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This poem is dedicated to my friend, Benny, who died New Year’s Eve. Benny has been living in a nursing home for eleven years since he had a major stroke in 1992. Several months ago, I stopped by that same nursing home where my girlfriend, Sally, works. I stopped in to ask her if she knew someone who could teach me how to write proper. (I know now that I should have said “properly” instead of “proper” because Benny taught me about adverbs and such things.) Sally said she couldn’t write her way out of a paper hat but said she would ask around.

I walked away from Sally’s desk and heard someone tapping Morse code. I stopped and listened. As a teenager, I was a Hamm operator but could never have hammered code at the rate that I was hearing it. I could understand a few words and felt like I was intruding on the conversation. I wasn’t able to pull myself away, though. I was inexorably drawn to that rat-a-tat-tat sound. (Benny taught me that word, inexorably, just a week or so ago.) I peeked into the doorway of one of the patient’s rooms where the Morse code emanated from. It was the damnedest thing I’d ever seen. A man, not much older than myself, was talking on the phone. I guess you could call it talking. He had a gadget attached to the mouthpiece, which he used to tap his message. After he hung up, I tapped “May I come in?” on the door. My answer came back so rapidly that I couldn’t decipher it.

Benny and I became close friends. Since his stroke, he had to rely on the Morse code he learned in the Navy during World War II to speak. Like someone whose been in solitary confinement, Benny was starved for someone to talk to. At the rate he was tapping, it didn’t take long before I learned that he had also been an English teacher. Benny’s been teaching me how to write via Morse code.

Before I go on to my poem, I want to share with you the letter that I received yesterday morning along with everything Benny owned. I’ll spare you the dots and dashes.


Jared, my friend,

These last few months with you have enabled me to be a productive human being again. I can tell you that there is nothing more important than that. When you stop contributing to society, you might as well be dead. I was dead until you tapped on my door. So, in a way, you resurrected me and gave me life for a time. I wish that I could give you what you’ve given me, but knowing your hunger for the ability to write, I suspect and hope that I have.

Thank you,

Benny

The Heart of a Nomad

Have you ever started your car,
Wondering where to go or how far? Benny did.
Have you ever set out for a new home,
But didn’t know where it would be? Benny did.

Yesterday, I received a gift from a friend,
More money than I’ve ever had.
So I called my girlfriend, Sally
And said, “Let’s go!”

“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Wherever you want to go,” I said.
So we left Little Rock and headed east;
I laid down in the back seat to take a nap.

I woke up a couple hours later and asked,
“Where are we going, Sally dear?”
“I’ll let you know when we get there.”
Benny would have liked that, so I went back to sleep.