Mid December’s dirt hill
from the upper field
down to the gravel parking lot
is shining flat mud,
and the moment I tap the brakes
the tires seize up
and the tractor begins
to slide down the hill— 
no stopping it
no steering it— 
and the trailer,
overloaded with trees,
kicks left and right
trying to get out ahead
of the tractor
and the old man hollers
“Get yer God damn foot off the brake, Boy!”
And sure enough,
when I do,
I start to roll easily
down the hill
until I get to the gravel parking lot.
 
Regaining control,
I come to a stop
and the tree-wrappers hop-to it,
unloading the trailer
so I can head back up the hill
for another load;
the tension and focus
of sledding down the slimy hill
are lifted from my gut as I begin to relax.
 
The higher I go
the broader and deeper 
the acres of Christmas Trees become,
and the more quiet the world is— 
hawks float high in the air
signifying silence,
and hundreds of bluebirds 
on Fraser Fir boughs,
are tiny ornaments,
the fluttering of their 
blue illuminated wings,
their glowing, rustic breasts,
their grace.
                        

Basic Training, Fort Dix, New Jersey, 1968.
The Viet Nam War was an epidemic
as was our thinly-veiled fear.
 
Every Saturday night
the USO dropped off
two bus-loads of women 
from Camden to Dix.
I say “women,” but these women
were 18 or 19 years old,
just like us “soldiers.”
 
One Saturday night,
as the women were
boarding the buses back to Camden,
one girl caught my eye,
and we had a rushed conversation
laughing about who knows what;
the buses were idling,
their clamorous engines grumbling,
their exhaust in broad gray plumes
mounting in the frigid air.
 
As she boarded, I called out,
I’ll see you here next week!
and she smiled— 
an exquisite smile of confirmation
reaching into the being 
of a lonely boy’s essence.
 
The following Saturday evening
I waited in front of the huge brick building,
with its massive fluted columns,
and eventually, there among
the crowd I found her,
and I could see that she was 
as happy to see me as I was to see her.
 
**
 
The space in the basement
of the big building
had been cleared out, 
and made into a dance floor.
 
All the way around the room
were small tables, fit for two people,
four if you squeezed in,
and for the next couple of months
we managed to get the same table,
which became a kind of a “thing,”
an act of serious importance.
 
**
 
We danced, we talked, we laughed,
we ate the free chips and drank 3.2 beer.
And I remember this so clearly;
we were having so much fun
that neither of us thought to ask the other’s name.
Finally, at week three, 
I laughed out loud
and as if I were telling a joke, I said,
Oh, by the way, I’m Johnnie.
She laughed, too.
That’s so funny, she giggled. Very nice to meet you. I’m Mary.
 
**
 
The big room was dimly lit and extremely crowded.
There were dozens of “soldiers” and “women” 
dancing and kissing on the dance floor.
Mary and I kissed too; but mostly we’d just 
lean across the tiny table and kiss right there,
sitting in our chairs, 
being careful not to spill our beers.
 
One night, Mary got up,
stepped back a bit onto the dance floor,
and said, Come here for a minute, Johnnie.
I got up and stood beside her
and she snapped a Polaroid of our table—
I want a picture to remember us, she said,
and I recall being touched by something 
that landed in that wasteland
between love and dreadful sadness.
A photo of our table…without us sitting at it.
Just a picture, a picture 
of where we had met 
for a time.
 
**
 
I suggested we take a walk one evening.
Mary, let’s go outside for a while,
and we did.
 
We talked and laughed and held hands
as we made our way 
around the back of the big building.
 
It was exceptionally dark 
and there was nothing we could see, really,
except a massive lawn that faded 
into the blackness of the night.
 
It was in that blackness
that we would disappear and make out,
her tongue, which had forgotten to ask my name,
touching my tongue, which had forgotten to ask hers.
 
**
 
I felt trapped. 
M16, bayonet, entrenching tool, 
and me, Soldier NG2108982,
while at the same time I was still 
18 year old Johnnie Stanizzi, 
kissing Mary whom I didn’t know a single thing about,
caressing her in an embrace
that was new and wonderful.
 
**
 
We did this for 24 weeks—
the excitement rising in my belly
as the buses approached,
the easy conversation,
the dancing, a few beers,
kissing across the table
or behind the building.
and then, ultimately, the sadness 
every time the buses pulled away.

We never exchanged home information,
phone numbers, addresses. 
I think we both realized the truth—
this was a Fort Dix thing.
It began there,
and it would end there,
and it was somehow ghostly fantastic.
 
**
 
The other night I dreamed about Mary—
the first time in many, many years.
We were walking toward the back of the building,
and everyone we passed was very young.
In fact, the truth is that I hardly recognized Mary;
she, like me, had gotten old.
 
I still think about you, Johnnie.
For a moment I felt my legs weaken.
I think about you too, Mary, I said.
She handed me a photograph.
Do you remember the night I took this?
I took the photo, mesmerized.
 
Time and the world
had not been any kinder
to the old photo 
than it had been to Mary or me.
But there it was—
our table,
the old lamp post 
casting just enough light
to brighten a memory.
 
When I looked up from the photo
Mary was gone,
and my hands were empty.
 
Then I heard the sound of a bus 
way off in the distant black,
far across the harvested fields;
it was making the sound a bus makes
as it motors its way 
farther and farther into the distance,
the sound a bus makes
when you know it’s never coming back