There is an infinity of now in the universe. A forever of here.
Fear not this dream a fantasy, for we know these quantities from the physics of quantum strings and gravitational bubbles.
The wise men all agree what we cannot feel - there is an ever of everywhere.
Somehow we're in it. In the "there" that is "everythere".

And so there is an everyday for each of us.
And on that day the pack is ours to rule.
On that day we are each forever Alpha, with the adulation of the pack to glorify us
under the crushing weight of the universe from which
we must protect them.

There is an everyday that is Alpha Dog's day
when the angels themselves must come to knee before thy brilliance,
and every creature quakes in fear encrusted joy.

For all creation is yours today.
Every molecule stands at attention.
Every atom awaits your proclamation.

What will you do today, on this your everyday?






I say what is truth. I insist it so because it was brought upon us to blossom inside by he who begat me.

I say there is no death in that so named passing. Rather, something that is dense but not impenetrable, especially on Alpha Dog's day when he can call in the entire fleet of UFOs
and a phalanx of bigfoot families
and brilliant white cranes to alight on the single deciduous tree with leaves in the snowy desert
as easily as asking the waiter for another drink
Dry Rob Roy on the rocks.
Watch
they're - going - to - love - this.

This is south Phoenix in March.

This really happened, the all of it experienced by two hundred of us in our wedding best tuxedoes and evening gowns. Witnessed by hundreds of cut flowers, misted and dying on our lapels and wrists. Gigabytes of still and moving images spewed through lenses onto solid state memories by guys paid to circulate among us - let not one memorable moment of Alpha Dog's day go unremembered.

I was there in tears,
significance not lost upon me
so rooted I could feel him
love me but not forgive me

It is not in the power of the dead to forgive. That one has to do himself, on his day.




I wonder, could we get through life without a single thing for which we need absolution? Is there such a man? Even Jesus thought he could have been forsaken by his father - and if the greatest man model struggled with his weakness, who's to begrudge me mine own? Forgive me my trespass day.
May 22, 2006.
This was the day I had the audacity to presume everyone would be better without me.
This was the day I heard his repetition that haunts me daily - no - hourly -
A man shall not leave his children,
Rather, it is to them to push aside the remains of his furry carcass
And emerge from beneath
Having been sheltered from meteors and ill wishes
To blossom on their own.
A man does not leave his children.
Does not. Must not.





Because time and forgiveness cannot exist, we find other ways to love each other.




This did happen, I swear.

When my wife and I struck out for riches on the west coast, we left the bosom of the family back east, and others dropped in place to fill the void we left. So, due to the broken home my sister had created, my father and mother began to raise their grandchildren as their own. And when the time came and my father succumbed to advanced non-hodgkin's lymphoma my nieces and nephews felt his loss as if their own father, rather than grandfather.

Such wounds are never forgotten.

So when my niece arranged her wedding she had moved with her fiancee to the valley of the sun in Arizona, and invited all the relatives from the east to come enjoy a respite from winter and enjoy her wedding in ever summer. Come to the private country club "he" would have loved to belong to.

The day she chose for the wedding was her grandfather's birthday - my father's birthday. And she made no secret of this fact - it was Alpha Dog's day, and thus he was free to enjoy the seat at the table we would all see as empty. His favorite drink placed for him beside the plate and the bread.

It didn't strike me until the blonde girl asked me, "What's with all that?"

"It's for my dad," I said. "She's getting married today because it's his birthday. At a golf course, because even though none of them play, he loved golf."

That day in Phoenix the weather did not participate in our joy. Fierce thunderstorms dropped shards of lightning and hail from clouds the color of factory smoke. The idea of pictures taken outside by the cacti were abandoned for shots inside by the fireplace.

We, her guests, chose not to notice the spots of wet on the bride's gown. The wilting bouquets. The sweaters that some had brought, other guests wished they had.

Even though I was burned by the fierce illogic of the thought - I wondered if it was my fault.

The night before we had driven back to the wedding site from downtown Phoenix where we had dinner at "Rustler's Roost", a place we used to go when dad was still alive. As I drove I saw two stars fly up to the mountain in front of us and park themselves above it, flickering and unmoving. I thought to myself that the sky and mountain made for a lousy disguise. Two parallel stars, faux Castor and Pollux - when the real ones were below the horizon, not budging a single arcsecond as the earth spun on its axis - I thought for them to flicker and they did.

"You can't fool me," I thought to them while making small talk with my mom.

And so it poured ice rain while we got out of our cars in our wedding shoes. The hailstones covered the desert and looked like snow. Rain hit the pavement and splashed onto the women's dresses and hose as they left the cars and entered the country club.

This is my fault - he's not happy.

The illogic becoming reality to me.

The minister arrived and we took our seats. The bride and groom stepped upon the dias before all - and by design, behind them we could see the open desert and the golf course beyond.

"He loved golf," I told my wife. "And today his birthday. A golf course in the rain. What would he have thought of me here with a second wife I met at the south pole?"

No sooner had the words passed my lips when the ice and rain stopped. And the desert behind the couple looked like Antarctica with cactii.

And a shaft of sunlight shone down between a split in the pendulous cloud cover and illuminated a red flag on the 13th green.

And a bright white heron sought warmth in that sunbeam and lit on the branch of a tree right beside the golf green. It glowed blue white in the sun.

And the bride cried. And the photographers let their camera run until the SD cards all filled.

My mother, who could remain calm during an atom bomb blast leaned over to me and took a breath.

Before she could speak I said, "Dad loved golf," as if that would somehow provide context for the scene - these sere mountains coated in ice, this golf green alit by a single shaft of golden sunlight. The great white bird that sat quietly in the brilliance.

My mom tugged at my arm of my suit jacket. She raised a crumpled kleenex to her eye. She said, "That's your father. That *is* your father."

"Dad is doing this?" I said, as if I could somehow turn this reality into a question.

The minister pronounced my niece and her husband married.

And the bird took off. And the sunbeam faded. And a torrential rain melted all the ice from the mountains.

All at once - all questions were answered.

As can happen on Alpha Dog's Day.




I don't know why it has taken me so long to report this.

It didn't seem important until now. Or maybe it's just that things like this happen all the time and we ignore them, or we write them off as accidental.

Because we are more enamored and so in love with the trivial rather than the miraculous .

And I promise you all this is real and occurred on March 8, 2012, and was witnessed by hundreds who all went back to drinking and dancing, and remembering the dead, and remembering to live.