                           Rat-Tat Tat


Many years ago I had a friend
Who used to go with me to a pond
Where we would sit quietly and throw pebbles
And watch the ripples spread
As we thought about life,
The universe,
And everything.

Through the years our paths diverged,
Then finally crossed again.
He still throws pebbles,
Now from a cliff by the sea,
But in a high-tech way
That is not at all quiet.

"The machinegun," he explains,
"Has a worse public image than it deserves.
Like any other tool it is neither good nor evil in itself
But only an extension of its user.
Its peaceful uses are not as glamorous as John Wayne movies
Or cops-and-robbers
But they are there
Even though you never hear about them.

His gun was mounted near the cliff edge
Aimed out over the sea.
Safety was no problem:
The rocks discouraged bathers and boaters,
And there were warning signs all around,
And he was just strange enough
That people avoided his place anyway.

He would sit there in the twilight
As the last red of the sunset faded,
And send all the cares of the day
Arcing out over the water.
The sound filled his entire being,
Leaving no room for worries.
Tension faded with the echoes
Until all was at peace.

He especially liked tracers.
If he aimed slightly upward
They would hang briefly in the sky
Like his own private stars.
He could imagine them as worlds
Where time flowed differently
And eons of history passed
In what to us were seconds.

He would see things in the patterns:
Sometimes inspirations and ideas
And solutions to knotty problems,
Other times memories, or new visions of his inner being.
Then he could let the tumult cease,
And as the hour grew late sit quietly
Absorbing the sounds of the waves
And of the night.



                                        Thomas G. Digby
                                        entered 0100hr 10/18/84
                                        format  13:49 12/22/2001
