Old Schmitty was 88 when we met, back when
he used his last two working fingers
to peck out short, dense treatises
on love, nature, kindness.
We’d unpack his thoughts for hours
searching the Yeomalt beach
or watching the Sound from his driftwood wicki.
I lived just up the hill,
and I’d find him whenever I came looking,
on the beach or by his wood stove,
in year ‘round coveralls, sweater, wool hat.
He plied me with questions elders ask,
and I listened to stories of long-ago Iowa winters,
of a large German family, of manhood, marriage.
Of children, learning, teaching,
and the core
of Einstein’s science.
In the summers we’d sit by a beach fire
and sing. When he felt just right,
Schmitty would croon
Sigmund Romberg barbershop tunes.
Often he added the voices of
water-tuned beach bottles,
and, if inspired, would end
with a yodel. I’d laugh, shout, clap my hands.
He’d chuckle, smile.
As Schmitty’s emphysema worsened,
our visits helped free his mind
from laboring lungs.
When alone, he solved
quadratic equations just
to keep breathing.
Then he began telling me about
the curtain. Today,
today, I almost saw beyond
the gossamer curtain.
He spoke of it with increasing knowledge,
yet still the way
eluded him.
One day he told me
he had seen.
At last,
how simple,
how obvious:
The way through the curtain
is with song!
When I pass through
those gossamer folds,
I’m going to circle your place
and sing you a parting song.
I was young, and
couldn’t quite believe it,
any of it.
A few nights later a storm
leaned into Yeomalt Point.
Bushes scrabbled the sides
of my old cabin, maple branches
crashed onto the roof,
and the wind’s voice rose.
In the morning Schmitty’s body sat still
in his favorite chair, his wool hat
cocked over one eye,
a smile on
his creased face.
Here’s the beginning of a poem about Schmitty, an old German who was like an adopted grandfather to me, Therese (my wife at the time), and a selection of hippie flotsam who lived on Bainbridge Island in the mid-70s. It’s hard to overstate how influential he was to this motley crew of young friends. One of my favorite early pictures of Schmitty showed him walking down the beach with Therese (who was playing a recorder). Schmitty maintained that anything which washed up on the beach was a holy offering. He built funky little homes and shelters (the “inner sanctum”, the “round house”, his “wicki,” on the beach) at Yeomalt Point from these relics.
There is so much I could say about this man, but thirty years later, I see he taught me as much about dying as about living. I guess they go together!
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