All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.
INITIATION
Rumor was the older scouts planned to strip us
down to our underwear, cover us in molasses,
pour cornflakes all over us, pee on us,
and throw us into the swift river
at midnight. Instead, after dark
they lured me far beyond
the campground and ditched me.
No moon. No flashlight. At first,
I inched forward, striving to avoid
holes, rocks, fallen branches. Hopeless,
I finally listened for the river
and lurched toward its dull roar until
I found the mossy outhouse at the edge
of the campground. Exhausted by a day
of sprinting here and there, truth
be told, l knew that I would not have lasted
until midnight. Truth be told, I didn’t understand
that being ditched was the real initiation
until forty years later, when once again
alone in the darkness, I recalled
locating the silent camp and crawling
deep into my sleeping bag, warmed
by breath and body heat--so deep
I wondered for a moment if I might
suffocate while I slept. I woke, hearing
my Dad outside the tent asking my friends
where I was. Ready for a new day,
ecstatic that my worst fears had not
been realized, I was like someone
who could not be hurt for long, who
would always find his way even
on a moonless night. If I could
relive that moment so intensely
that I would experience all without
bitterness or regret, letting go
of whatever does not serve me,
would I be like an eternal child
or some god in a perpetual dance?
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