The Gamemaster

A good gamemaster plays God with gusto;
He's a deity that delights in deviousness,
An architect of puzzles and pitfalls
Crafted in arcane clues and obtuse riddles.
Why can't a god speak to us with clarity?
What sadistic strain of inscrutable malice
Or puckish perversity of the divine mind
Cloaks our path of life in a fog of confusion?

Rick was a consummate gamemaster.
To play a character in a world that he'd created
Was to live in vicarious fear of the god
Who took such fiendish delight in confounding us
By hindering a quest or orchestrating a demise.
Fate became as irrevocable as die rolls
Coming up "snake eyes," the fangs of a disaster
Sinking its venom into one's character.

Life is so damned unfathomably random.
Maybe that's why we've come to personify fate.
"Luck be a Lady tonight," or to beseech it
With craven appeal.  "Baby needs a new pair of shoes."
Words mouthed in vain.  The only certainties of life
Are the disappointments that come of dreams deferred, 
The emptiness of desires unfulfilled, and the awful finality
Of death  There's no saving throw for cancer.

There's no saving throw for a tumor that has returned
A second and third time.  We've shaped God in our image;
Jealous, vindictive and cruel.  There's no solace in
The adamantine coldness of such an unforgiving creed.
Rick, you were a consummate gamemaster
Whose intricately imagined worlds were only matched
By the brilliant future that you were advancing toward;
A degree in computer geology, love and a family.

You rolled a character that seemed destined for greatness.
But there's no saving throw against cancer,
No logic to random fate; no reason to it.
Perhaps some divine worldcrafter is chuckling
With fiendish delight at the ironic turn of events
That shattered the snow globe of dreams that you held,
But your friends can no longer take delight in a game
Where the outcomes seem so unfair, so unjust.

I Can't Go Home Again

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
they have to take you in."
      Robert Frost "The Death of the Hired Man"

To have a home, a refuge to return to, was something
That I'd always taken for granted.
As children we played as though our yards went on forever,
The flying exuberance of Tarzan ropes and swings,
Fearless exploration of the nearby woods and swamp,
And the games, from baseball's thrill of rounding the bases
Heading for "home," to the evasive competition of...

"Kick the Can," "Hide and Seek,"  or "Capture the Flag,"
We waited breathlessly for the cry of

"All ye all ye outs in free!"


To return home safely, or in triumph with the flag
Of our opponents in our grasp was the object of our games.
The sanctuary of home was across the street
Or a few blocks away, but we always knew it was there
As dusk descended to put an end to our play.

As an adult, "Home" was still my parents' place.
It was nine and a half hours away now,
But still beckoning me to return, to touch base,
To seek sanctuary, to "kick the can."

"All ye all ye outs in free!"

I'd pull into the long familiar driveway,
Walk up the sloping cement sidewalk, and open the door
To the house my father had built some fifty years ago.
The door opened to permanence, to the reassurance
Of familiar smells, furniture and welcoming smiles.
My bedroom, converted to a sewing room now,
Still retained its aura of a haven of security;
A sanctuary, my return to the womb.

And when I'd step outdoors
The tree in the back yard that loomed over me
Like a protective entity, my dad's shed, his greenhouse,
His garden, indeed, as I grew older
The entire landscape seemed to contract
In order to envelop me with open arms.

"All ye all ye outs in free!"

My parents have moved into a retirement facility,
Having sold their home to a young couple;
Strangers who've usurped my throne of memories
In order to establish their own kingdom there.

Now when I drive past the house at the top of the hill
It no longer exudes that "welcoming" feel.
It seems alien to me.  It has become a stranger,
As are the people now who inhabit the old neighborhood.
I strain to listen for it, but I no longer can hear
The longed for echo of....

"All ye all ye outs in free!"

I can't seek sanctuary there anymore.
The  author of "Look Homeward Angel" was so right.
There comes a time when "You can't go home again."