Christopher Clymer Oakes


I

A child of Paris after maximum of champagne,
you found your way and kept toward born,
despite an English winter of dripping cold,
despite the rampages of February Atlantic.
That next summer ripened into heat,
worsening day by day. We played canasta
not to think about it, while you
kicked and squirmed, probably eager to join the game.
On a day that sweltered, you vacated
mother and arrived with no baggage, but equipped
with squall and most untidy functions.
Soon you took a fancy to night walking.
The roustabouts in the wholesale market
came to expect us in the middle of
autumn nights when their barrels of fire
flared the streets of apples, pears and plums.
At church the Easter following, you had
smile enough to charm those in the pews
nearby and urine enough to drench
your diapers and my best suit.


II

Twenty of your years passed in rooms
where teachers droned, cajoled, harangued.
But your best learning was on the roads.
Before you could say "car", you called them "baahs".
You never tired of watching them go by.
Best of all was the passage of
a carrier loaded with new ones.
"Baah up! Baah up! Baah up!" you would chant
with joy of cherubim and seraphim.
When you became a virtuoso at makes and models,
we drove the roads in awe as glibly
you identified all vehicles in sight.
Alas! The world had no need of such genius.
Your talent did not falter but turned latent,
expressed perhaps much later in the parade
of Peugeots, Mazdas, Hondas that marked your years
more meaningfully than birthdays.


III

You had no prayer. We were dismayed,
but you had found a different worship.
Allowed but half a life, you lived
one more than whole. Something within
must have given prophesy.
From that hot summer afternoon
until one crisp April morning,
you hurried, how you hurried,
cramming event and incident
into brave gulps of life.
In work, in laughter, in love
you speeded your dimensions.
Few dull moments marred your days.
Few people around you could be ordinary.
Family, friends, teachers, employers and employees-
you made us heroes, you made us villains,
and many of us changed our roles from day to day.
No accident the months of movies in your life.
They were a way to more existence,
yet in yourself you had the best movie of all.
In that one you were best actor and director,
garnering every award from Cannes to Academy.


IV

But the more you hurried, the nearer
came that morning full of light at the end of winter.
You crossed from dread to surrender
and left for us the tulips dimmed in empty April.
Wise words on ancient pages counsel dust to dust
or into drop the ocean enters.
They do not lessen the silence
when we call your name.


	- Norman E. Oakes, 
	  written for his son Christopher, who died in 1988 at the age of 34