The Sandias and the Lost World

The Sandias, The Library and Professor Challenger
By
EndtheDream

I am a young man.
I am atop the
Sandias Mountains
In New Mexico.
It is August.
I stand in snow.
I have carved
Our initials
In a young tree.
I am a boy.
I am in the
Town library.
It is November
Late.
I have been
Looking in the
Science Fiction
Stacks.
I have found
The Grammar
School copy of
“The Lost World”
By Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle.
It is bound in cheap
Cardboard backing.
The pages are rough
And thick.
As is the print.
Big too.
The drawings are
Rudimentary.
But they are
Drawings of
Dinosaurs.
What boy does
Not love dinosaurs?
And quickly forgives
Rudimentary drawings
Of them?
It is almost Christmas
Break.
I am happy.
It is cold outside.
It is Friday night.
The light in the
Library is amber.
The librarian, a thin
Softly spoken,
Aging woman, and
I, are the only ones
Still here.
I am safe.
I stand on the Sandias.
The air is cold.
In August.
Which amazes me.
The sky is clear and
Blue
As fresh linen.
The afternoon sun
Seems caught in
New.
I see way off, vastly,
The distance.
I want to extend
My arms.
I want to jump.
But I keep them
At my sides.
I want the cold
Wind to release
Me.
Take me.
Please.
Hurry.
I rent my book.
I scrawl my name
Badly on the card.
I can keep the book
Four days.
I am going to read
It at my wood
Desk in my bedroom
Where I do my homework.
The sky says,
Wings.
The sky says what
Does your heart want?
My heart says:
Joel.
The mountain’s slow,
Sure heart beat
Waits.
It has all the time
In the world.
I am here now.
Writing this.
My hair gone gray.
My left hand trembles
More and more.
I do not want to get
On that tram with my
Friends.
I want to see the winter
In summer.
I walk out of the library.
I zip my jacket.
In doing so, I drop my book
On the sidewalk.
I have always been
Clumsy.
I pick it up delicately.
Books are my friends.
Too many people were
To drop me later on.
You do not drop a friend.
Therefore, I have had few
Friends.
And many books.
I am a man made of various

Shadings of
Memories.
Most of them sad.
More than he will admit
Had sunlight in them
And laughter.
Some of them nightmares.
I can’t sleep tonight.
So, since it is November,
I watch the original movie of
“Sweet November.”
Sandy Dennis looks
Like Joel.
And acts like him.
The same mannerisms.
The same kind of voice.
The same small instances
Of bravery in a too big,
Too scared and scary
World.
I think boy and book.
I think cozy home.
I think warm winter heater.
I think my dog by my desk
Chair as I read.
The book on my desk.
My elbows supporting my hands
That are cupped at my chin.
My left hand.
Turning pages.
I hope it snows.
Here, it rarely does.
I cannot imagine,
As that boy, that some day
He, as a young man,
Will find snow in summer.
I love the air up here.
It seems higher on this
Mountain than the plane
I flew on to here.
I have never tasted air
Like this before.
My friends and I have
Been making summer
Snowballs on top
This lovely rugged mountain.
In this breathtaking
Place,
With which I have fallen
In love.
I know what D.H. Lawrence
Means.
I know what love means.
The boy walking through
The cold night wind to
The Weekend
Wonders if he will ever be
Not lonely.
The young man on the mountain
Wonders if he will survive the
Going away of Joel.
The man writing this is full
Of sadness,
For like the boy with the book
In the cheap green cover.
And like the young man on
The Mountain who wonders
How he will survive without
His darling,
And like the man with the
Trembling hand,
Writing this--
The boy knew.
The young man knew--
The man I am knows--
And I leap from the Sandias.
I catch the sun glint in the
Corners of my eyes.
I am a feather
Falling free.
Not clumsy anymore.
Graceful.
Soft and white and
Turning into a butterfly
To land on Joel’s shoulder.
To be me again.
To run the country roads
With him
Beside me,
He, slowing down.
So I can catch
Up with him.
He, Jim Nightshade.
Me, Charles Halloway.
The boy reaches home.
It is dark.
No one is there.
It is already deep shadow
Night.
It is a big, drafty house.
It sometimes is scary
To live there.
He walks carefully to the
Porch.
Then, softly, to the door.
Then, he opens it and
The screen door too,
Fast as lightning.
His heart thudding
Hard.
Turns on the hall light
As rapidly as he can.
Then, makes his way inside
The dim orange hall light.
Cautiously, to the living room.
Which is dark.
The light switch on the other
Side of the room.
He gets to it and dispels
Dinosaurs as fast as he can.
His dog runs to him.
The boy holds him in
His arms.
The young man turns from
The lip of the mountains.
The man writing this
Is very very frightened.
The young man leaped
From the mountain.
A long time ago.
And Joel was there,
Is there,
Will be there,
To catch him.
His butterfly friend.
And the bad things,
The sad things,
The purposeless things,
The mad things,
The evil things,
The dull things,
The stupid things,
The unwanted boy
And man of himself
Things,
The names ticked down
To this moment
Things--
And no one being Joel.
Not even Joel—
None of these things,
Save one,
Will ever
Have had happened.
The boy is at his bedroom
Desk.
He has taken off his
Jacket.
The room is drafty.
But warming too.
He has
Played with his dog.
And now,
He opens the book,
And begins to read of
Professor Challenger.
The boy pets his dog
Beside him.
The young man flies
Into the clear clean
Air.
It is pure as
Silk
And it tastes of vanilla
Ice cream.
It is so gentle.
The boy waits for summer
Which he hates.
But it brings Jimmy.
Who he loves.
He has learned early on:
Tell someone you love them,
They will go away.
Always.
Wait and see.
The boy waits for
The future
And looks back.
The young man waits for
Joel and looks back,
In free fall.
The man writing this
Waits for Joel.
And looks forward.
There, then,
There is the difference.