Burned Man

Burned Man

by David Huddle

When I was twelve, a man was burned

not quite to death at my father's

factory. Recovered enough

to walk the town, he didn't know

what to do with himself—a ghost

whose scarred, fire bubbled face made you

look away, though not my father

who felt responsible and so wouldn't

refuse the man's eyes when they fell

upon him. The burned man held no

grudge, thought the accident his

own fault, and sought my father out

as the one whose eyes told him yes,

he was still alive.

                           So they held long

conversations on the post office

stoop, which I observed from the car

where I waited, where I could read

my father's stiff shoulders, the way

he clutched the mail, how he tilted

his head, even his smile that was

in truth a grimace. I knew just

what my mother knew—my father

had to let himself be tortured

once or twice a week, whenever

Bernard Sawyers saw him in town,

lifted his claw of a hand, rasped

out his greeting that sounded like

a raven that'd been taught to say

Hello, Mr. Huddle, how are you?

They'd stand there talking in the town's

blazing sunlight, the one whom fire

had taken to the edge of death

and the other invisibly

burning while they passed the time of day.

Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac featured this poem last February, and I've re-read it many times since then. I'm not sure if I love it, or if it's just true.

I picture it - every line of it - in downtown Humboldt, on the north side of the cobblestone square, where Dad's office lines up along the road with the bowling alley, one dilapidated apartment, the attorney's office, a "stand-up" bank (where your mother stands facing the teller at the grates, as compared to the "sit down" bank across the way), an empty coffee shop/Amish bakery, and the post office. This street is where the marching band halts to play a tune during the parade at the Richardson County Fair. It is also where this poem would be lived in my town.

I have seen my father shake hands simply because the other needs to know that he is worth the pause. I know that face that "seeks out the one whose eyes tell him yes, he is alive." The "burned man" is sometimes physically disfigured. Other times, he is horribly ill at ease - socially repulsive - or blistered inside some other way, and people leave an empty ring around him, trying hard not to look and even harder not to engage, "poor thing, bless his heart."

I have wondered if I have the patience and the strength of this father and mine, to "invisibly burn" my selfishly-lined insides away in relationships. I am also the burned man. I have sought that gaze myself, hoping that someone will look hard enough into my eyes to declare me alive, taken from the edge of death, worth the time.