Minnesota Poems [in English & Spanish] By Dennis L. Siluk

Here are a few dozen poems, all centered on Minnesota, Dennis' original place of origin. see site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

Friday, February 23, 2007

Non-Virtue (A Minnesota sketch from a summers day)

Non-Virtue
(A sketch—From the summer of 1960))
Dedicated to Mike Siluk))


“Hurry up, come here!” He said.
My brother, Mike, was smoking in the backyard underneath some bushes afraid mother would see him, thus hiding somewhat, and he spotted me, or I him, I can’t remember fully who got the first glance, but we were seeing eye to eye now, so I leaned down and got closer to those bushes, and sure enough it was Mike, smoking a cigarette, if I had any doubts before, I had none now.
He was shifting that cigarette like car gears, between his mouth and hand, and back again. Perhaps that is where he got his name later, “Gunner,”
I couldn’t say for sure, but I think he used to gun his cars, you know, accelerate it like puffing on a cigarette to get more juice out of it, before the big bang, before the car took off. I suppose it made it all that much more pleasurable.
The pantry was part of the kitchen, connecting anyhow, to one another, and mother would walk back and forth, she could see through the pantry window, the whole backyard, and that is why Mike singled with his hands, motioned that is (to me), to join him in his little crime scene. Ah, I was not wise back then, as you will see in a moment.
“All right,” he said, “take it quick,” as if that those were my initial intentions. I was not there to start a smoking habit, that would last twenty-years, but he slid the cigarette into my right hand, as if it belonged there. Teenager to teenager, a mutual crime was now born. At this point I was already saying to myself, ‘What am I doing,’ but I kept it in my hand, and slowly brought it to my mouth.
“All right,” he said smiling. He really didn’t need to say another word, I got the picture but he said something on this order: we are equally involved. And so I perhaps learned my first lesson in self-survival, or was it self-interest. If he was evil, it was I now, because my innocence was really simply waiting to be tested under fire, so it would have happened down the road of life I suppose, somewhere, had he not triggered my so called evil side. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame him, under the circumstances, as Mark Twain once said, and I learned that phrase of his, way too late in life, “A virtue is not a virtue until tested under fire.” I didn’t do very well, did I?

So what did I learn, and what is the premise of this little sketch? Perhaps, we can call it a virtue, or a good quality one has is really a non-virtue, until tested under fire, and usually we don’t even know it.


(Humor) 1/16/2007

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