Condolences to Humboldt

I didn't know Chad Brandos, and only glimpsed bits and pieces of his short life from his blog, and the blogs of his friends in Humboldt, Iowa, and only since about a week ago. This is all very sudden.

Monday, I read about Chad's suicide on Hannah's site. She broke the awful news and posted a chilling, but beautiful poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Chad and his friends are strangers to me, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about him, and the abyssmal loss his family and community are experiencing. Reading the memorial posts of those he left behind, I get the distinct impression that this well-spoken computer genius, was not only dearly loved by classmates and citizens of Humboldt, he was admired--as much for his intelligence as for his sensitivity.

He was just 17.

The blog entries leading up to and including May 2 haunt me. The Humbolt teens post back and forth about the prom, school, and about a visit to Chad's house the day before he died. The most disturbing post was from Chad, himself, the day of his death. It makes my blood run cold before my eyes well up, and grief--for a boy I never knew, sticks in my throat.

In memoriam, I dedicate this week's poem, written February of this year, to Chad Brandos.

Sea Worthy

Diligent, we are treading
an indifferent world.

Cold and heavy and
up to our necks,
it means to consume us.
So we tread
beyond pain
and past weariness,
keeping it outside.

Biding storms
and jagged rocks,
we’re lost in the roil
spitting and gasping,
counting to ourselves
as the tempest takes
us then in threes.

La Mer’s abundance
swells to feed us.
But land is heaven;
we want no more fish.

Let me sink and drift.
Let me sleep, and dream I’m an anchor.
Let me quit this vessel
to become a city of barnacles,
happy to number among
the ocean’s anonymous bounty.

Today, just for today
bloating, blind
incautious of lures and nets,
I am the burden of waves.

--Cindy St. Onge