The Chums of 1924

I always thought my friend and I belonged somewhere beyond the late seventies. We had a way of talking, seeking true friendship that took our spirits somewhere else. Chums from another time. One night we actually went where we belonged. I do believe it was 1924.

He looks at me his eyes brown and ferocious! “Would a girl ever come between us”? He sounds as if he is gagging as he spits the words out. “Maybe not one”, I softly reply. I look away staring at the open New Mexico wilderness, the late June wind blowing from the northwest cooling our conversation. “One could hope for two or three between us”, I say the genesis of a sardonic grin appearing on my face.

We wish our thoughts in shadow-land, from friend to foe and stand ourselves on where kings stand. In stars, we want a falling phase the kind that guides our keen eyed gaze. To take us cross the Gobi sands. Our swords and minds to far off lands. Oh friend my chum though we are here, our young adolescence beyond years. To camp above on roof tops, to see the moon so near, to strive to speak our legends, to each other and the earth so near. For if we are young traveling warriors, is life’s wartime here?

We somehow summon laughter, we somehow broke our tears, and we cross our arms and unfold them, when the Southern Cross draws near. In times, we study magic, and camp where daemons leer. For under signs of heaven, our stories draw us near. To unfold a crooked omen, that crosses minds and fears. To know that something savage is made gentle when we are of cheer. Oh, friend my chum in laughter, my twin when hell doth know that we our twins in witness, to all the dark can know.

We tasted our peyote, we chased the moon away, and we brought a noonday brilliance to the places we went to play. For in the days of future, when you or I should say, was that day in 1924, or just the tricks odd seeds can play. For I know we traversed minefields of those false life can lay. But I swear we held the world in our hands, and watched it float away, into the gray, my chum, into the gray.

“My parents signed the papers today”. His voice is more serious than sad. “Semper Fi”, I say, a sudden lump in my throat, bringing my skinny right arm and hand up in a sharp salute. “Yes sir”, he grins his sixteen-year-old Navajo face suddenly looking much older. “There will be more than two or three girls between us by the time I get back”, he says. “Maybe even a set of twins”. – 06.19.2018 – דָנִיֵּאל