The Last Ride of Sky Carpenter

THE LAST RIDE OF 'SKY' CARPENTER

Only yesterday
there were Carpenters that had gills,
flopping up on the dry rugged land,
gasping for sweet primordial air.

They huddled in small groups
around red raging campfires,
and peered into the bright darkness
of a night sky,
feeling a strange kinship
to the sparkling stars.

As the eons passed,
wherever a Carpenter toiled
as other men slept,
they lifted their handsome heads,
craned their bull-like necks
and smiled
at the stars of ice
in an indigo Sky.

They actually saw other galaxies
long before
the great telescopes were invented.
In their fertile minds they saw
the other side of the sun,
hopping spryly from star to star
like happy children skipping over pebbles.

They witnessed all these cosmic marvels
before there was language.
Still, they passed on
this affinity to infinity
through their groins,
From Carpenter to Carpenter,
as the centuries flipped by
like the dry pages of a manic calendar;
until the last few moments
of the 19th century,
when a Carpenter named Earl
joined his brethren
in their vigil of the Sky.


He grew up straight and strong,
matching them with muscle and sinew;
But somehow he
was different
from the rest of the clan.

When he scanned the Sky
with his clear eye,
he saw so much more than
mythical animals and heroes,
Jules Verne and Buck Rogers;
much more.
In the infinite depths of nothingness
he saw
everything.

A complete logical pulsating harmonious equity.
He saw
a future that could be,
and should be,
that perhaps never
will be.

A world without bullies,
hunger, fear, bosses, or profit;
A band of brothers
who loved and respected
and supported each other.

As a young man he encountered other men
like himself, with visions
Of their own
about the dream world of Brotherhood,
and the defeat of Patrician squalor.

Young Carpenter adopted their cause
as his own,
and soon
His prophetic picture of a perfect universe
Was metamorphed
into the harsh reality of slaves
shaking their chains
in the face of their oppressors.

For over half his life he ferociously fought
against all of the sons-a-bitches
of this earth,
and scores of the bastards remembered
his sting.
But sadly,
when you use a dagger against dragons
There is no way to keep from getting singed.

You see,
robber barons and philosopher kings
link arms,
Forming a tremendous wall of stone,
taller than the Tower of Babel;
And this mountain of graft moves methodically,
Crushing all those that stand in it's path.

Carpenter was not crushed,
but he was bound and trussed,
and although his strong angry voice
was heard no more in the halls of dissent,
he was never silenced.

Middle-aged he struggled
up a mountainside,
lifted his gaze from mere manacles
to Mercury and Mars,
and he embraced the only reality larger
than capitalist greed and profit;
a solitary sun-kissed wildflower
in a damp field of clover.
The numbing all-embracing harmony
Of planets unseen.

Right there
the cataclysmic cosmic truth
washed over him;
we are merely meat
without art.
Art opens up our heart
like a sharp knife,
and we can allow other men to see
with our eyes,
Within hitherto unexplored regions
of soul and space.

It came to pass
on that halcyon mountain afternoon,
the artist in Earl
usurped the crusader.
What in his past had been hobby
became hot obsession;
A gnawing hunger to share and bare.

He rolled up his thick sleeves,
stocked up on oil paints,
and he gently cajoled his only brother,
the Sky,
Into temporary residence
on canvas.

His unsettling uncanny illustrations startled, alarmed,
and fascinated people.
Never had there been
such muscular majesty,
such stratospheric imagery.
The worshiping clamoring crowd
dubbed him,
"Sky Carpenter",
Master of the Skies,
And he is.

He controls light, shadow, clouds, mists,
the sun and the elements
like a Norse God,
and his paintings swirl with
the life of his spirit.

Although today,
his brushes move more slowly,
and his heart pumps erratically,
and pain rushes through his limbs,
and focus sometimes leaves his eyes,
and dexterity leaves his fingers;
in the teeth of this adversity,
Carpenter paints his pain.

The Sky does not elude him.
It is closer and clearer
than ever.
Stars are within reach,
And fresh new planets teem
with unnamed odors.

At night, it feels as if
he could ride a bolt of light.
remembering that once
he stood with his grandfather,
and watched the night
dance of the heavens,
punctuated by a comet
named Haley.

Today, Sky Carpenter
waits like a wolf
for that brilliant comet's return.
He knows how it will be.
He will bellow its name,
and it will come to him;
a great cosmic creature
scorching the treetops.
He will lasso that maverick star,
throw himself on its fiery back,
grab two handfuls of stardust,
and with space fireflies in his gray hair,
and that wild free look that has always been
in his eyes,
he will dig his strong old legs
into the comet's sides,
and ride off into the vast
silence.

Damn, how can I tell people
that my grandfather
pulled down
the mother of all comets,
And rode off
into some dark distant oblivion?
For Christ's sake,
no one would believe me.

Butch Buttkus
December 1977