Dear Jack (written to author, Jack London)
My saddest lines and words to famous author, Jack London (1876-1916)
You are
my one
distinct and
silent voice
resting deep
in stillness
I stand with no one around. The cool morning breeze pulling a few pieces of hair away from my face, I wait.
The winds shift into a deep ryhthmic longing.
Your breath tickles the nape of my neck. My heart is racing as I feel a soft kiss brush against my skin. Your voice mixes with the winds in the haunting sounds of love.
Gasp! You are behind me, a chilling touch preventing me from falling to your grave with shattered tears. You know I would just as soon dig you up and lie down beside you, then throw the blanket of Earth back to keep us covered. Alas, knowing my morbid thoughts, your ghostly hands wrap around my waist. Gently, you squeeze. I pray you take my life so we can be together. You don’t.
My beloved Jack, I wallow in madness for I cannot reach you. I am unable to touch your hands that I yearn to hold for comfort. I quest to know why my heart and mind would follow you again to this place that keeps me captive; this place that grieves for you. Your grave. The place you were put to rest. The place that rest robs me and burns my soul in the agony of missing you.
Do not give me simple gestures to erase you from my mind. I have tried to unplug the rhythm of your voice to no avail. Jack, you elude my dreams for I cannot place you in my current life. I cannot hear your words and am left only to the haunting chant of you lingering in the depths of my being, your whispers carried through the ethers of time.
Pushed down to your grave, you disappear as quickly as you had appeared. The pangs of anguished love rips from the belly up. A scream can be heard for miles. My knees bend into a ball and the scent of dirt from your grave torches me. You are gone. I am alone again.
What kind of mad woman am I to be haunted by a ghost I can only love from a distant past? How is it that I ache for your expressions that stain my thoughts with ink from your words? Your novels line my bookshelves. Yet, I cannot read them for they bleed me, imagining your lips upon mine from another existence. I am chased by the illusion of what cannot be, lost by the fine threads between this life and beyond.
It is true that I yearn to know this love here and now; to feel that soulful love is possible.
Jack, if it is destiny, I will put you to rest as a ghost of a distant past until another takes my heart as passionately as you. Until then, I remain a soulful lover that surrenders to the dreamer’s dream of awakening.
Jack London had a great influence in my life from the time I started reading his books at an early age to the many years spent visiting at his beloved ranch (Beauty Ranch) in Glen Ellen, CA (Sonoma County wine country). I have often felt that I have loved him deeply in another time and space. His Credo has been a guiding light:
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze
than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow,
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
– genece hamby, contemporary artist & poet
http://sanctuaryofstillness.wordpress.com
Wow! There is nothing I can say that can describe the admiration that I have for your writing of this piece. It is so amazingly good. What is there to say except wow! and WOW! again.
Vi
woodnymph
May 15, 2008 at 7:47 pm
WOW indeed! I felt the passion, the longing, the poignancy for something that can never be, but you want it nonetheless. The mark of a great story – you never want it to end, or, of a great writer, the saddest thing would be for this voice you’ve come to know and love, to be silent forevermore.
Kerry
kvwordsmith
May 16, 2008 at 1:18 am
Envy me? Long long long ago I saw Clark Gable in the Call of the Wild…Perhaps even a twelve-year old can fall in love–What a ghostly memory you have. Fran (:-)
Fran
May 16, 2008 at 2:53 am
What taste you display dear! Jack London had that rare gift of transporting the reader to the centre of the story and surrounding them with the actions and words of his characters.
I cannot tel you the times I rode the sled pulled by White Fang, to this day I still hear the words “Lip-Lip and the Puppy-Pack” when I see a pile of young dogs romping exuberantly.
Do not be ashamed of loving a passionate and talented man, the opnly th9ing to be ashamed of is not loving.
Hugs and kisses,
GwenGuin
gwenguin1
May 16, 2008 at 3:34 am
This is quite an extraordinary piece of wordsmithing Genece. You have put words in the forge and create a piece that would stop Neruda in his tracks. These are indeed, the saddest, yet most beautiful lines.
Heather Blakey
May 16, 2008 at 10:30 am
Well, what a tribute. All the feeling is there. Surely he heard this one coming and was probably really proud.
imogen88
May 16, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I can’t remember the last time I read such romantic prose. Chopin Concerto #1 for piano plays on my radio with notes as delicate as falling rain, adding to the poignancy of the moment.
porchsitter
May 16, 2008 at 2:41 pm
This is really neat, Genece. What a wonderful idea!
shewolfy728
May 16, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Stunning writing, beautifully crafted, I can only sit here in awe and admiration – a wonderful piece and so very poignant.
Jill
May 16, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Did you ever read the letters that he and his wife Charmain wrote to each other? He called her his wolf-woman or something like that: the letters don’t even go into that much detail, but you can feel the heat coming off of them just the same. Yowza!
jodhiay
May 16, 2008 at 11:24 pm
I have read all the letters between Jack and his beloved Charmian. I have sat in his chair, touched his belongings, held his original writings, own the first run of Call of the Wild found in a rare bookstore in Berkeley, CA. I’ve walked his ranch, sat on the porch of him and Charmian’s first home, and hung out at the old bar he visited up the road from him.
espirit07
May 17, 2008 at 2:37 am
This is red-hot writing, for sure. The passion just sparks from the screen.
Lori
May 18, 2008 at 3:49 am