Jardin en êté (The Summer Garden) for JMF

circa June, 1995

There is this feeling I have within me of being inextricably trapped,
Where I know that I could be free
If only I opened a window or a door and stepped outside
Into the night, where the moon like a pale angel would greet me,
And the creatures that sing the night
Would whisper to me "welcome":
Only where is that window? Where is the door?
Where is freedom to be found when I live every single day
Like this one: regimented, productive, stymied?
Nothing is new anymore; nothing seems to change for me
Day after listless day, passing so obliquely from one to another
Until I have no concept of what day it truly is at all.

Today is the day that I sat down and realized to myself
That I am alone, and whether or not I walk under the sky
Or kiss the flowers that close their faces to me
In my night-time garden, I am still such;
And whatever beauty I have is wasted, and whatever beauty
I have inside of me is wasted as well.
The moon sees nothing, trailing wings of clouds in her wake.
Crickets may sing, but their song is not meant for me,
And so I go on (as I always have)
Humming the words of a tune I should not know,
The one that only lovers may sing, the one thing
Which seems forbidden to me in this world.

This is no Eden, and I am not Adam,
Yet I have tasted of a fruit my lips should never have known.
I am aware of a window and a door
That by now I should have learned never to look out of,
Never to acknowledge, always to ignore
That I know what freedom is; and I can imagine it,
I can feel it the way I can feel you holding onto me

Then letting go and pushing me away

Leaving me to walk the night garden alone,
Trailing petals on worn brick paths in the darkness of spring
At four a.m..

Andrew, Graf von Rothberg

The Bonfire

circa 1991

Quite a task, all the faces I have to remember:
Eyes and ears and throaty laughter from the hoard—
Suitors some, others only the ghosts I still carry 'round
Like Pop the Weasel springing up from the past,
Reminding me that what I am now I have been a million times before
And that all the reminiscing serves no real end.
We’ll not play that game. Yes, dear: I know the rules.

It’s just that I’m lying here, repetition of days that are like
The leaves of a majestic tree, too large to comprehend;
And though the tree is large and green, numbered still
With infinite foliage, there is a pile of them at its base,
And I am there, rummaging through it
Like a child trying to find a lost toy, a moment, a memory,
The exact instant when I looked and found and said
“Now I am a Man, now all these can go”;
Only they’re more than the corpses of springs gone by,
But the days of my life that at their end
Let loose of the branch and plunged suicidal
To the earth below that beckons of rest.
Funny that I count myself down here among them
Rather than above where the sap runs like blood
And whispers the vitality of life.
Strange that I hesitate to touch even one
And feel its life quiver in my hand,
Crumble it and smell chlorophyll on my fingers.
It’s the dead leaf that shows no pain,
The past crumbling just as easily in my hand.
No guilt. No recompense.
And rather than climb to the height of the boughs
And wave in the wind of living,
Too long I’ve looked here for the faces that jump and start
And mime off dead conversations, molded moments.
Too many gone, too much done.

And I realize it’s time, and gather bushel, bin, and rake
To build this fire and watch it go,
Glad that in it there is no struggle,
My own wills acquiescing as the hand shakes to strike a match,
And all bursting as in nova, and so it goes:
Only the whimper heard, the cry exclaimed,
The burned-out hull floating on unseen heat to what I’ve dreamt as heaven.

“And here”, said the phoenix, “is rebirth”.

I’d only love if you let me, raining the ashes of days past from the sky.



Andrew, Graf von Rothberg

Juvenilia: "Separation" for JMF

29 August, 1997


My glass strikes a note as the pen strikes it:
Jewel-hued sangria floating in facets with a rim of gold
And a perfect resonance which echoes the sound
My heart would make if only it could sing.
And it touches me suddenly, instantly
As if I were a prophet and G-d spoke His word
Through me, this feeling of being a fragment
In a world of perfect circles, a piece of an arc
Forever reaching but never knowing completion.
Not knowing what to grasp towards,
It falls in upon itself.

And it strikes me as well that there are people
Who can drift through years and lives
And never stop to be affected by the ocean's swell.
There are those who never look up and are touched
By what pine needles look like outlined upon the southern sky;
Then I remember the people who are not like me,
That although my words will drift into obscurity somewhere far off
They contemplate only the horizon and miss the world
As it spins beneath their feet: all of this gone--
The wine that I am drinking,
These few silly tears, the smoke of my Dunhill
Dissipating in the wind, a lover's smile
And the explanation of what we are not.

I take the ring off.


Andrew, Graf von Rothberg

Being here

I have been so occupied with the general business of living that I find I have not taken time to simply sit and reflect on life. Such reflection is, I think, necessary and beneficial: when we become too caught up in our days and the events, significant and seemingly insignificant, which comprise them perspective can become lost--we can become lost, or perhaps feel a sense of incompleteness, that we are not progressing as we ought. This is why we must have goals, or at least why I believe I must continually set, evaluate, and reset goals in my own life, because without the feeling that I am working towards something I am inclined to feel adrift, and such a feeling of existing without stasis or anchor is where in the past I have gotten myself into trouble. Could it be, miracle of miracles, that I am learning from my own mistakes?

I think too, in learning, in growing as a person and as an adult, that it is important for myself that I articulate a lesson learned: it is not enough to me that in some silent way I acknowledge progress as I have been apt to do in days now gone, but now to stop, to take a moment and say, quite literally "this is point 'A', this is point 'B'", or, "this is choice 'A', this is choice 'B'", and what course I have chosen. I find that when I do this, at least for myself, I then experience a sense of fulfillment, of completion, and am then justified in telling myself "well done, you", rather than existing in a state wherein no self-discipline exists. There is always work to be done.

And with that in mind, I turn my attention to the garden, my garden, where I spend the greatest amount of my time when I am not occupied with work or the day to day activities and obligations that keep us busy individuals: it is there that I go to work, hidden underneath a planter's hat and behind polarized sunglasses to protect against the harmful rays of the sun and with the earphones to my iPhone snugly in place, music playing. I'm able to lose myself in the work and in the music, and I wonder to myself how I spent my afternoons and evenings before I was so devoted to this art. The pressures of work go, the vagaries of events past diminish, and with the eye of a child in an adult's mind, I clip and prune and plan and plant and tend. I know who I am when I am in the garden.

A Dinner Conversation, for J.C.L.

(From a decade ago: this was how I felt.)

Love is not to be consumed by you as if it were
a plate of large portions,
Set before you to devour: you do too many things this way
And with an appetite best described as "intense"
Make short work of any dish, any prize:
Whether pasta, chicken dijonaise with dill, or my light, my heart
They are all eaten, and the pasta goes
And the chicken diminishes, and my light
grows dim, perched over my head
like some telling star which does not bother to speak.

And so, without much ado, I push back my chair
and express the wish to be excused,
But you would have me sit and listen to your
muttering of things
That you honestly know mean nothing to me
and if I were to extol them to you in a similar way
would be silenced by your label "pretentious",
Neverminding that I am already called thief.
You do not say, but by tacit suggest.
And the light grows dimmer still, like lights
too low in a restaurant
while the bus-boys are hustling to clear the table and it has closed
and you, a late diner, should be gone.
But you, no monsieur!
You have not finished your plate!

And the tines of your fork cut into me,
And I am punctured in a million places
And if I could let pour out of me
Whatever venomous poison you have poured in
Would gladly figure into dust just to be
done with the damned thing altogether.

I fall apart like clay in front of you
And you barely look up while wiping the last
of the sauce from your chin, from your plate.
"Is there something we should talk about?"

De Profundis

Viewed from the outside, the most extraordinary of circumstances can seem quite ordinary, even mundane--but when we are in them, when we lose the perspective of objectivity and are only subjective, rationality can flee and we can become caught up suddenly in a progression of events that seem utterly without reason, the sort that can change one forever, even when one believes, wrongly, that one is past the point of change.

I have met someone who has changed my life, as if I were progressing down a fixed path on a trajectory aligned with the rightness of a sure orbit, governed not by stars but by sense and sensibility. Perhaps I left myself open to it, to Change as it were--yes, with a capitol "C" and all the seriousness that distinction calls to mind. I met a young man and because of it I am altered. His orbit intersected mine and through gravity or attraction, or by repulsion, my path has now changed, and indeed, I'm certain his has as well: irrevocably it would seem.

What was my role in this, and why do I feel the need to write of it? Writing has always been my escape, my therapy, as if by putting the words down, figuratively speaking, with pen and paper they would no longer exist inside of my head where turning them over and over again in my mind would lead to nothing but anguish--mental torture, neverminding that I know better, that I know I should not torture myself with them.

He contacted me. We began a correspondence. We would chat in the evenings on IM's and speak on the telephone. We exchanged text messages. I was reserved, and he asked me, repeatedly, what I was holding back, why I was so reserved, what I was afraid of. I could not articulate it. I was, in fact afraid.

We spent an afternoon in each other's company. We went and looked at furniture, not really to look at it but to have somewhere to be. We ate mexican food in a common restaurant. He didn't eat much, neither did I. Other moments occurred, and I felt happy, I felt I was overcoming my fear because here was a pleasant and engaging young man, and he was intelligent and articulate, smart and witty, imaginative, urbane. He shared details of his life with me: he told me that he came from a very, very conservative Christian background, and that his parents would never approve of our friendship, would never approve of any of the things he did, and so he had to hide them, he had to lie.

He asked to meet my mother. He said it was important to him that he know her, so that he could better know me. He wanted me to meet his family too, and suggested that he come up with a story to tell them to explain how he knew me--that I could be his German tutor, neverminding that he was not taking any German courses at his school, a small but growing college in the University of North Carolina system, located in Pembroke, North Carolina. Thankfully, that plan never materialized. I can only imagine how that would have turned out.

We continued our talks, our late night chats, our jokes and laughter, flirtations. I felt myself becoming relaxed, I felt my guard coming down, and in a move designed to show this, to show this good will, this building of trust, I wrote him a letter, a long letter that took me hours to write, and I explained to him the events and the course of my life. I told him what it was to be harassed as a teenager for being different, what it was to be the object of derision and ceaseless taunting by my schoolmates, how coming out in the late 1980's and early 1990's had irrevocably changed me: that I was afraid, that I had seen a generation of men cut down and decimated by AIDS, that love had been this tantalizing brass ring forever held out in front of me but never gained, never a purchase gained of it, never the ability to grab it and hold onto it, and what that did to me as a person.

I admitted to him that because of my life events, not as an excuse, but simply that it was, that it happened, that I became an alcoholic. I told him the truth about going to rehab and finding help for my problem. I was proud to tell him that I had, and still have, over a year of sobriety now, and that being free from alcohol is and I hope shall remain the greatest, greatest blessing in my life. I told him that I lost my license because I had a DUI charge in November of 2007, that I had broken the law and was punished for it. I told him how much I regretted these things but was glad for them, because I knew that they had changed me, and changed me for the better, that I knew finally that being open and honest about things in my life was the only way for me to live it. I hoped, and still hope, to be an example to others to that end.

Time passed. We were to spend another day together, a Saturday or a Sunday. His school work was certainly keeping him very busy. He commutes every day from his home to school, probably an hour's drive. We would talk on the telephone when he was on his way home in the evenings after working at a job on campus. I worried about him driving too fast--he would pass people on the road while talking to me, and laugh about it and call them silly names. I had a dread he would be in an accident. I approached my former employer, a retired District Court Judge who is partner in a local law firm to see if he might give this young man an afternoon job in the firm, perhaps helping with filing or odd errands. They keep that kind of staff there, young adults from high school or in their first years of college. I told him that I had done this, and he thanked me. The Saturday came, and he had to cancel. I understood because I had canceled once before myself because I had a migraine brought on by sinus trouble and allergies from our damnable southern pollen here in North Carolina. I understood his canceling, I had done the same. We agreed on a rain check.

The following Saturday, he told me his mother was going out of town, but that he could not see me because she had asked their neighbor to keep an eye on him and make sure that he did not go anywhere. He told me his mother was worried about him because he never got any rest. He told me that he met a young man involved in student government at his college, and that he was thinking of running for student office himself. He told me that he stayed at school and spoke to this young man for almost eight hours, and that it was the longest conversation he had ever had.

I felt jealous---a natural emotion I imagine. My feelings were hurt that he could spend so much time with this other fellow and not see me. At another time, we spoke one night at 2 o'clock in the morning. First he told me that he worked late, and then he told me that he had gone to the chapel on campus with that same young fellow and "messed around", and then he immediately took it back and said that he was joking. Why would he say something like that? What element of truth was there to it? I felt my heart clinch up, but I didn't pursue it because he had chided me already about not trusting him, about thinking the worst, and so I counseled myself to be patient, to be understanding. Perhaps he was joking. After all, I remember being young. I remember being exactly like him, about feeling the first flush of freedom being somewhat away from my own home and my own family and the stringent restrictions that governed my life when I was nineteen. I did not push any further, but I have to admit, it hurt. Of course it would hurt. Aren't I human too?

A rain check, another date canceled. We spoke on a Saturday and were to spend the following day together: it was all arranged. He would attend church services, I would attend my own church services, and then we would go see a movie, or have something to eat, maybe do a little shopping. Sunday came; I went to church and came home. I had no word from him. I sent him a text message: "canceling?". He did not reply. Later that evening I sent another, and I said in it that I understood that he had to cancel, perhaps something had come up, and that I understood if only he would tell me what it was. He did not reply.

On Monday I heard nothing. On Tuesday I heard nothing. On Wednesday, still nothing, and so I sent him the following text: "Are you okay? I'm concerned that I have not heard from you", and then, somewhat resigned that I would not hear from him, but not understanding why he could not at least tell me something, anything, or acknowledge my messages, I sent him this "Please at least let me know you are well and then I will not embarrass you or myself with further messages that meet only with your silence". I didn't want to hound him, I didn't want to become "that guy" who can't take a hint--but I thought he was different. I thought he was special--I knew he was special, I knew he was different. He was worth my trying, even if I did feel a little stupid making all this effort. Is it wrong to like another person? Is it selfish to enjoy their company, to like how they made you feel, to enjoy the sound of their laughter or the subtlety of sophisticated humor that is so often lacking in our semi-rural world that it is Fayetteville, North Carolina? Was I being unreasonable?

He responded to me, his text message read "I was raped around 2 a.m. sunday morn. Um so that is why I haven't replied. I fly from RDU friday to germany. I need to go away for a while".

I read his text message and felt the blood drain from my face, and then down my torso and into my toes, which began to tingle. I felt dizzy. I felt nauseous. I rushed into the bathroom and I threw up. I felt physically and spiritually ill. What monster could do this to this young man? What sick, twisted demon of a criminal would lay hands on this youth and rape him? I was molested when I was a child. I was raped when I was a young teenager. I never talk about it, but it ruined me--ruined me utterly and totally for more years than I care to admit, for more years than I ever was conscious of until I faced all of my demons and came to the place of peace and acceptance I exist in now. I cried for him, for his innocence lost, for this crime, this despicable, despicable crime.

Then I started to ask myself how this could have happened. Where was he, where had he been that would have given someone the opportunity to do this evil thing? Hadn't he told me that he had been at home, that he could not go out because his neighbor was supposed to be watching him while his mother was gone? But wait, when I talked to him that Saturday he told me his mother was home. The details did not add up.

Was he lying to me?

I began to examine the details of our correspondence, the things he told me about himself and his life. I remembered that there was a time in my own life when my own reality was so unpalatable that I invented things and lied to people because I thought if I could make them believe something, maybe it could be true. It made the tough times easier for me, it made the experience of my mother's divorce and our resultant reduction in circumstances easier to bear. Most people do not know that in those years I was poor, that my mother and I were poor. We kept up appearances. We soldiered through. Later on there was a little money when I finished my degree, the situation improved, but for that period of time we were broke: we lost our home, we lost many of our fine things, and we had to move into a small, small home in circumstances we had never been exposed to. If people asked me where I lived, I gave our old address, or told them we had moved. I understood why someone would make up a lie. But rape?

I wrote a poem based on the myth of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus' name is derived from the Greek "a cunning worker". He sent me the text message telling me that he had been raped on April 1st--April Fool's Day.

And so I was hurt. I felt wounded. Wasn't it natural to feel that way? After all of these events, which I present here in as unbiased a manner as I can, after all of these things, is it hard to believe that I would feel as if my heart had been broken, and cruelly too? If he had not wanted to see me, I could understand that. He could have said as much. How easy would it have been to say "I'm afraid, I'm confused, what I'm doing is not in accordance with my understanding of the Church, I have fears, I feel shame"? Not that I would expect him to articulate that in that way, but something, anything. "I met someone else" or "I'm young and you are not". Any number of these things I could have handled, any one of them I could have faced--and accepted, and that is the key term here: ACCEPTED them. I would have, I would have felt some loss, some rejection--who wouldn't? But at least I would have known then, and I could have moved on.

He would not let me move on, though. He sent me a note, the subject said "I won't back down". Did this mean he wanted to try?

"I refuse to let your sense of rejection ruin our friendship and potential relationship. I absolutely refuse. You Andrew are an amazing person with many marvelous things to offer someone, but you see the negative, always the negative. And I refuse to walk away from you with you thinking that all of the past few weeks have been me rejecting you and that you knew this was coming and didn’t want to accept it, what ever. The fact that you don’t put enough credit to me that you think I would fabricate being raped, of all things being raped? If I were going to cut you from my life I would meet you look you dead in the eye and tell you that I feel like it would be better if we went our separate ways. I would wish you well and leave. Not fabricate rape. You know what? If that is the best you think of me: that I would do something like that, then you are right you cant give me happiness and joy. Why would I waste my time talking with you and texting you if I was going to leave? What purpose would that serve? None!! I leave Friday I am going to our house in southern Germany I need to leave this behind till I can cope. I am aching. I will go into town to check my email, as is there is no Internet in the house. Whatever happens I hope you well. I hate this. I hate the doubting. I hate having to qualify everything. Andrew, I have not rejected you. "

And so rape? The magnitude of it. The magnitude of it. What woman can hear that word spoken and not think of the most mortal terror, the most heinous of crimes? What man of reason can think on that expression, ponder the act, and not know how evil it is, and what it does to the person who is the victim of that crime? A cunning worker indeed to have come up with this as an excuse for not making a telephone call. How could this be?

I was angry. I had been made to look like a fool. Poked and prodded, cajoled and asked to trust, I had trusted. I opened myself up and shared even the ugly bits because I felt that I was safe. That trust and that honesty was returned with a lie whose effect is more cruel than I am able to articulate myself--that is why I am writing about it, because I must put it down here so that it will not live inside of me ever, ever again. If I were a dog I would be howling right now. Now I understand what it means to want to howl. I never knew before. I know now.

"I was raped around 2 a.m. sunday morn. Um so that is why I haven't replied. I fly from RDU friday to germany. I need to go away for a while". It was Friday. I thought to myself, hope against hope, let this not be true, let this not be true, be wrong this time, your love was not in vain--perhaps this horrible thing happened and then wouldn't you be ashamed of yourself, shouldn't you be ashamed of yourself and rightly so? See? He even wrote you to tell you that you were wrong. He was telling the truth. A crime has been committed, and here you are, so petty, that you have a doubt in your heart and think this young man might have lied to you. He works after his classes in a coffee shop. I dialed the number and asked for him. I lied and said I was his father so they would put him on the phone. I overheard him in the background, his laughter and his conversation suddenly interrupted by the lady's voice telling him he had a call. He spoke to me. I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to be wrong. "What time is your flight?" I asked him. I will not say his name. "What time is your plane to Germany?, you said you were leaving today. I wanted to check on you." He told me the flight had been pushed back, and then asked, incredulously, "You told them you were my father?".

And then I knew. I understood, but I did not understand.

The old Andrew would probably have run to the nearest bar over a happenstance such as this, or ached for an anti-depressant, a sedative to sooth his jangled nerves. But I am sober now, I have been sober since January 10th, 2008, and even in the face of heartbreak, even in the face of this which has put me into a turmoil of such a nature that I have not experienced in years, even while trying to get sober, I did not feel a loss so great as this. Do we ever realize the effect we have on other people, do we not realize how our one word or cruel gesture can change a planet's path?

My world has been altered, and I am changed, again, because of it. I guess that is the marvelous and incredible thing about life and about God's plan for us, that we will be tossed and lost like a piece of glass in the sea ground down by breakers and tides and Time alike, then spit up on the shore one day smooth and beautiful: a jewel. I have heard it said, "God only reproves the ones He loves most", and taking that thought and running with it, in less fancy parlance, I ponder "why do bad things happen to good people?"--this is why, and there is a Lesson for me to be taken from this.

Still, I wanted to speak to him. I wanted to believe, somehow, someway, that maybe he could see the madness of the whole situation, and so I asked him to contact me. He sent me a text message that said "I cannot believe this is happening". I replied, "Why not? You did it. It's your handiwork and you've done a marvelous job". I sent another text message. I am a fool, a glutton for punishment: "Be honest with me, that's all. I don't care what you've done. I understand, but be honest with me. That's all." And he replied, "I need space". I thought I had given him plenty. I imagine that I was wrong.

And now, there is to be no further contact. Words, unspoken, ring in my ears. I understand that. It's better that there should not be. He will have to live with the knowledge of what he has done as much as I will have to live with the regret and blame for what I did not do--but have I done anything wrong? I examine my own heart. I examine my motives. I confess to it all. I am guiltless in my conduct of this affair, but somewhere I trod where I should not have, somewhere I took a turn onto a path I should not have ventured to explore.

I will close up again. I will withdraw and cinch in my circle of acquaintance like one cinches in the string on a pouch closure. I close my eyes and I see the image of night blooming flowers that fold their petals up and retreat into their dreams of hazy greenness when the sun exposes them. I think of plants on the sea floor that withdraw into their protective enclosures when a threat is near or perceived. I feel as though the planets have shifted, irrevocably, and I hope in time I will not feel this wound as keenly as I did this morning. That Hope is justified. The family motto of my mother's Clan Sandilands is "Spero Meliora", "I hope for better things", and I do. I do hope for better things. I trust that God's will be done, that it will be done, and is.

To him, I realize I must be a trifle, an irritation—just some person he met on the internet and flirted with and now casts away as carelessly as one brushes dust from off their shirtsleeves or their shoulder, and in my minds eye I see that action, the flicking of fingers off the shoulder in a gesture that signals dismissal, or whatever name can be put upon it. I can only imagine what he has told his parents, if he has told his parents, what he has told his mother, what they must think of me: any mind cunning enough to suggest what he has done will most certainly paint me and these constructions unfairly as something very different from what, in fact, I am, but I suppose I will never know the truth of it. He could not tell me the truth of anything. He could not bring himself to do it, and that is his Flaw. "Virtus junxit mors non separbit". At the end of it I just feel empty, like something inside of me has died, but I will work through it. I have endured much in my life and no doubt will endure more, so this will not be my undoing. I am not broken yet. I will not break.

A Cunning Worker, no April Fool for D.L.R.

I wonder, with what indulgence did Icarus' father form
The feathers on those molded wings of wax which he constructed for his son?
How his hands moved over them, standing in a workshop as he must have done
With pots of wax and the remiges of eagles,
An eye, perhaps, fixed warily upon the distant sun?

You are Icarus to me, a young and sprightly man whom I shall call a boy,
With new peach skin and gangly limbs--
You fly and loop and circle back upon yourself, dancing in the sky
But soar too high, too near approach the sun.
A fabricated lie
With which to adorn yourself you now construct. I wish you Joy

And Happiness, I could provide you with neither of these things myself
But bid you travel safe. You've a long journey ahead of you yet.

Daedelus, did you just think that such an equippage for this youth
Was mete and fit? I feel as if I am writing letters in the sky
That will be pulled apart and haze themselves like cotton strands
Pulled apart and unmade in my hands imprinted there and hovering coronal
While patting something dry. "Out, out damn'd spot": I know those words,
I know the guilt Bard's Lady said,
To have thought these wings were strong enough to last and stretch and reach then fold.
She said "fie, my Lord, fie".
Who'd have thought the old man had so much blood, then,
Who'd have thought

That it would come flushing to my face at first in grief,
And then in anger, and then in shame
As one by one his words displayed
An explanation for his flight
And how a Sunday walk could wet
A librettist's appetite
For drama, and tragedy, some Great Loss we each must face
On the premise of which he builds his flight
On the premise of which this Hope should die
And fall, crashing from the Heavens?

You will want me when I'm gone
When you had the chance, when we shared, I thought
This lovely dream to chase
As did poor Daedelus and his son
To escape King Minos' place.

You play a cruel, cruel game with my heart, but I understand you more
Than you can understand at this moment, now.
A curtain falls, another stage set struck,
And this flight's done.

Go on lad
Take your bow.

Andrew Sandilands, Graf von Rothberg
1 April, 2009