What We Have Become

 

Ever think about why you are the way

you are? I suppose mostly because we

were formed a certain way genetically.

Then there has been our development

through family and society. Experiences

on our own weigh heavily on our indi-

vidually formed personality.

One day in a lifelong chain of exposure

to and the processing of factors, fortu-

nately or not, we become the person

we were meant to be.

I can make claims, give credit or lay

blame as to the reason I became who

I am because…

I for one was told and exposed to “this”

and never told or experienced “that.”

I expect that is why I turned out the

way I did.

I figure mom and dad did the best

they knew how in raising my brothers

and me, yet we three turned out so

differently.

Then someone comes along and says

things like, “clothes make the man, and

you are what you eat.” Should these

tendencies be true, I have preferred

the casual wearing of blue jeans and

sweats to the formality of a tie, white

shirt and suit.

Bologna, which I brown-bagged most

every day to school growing up is more

a fitting meal for me than steak and lobster

could ever be.

And the advise I recall my father giving to

me as a child which has profoundly in-

fluenced me throughout the years is,

“I’ll be damned if I know, son. You’re

on your own.”

              -30-

Chris Hanch 8-2-2021

What I Have Grained

 

What I have gained in life I have

managed to lose, trade or give away.

So, that must be the meaning of

it all—life is one ongoing exchange.

I have held the precious, but it was

never mine to keep. I have tossed

the worthless onto times unrelenting

heap. I have given both equal weight.

So then today in my old age, I bargain

my time with pictures and words I have

held in reserve. And you, my friend,

are among the brave who has traveled

with me through it all such a long, long

way.

Even time shall never take that away.

I shall fondly remember until the last

of days.

                -30 -

Chris Hanch 7-28-2021

The Makeup of Me

 

Throughout my life, especially since having

grown older, some people who had known

my father have told me I resemble him a lot.

I would add that I have inherited much from

him biologically and temperamentally. At

times, I see traces of my mother in me as well.

Makes perfect sense, genetics are bound to

manifest their behavior that way. We are in

many ways biologically and behaviorally

carbon copies in the ancestral familial bloodline.

I got the clinical depression gene from both parents.

And the propensity for alcohol abuse as well. Don’t

get me wrong, there have also been some positive

factors handed down in the evolutionary process.

But one aspect we as progeny fail to reflect upon

concerning the makeup and construct of our human

nature is the random and fickle proposition of

outright, flat out “Just plain luck.”

Certainly I would have never made it thus far

having been through all I have experienced

without a heaping measure of that.

Without the hit and miss aspect of luck, odds

on, I should have either been shot or run over,

flattened and sent to an early grave more than

once in my day. And, damn, here I am! What

more need I say?

                          -30 -

Chris Hanch 7-26-2021

Waiting

In transit waiting to arrive

In the examining room

waiting in turn to be called

Waiting in line as time

ticks away

Our days are spent quietly

waiting for the right one

to come, for the wrong one

to pass away

Waiting for the dawning anew

or the twilight closing of day

Waiting for the moment

to advance or escape

Waiting to hear the words,

not you, or I do

or the dropping of the

other shoe

Waiting to be hired or fired

Waiting for the best or worst

yet to come

Waiting for the last or first

Sometimes waiting for something,

Sometimes waiting for nothing at all

Waiting, it’s a game of chance

we use to delay or play,

a game we contrive

hopeful of outlasting

or blasting and releasing

the strangle hold of time

Waiting for these words to pass,

and have a proper ending,

demanding an end to the

madness of all these lines.

            -30-

Chris Hanch 7-23-21

 

Sharing the Gift

I have this awareness, but no plan for

anytime soon. I am prepared to face

the inevitable and let this so-called

folly of life go. It is a natural inclination

as one grows old.

I see the new faces growing up all

around me, and I’d like to pass along

some of what I know.

Do what you can with what you have

been given, and then share it with

others. A wise man once told me that.

The folly part he illustrated to me

most appropriately:

Seems that two Irish friends had

bought a fifth of Cullimore Dew,

a fine Irish whiskey. They agreed

to save it, and one day crack the

seal to properly celebrate their

lifelong friendship before they died.

And so the inevitable day came

as the last man stood over his

dear friend’s death bed. And

respectfully he whispered into

his ear: Methinks the time is

nigh that we be a sharin’ 

that lovely bottle of finely

aged whiskey. “But would you

be mindin’ terribly,” he asked

his old friend, “if I’d be passin’

it through me kidneys first?”

            -30-

Chris Hanch 7-20-21

 

The Weight of Words by Volume

 

I had my son pick up some plastic tubs

from the hardware store. Good sized

these, big enough to store dozens of

binders and books filled with my essays

and poetry.

The bins I had them in before were cram-

med full, and way too cumbersome for

anyone but perhaps an Olympic weight

lifter to handle.

I’d hate to be responsible for giving one

of my kids a hernia after I’m gone. They

may feel resentful enough that I would

bequeath to them such a bulky compila-

tion of work in the first place.

Ah, but the collection is a chronicling of

my life over the preceding forty years.

That legacy has got to be worth its

weight to future generations, no?

Anyway, I distributed my volumes a

bit more sensibly in order to make

the load less unmanageable—more

bins, each weighing less than the

fewer they replaced.

A lot of work for me even shuffling all

that stuff around. The kids might just

decide to throw the whole lot out. Who

would take all that time from their lives

to wade through reams and reams of

my stuff?

Hell, the prospect of that process boggles

the mind. I look at those binders in amaze-

ment, sliding the heft of their weight across

the floor.

The longer I go on, the more I think

and say, the more weighty the crop

of my legacy I leave behind becomes

Perhaps there are some words of wisodm

to discover;many mistakes and redundan-

cies most assuredly to uncover.

It would take the combine of someone’s

mind to separate the wheat of words from

the chaff.

I wonder, on the commodites market today,

what a bushel of words goes for anyway?

Suffice it to say, some words by volume carry

a hell of a lot of weight.

                  -30-

Chris Hanch 7-19-2020 (Rewrite 7-19-21)

Games People Play

Go up to a stranger or someone you know.

Ask them to play Rock, Paper, Scissors,

and more than likely they’ll do it with you.

What for, they may ask? Ask them if they

remember who it was that first taught them

to play the game? No one alive that I know

will be able to say. It’s just one of those

hand-is-quicker-than-the-eye games humans

tend to play when there are choices to be

made. It’s all too silly I know. Wonder what

Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon played before

paper or scissors were invented? It was too

early to flip a coin—heads I win; tails you

lose. Way back when, see this, my club is

bigger than yours may have come into play.

You’ll do what I’ll tell you to do. Capisci?

For a brief moment in time the world became

a more peaceful place when paper an scissors

came to be. Then unfortunately, spears and

arrows came along, and everything went to hell.

We digress from there.

This is what happens when you have a world

of time to preoccupy the mind.

                     - 30 -

Chris Hanch 7-18-21