Letter To A Poet by Will Mayo

Letter To A Poet (Ed Galing) Now Deceased

Saturday, January 13, 2001

Dear Ed Galing,

Thanks much for all the letters, poems, and stories. You are quite the talespinner. Always a pleasure to hear your words. You are definitely one of a kind! Don’t know anyone who can spin them the way you can.

Reminds me somehow of a story I heard years ago. Can’t remember where or when I heard the tale. But Idid hear it. Forgive me, if you will, if I repeat it just one more time for your ears. I think it bears hearing again.

Seems there was a young boy long ago by the name of Samuel. He dwelled in a nameless place in a nameless time, oh, just so many lifetimes ago. Studied hard, kept at his books the way his master in the study bid him to do. All the algorithms and formulas he entered into his head along with a choice assortment of foreign languages. He knew, too, the philosophies of Kant and Cicero and Aristotle and many others. Many were the arcane and odd facts that occupied his brain during the working hours of day and night. Needless to say, Ed, his master was very proud of him. He had high hopes of sending the boy off to some great school. Oxford and Cornell awaited, and so did many others.

But that was not where the boy’s heart was at. He loved to stay up late at night listening to an old campfire song or perhaps a riddle or two. When travelers would pass by their nameless house in their nameless town he would often stop and question them as to what adventures laid down the road, what tales lay waiting. It was not unusual indeed for him to stay up until 3 o’clock in the morning engrossed in another story.

Finally, the master had had enough. Early one morning, when he was busy teaching the boy a formula, he could see him sitting there in his chair, arm over his eyes, trying his best to stay awake after a nighttime of hearing legends by the fire. It was really too much to ask. Such was the master’s feeling in matters such as these.

He spoke to the boy thus: “Well, which is it, Sam? Do you want to pursue a lifetime of learning? Or do you merely want to be entertained?”

The boy surprised him by his answer. “I want to be entertained,” he said. And I want to entertain.” He paused. “I want to dance with the pretty girls. I want to set sail on an oldfashioned schooner for the far seas. Oh, yes, and I do want to be a clown.”

“Very well. So be it,” the master replied. “Soon, you will find all this to be gone.” He waved a wrinkled arm over the heavy tomes.

“So be it,” the boy said. He left the study the next day for distant parts, a song easing its way into his every step.

And he embarked on many an adventure, as young boys are wont to do. He fell in with a minstrel troupe out West, a vaudeville band in upstate New York, a sharecroppers’ gospel trio in Alabama. And, yes, a time or two, he slipped a ride on a ship for some distant coast. Many were the tales he heard, the roads he traveled, and, what can I say, Mr. Galing?, he loved every minute of it.

Of course, he forgot the algorithms and formulas, forgot the ancient tongues of Hebrew and Greek (not to mention the Babylonian and Sumerian which passed from his mind). Forgot, too, the Literature with a capital “L”, the Art with a capital “A”, all the other capitals included. Instead, he made his way with the roar of a campfire, the sound of hobos talking, the love and lust of a good woman.

That is, until he could waylay his travels no longer. For by then he was a very old man himself, his master having long since gathered to the grave, and all the world knew now Old Sam to be quite the rascal. Then he merely laid his head back in his rocking chair and pretended a daze that wasn’t there as all his sons and grandsons (and passersby, too) laid bare the secrets of the road. Sam simply smiled and listened with all his might to the bare bones of the story. Until well after his 100^th birthday when he left for the heavens with a song upon his lips. Hoping for yet another adventure down the highway….

…Except, what do you know?, there were no adventures to be found in the heavens. Saint Peter was asleep at his ledger. The angels’ wings were down and full of tears. All the harps played a melancholy song.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked the nearest angel. “Why’s everybody so sad? This is heaven, for crying out loud!”

And the angel replied, ”It’s all said and done. No more tales to be told. No more jokes. No riddles either. A thousand ships have crashed the course and we know nothing new.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake!” Old Sam exclaimed. “Isn’t Bartholomew here? Oh, and that guy over there? Didn’t he get a few good reviews?”

“Yes,” the angel said in return. “They’re all here. But, darn it all, Sam, we can’t understand a word of what they’re saying. It’s like Waiting For Godot. And, no, we can’t understand Becket either!”

Sam merely said, ”You ain’t heard nothing until you’ve heard about the traveling salesman from Poughkeepsie.”

He had only to speak a few words before all the angels fell silent, enthralled with the sound of his voice. He spoke the tales for the age and spun them forward into heavenly light. The wings became doughy soft at the edges, the choir sang with joy, even Saint Peter woke from his slumber and managed a chuckle. At last, the master bowed down before the pupil and all was well.

So, it is, Ed Galing, I long to hear your tale. For while you may not write Literature with a capital “L” or Art with a capital “A” you have a way of making us come alive when we least expect it. In about 100 years (or so), even Old Sam will lend an ear to your tale. With angels’ wings, of course.

God bless. Keep writing.

your reader in the tales,

“Will of Fredericktowne.”