near me and given me spiritual energy
for your strength on which I can lean and your grace by which I can grow
for the desire to continue on, for believing that your power works through me
for being able to love so deeply, so tenderly, so truly
for feeling my poorness, my emptiness, my powerlessness
for believing that you will care for me in my vulnerability

I ask forgiveness, God of my journey,
for holding on too tightly
for refusing to be open to new life
for fighting off the dying that’s essential for growing
for insisting that I must be secure and serene
for ignoring your voice when you urged me to let go
for taking in all the goodness but being reluctant to share it
for doubting my inner beauty
for resisting the truth of my journey home to you

I beg assistance, God of my journey,
to accept that all of life is only on loan to me
to believe beyond this moment
to accept your courage when mine fails
to recognize the pilgrim part of my heart
to hold all of life in open hands
to treasure all that is gift and blessing
to look at the painful parts of my life and to grow through them
to allow your love to embrace me on the empty and lonely days
to receive the truth of your presence
to trust in the place of “forever hello”

(-Joyce Rupp)

Amen.

One Last Huzzah for Chi-City

To think oneself away from thoughts
is really like
hiring a beaver
to dam[n] Lake Michigan.

The PSI of driving by…
(under the yellow bellies of sliding street lights)
… concrete we’ve kissed with our feet,
coat still laced with our sins,
vaults my liver, lungs, heart, brain
tenuous and shifting
like the shadows unable to stand still.