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Riding  Toward Death

          for Mike Burke

My friend Mike put together
a packet of information on Raymond Carver
for our poetry group:

color photos of Ray
(with cigarette of course)
chronology
quotes
poems.
Pretty impressive!

I'd seen most of the poems before
and recalled Ray delivering My Boat -
a favorite - at one of his last readings:

          My boat is being made to order....
          It’s going to have plenty of room
          on it for all my friends....

I’d not seen Powder-Monkey
about Ray's friend, John Dugan, a carpenter

          Driving nails. Drilling and planing lumber.
          Joining wood together with other wood....

and how Ray had watched
as one day
John put away his tools
barely taking the time to say goodbye
got into his pickup
tuned to Ricky Skaggs
and drifted over the center line
         
          riding unharmed, and untouched,
          toward death.

Looking at the poems
brought to mind
how Ray had wrestled his demons

          I came out ahead. I didn't lose....

met Tess Gallagher

          Tess, of course, I wouldn't go anyplace without her....

lived together for ten years
and got married in Reno
a month and a half before he died:

          And did you get what
          you wanted from this life, even so?
          I did.
          And what did you want?
          To call myself beloved, and to feel myself
          beloved on the earth.

I had to laugh. Ray had beaten the odds.
His last ten years were, as he said, gravy

          No other word will do. For that's what it was. Gravy.