Atop Chicktawbut Hill

Beneath Chicktawbut This weekend I attended A family wedding on the South Shore. At a golf course Atop a high hill  Created   From the debris of the Big Dig   Burying   Our childhood swimming holes,  The Quincy Quarries.  I surveyed the Blue Hills  Enthralled by their low line   Stretching west To Big Blue.  My old neighborhood lay beneath Chicktawbut Hill. Invisible beneath the trees.   The world of my youth.  I knew this view well.  But from a different angle  And another time.  June 1960  My mother sat me  Her second son In the family car A Ford station wagon.  Alone.  Her Saying two words. "Chaney's dead."  Her parting steps silent. Chaney was my best friend.  I prayed  Alone   To God  For Chaney  To come back  From Lake Sebago. Silence  I knew Death  There was no God. The hump of Big Blue filled the west.  Chaney gone forever.  God too  October 2023   Now the same view  From a different angle.  Big Blue In the autumn afternoon light.  Boston Harbor a deep Atlantic blue  To the northeast.  Behind me The wedding swirls in dance. I am happy.  No, joyful  To be here  To see the Blue Hills again.   To breathe the familiar air   To feel the approach of the colder season ahead.  It was a good day to be alive.  For me  And for Chaney. He was never gone Forever. I am never Alone. Never.