Ode to a Lost Friend

There was once a young man named Chris Blew, he worked in a bookstore in San Francisco – the best bookstore I have ever entered actually – Green Apple Books. We were pals… we watched bad movies together and the occasional t.v. show… always while munching on junk food. We also rode bikes and worked together. When we were in our mid-twenties I lost Chris to cancer (about 19 years ago). Recently I stumbled upon some old, yellowing, typed sheets of his poetry.

In honor of a lost friend I post one of the poems here… let it remind you that life is short and we should all make the best of it… Go outside, get on your bike and take a ride for Chris! And if you happen to be in San Francisco, ride across the Golden Gate Bridge – he loved to do that…

So is it, that in this immense universe,

gazillions of planets thick,

God, the Big G,

chose to watch us?

Or maybe, we’re the only life out there,

in those gazillions of worlds,

mathematically improbable, but then,

Gods’ in charge of the math.

Perhaps God, in his infiniteness,

infinitosity? infinitude? Bigness?

whatever,

perhaps God can watch us all, each and every soul,

grasshopper to planaria to Chris,

all the Chris’s, myself included,

on all the gazillions of worlds,

it’d be a lot of work,

but then, he’s God, the Big G.

Or is it that God, the Big G,

is a higher order of life,

but strictly local,

like, “The Milky Way God”,

or some such thing.

And if so,

does God, the Big G.

worship some God of his own,

a Bigger G?

And, there’s also the chance,

that God, the Big G.

was born, lives, and will end,

in that space,

that electro-chemical gap,

between nerve fibers,

where everything we think is born, lives, and ends.

Yes, maybe God is our thought,

a spark of invention,

in some long forgotten cortex,

built into the system,

and resuming his godly stature,

with every firing of the nerve.

So maybe God, the Big G.

is no more than a bodily function of me,

and all the other Chris’s, and the planaria

and the grasshoppers, and the Pope,

what a switch.

If that’s the case,

then I’m really quite sorry,

because there are gazillions of worlds out there,

in this really big, infinite universe,

and me, and the other Chris’s,

and the planaria and the grasshoppers,

and even the Pope,

especially him,

would be very lonely without God, the Big G.