His Way

I’m writing my autobiography, you might
not be surprised to hear; however, the truth is
this comes as a surprise. This woman I know,
she’s fifteen or twenty years younger than me,
and we became friends because I was friends
with her father, who was probably thirty years older
than me. He was a prince of a man. Which wasn’t what
he saw in me, unless he was overlooking an awful lot,
which was his way. When I read of his passing,
I also read that she was his daughter. So, I approached
her to tell her how much he had meant to me, and why.
Then we became friends. It’s been maybe five years
since. She recently approached me and asked if I would
write up the things we had spoken of between us
about her dad, as something she could share with
her family. Well, being sort of long-winded in general,
I told the story of the sometimes fierce resistance
we hippies faced invading this fair valley, the point being
the way her dad treated everybody like they were somebody
that deserved to be treated with joy and kindness. Also,
I had to tell of our survival problems of food and heat,
which her dad had a hand in helping us solve for a few
critical years in the beginning. For a while there,
I saw him several times a week. At both of his jobs.
But after I’d poured out six pages or so from these twin
perspectives, I realized that neither of those interfacings
was why I was grateful to him, although, it was clear,
I'd tapped into the sure beginnings of autobiography.
I could see right through the long trail of years still
stacked before me, their unruly crew of mixed destinies
dark to me, but eager to get off, willing their cues
from the not quite interrupted dark of those freezing
mornings, as we gassed up the green truck, stamping our feet,
and smiling back and forth, beside a man only destined to
change the futures of every one of us who knew him,
and loved him.