The Poetry, Essays and Personal Journals of Larry L. Dill
In Memory of Alex Joseph Dixon
March 4, 1986-April 5, 2007
"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all."
--Holden Caulfield to his little sister, Phoebe, in The Catcher in the Rye
I walk around town with my dog
and other people's children come up to me
and want to pet him.
And they want to know if he's friendly
and I say that yes of course he is.
Other people's children are always reminding me
that I can be happy and a little afraid at the same time.
Old Alex was a brave little boy when I knew him.
He made me want to be brave, too.
My own children are grown women now
but memory makes them little girls forever in my heart.
Other people's children bring it all back to me.
Alex was a little boy I never had.
He was mine but he wasn't.
He was a magician from another place in time.
Like the Little Prince.
He had x-ray vision.
Imagination beyond comprehension.
Good humor and hope.
Sometimes I wish I'd spent my whole life
as the catcher in the rye
saving other people's children from miserable fate.
Now that Alex is gone
I know I would if I could.
I'm growing old.
But other people's children keep me young.
They pet my dog on the head
and he wags his tail
and they smile.
And they all look like Alex to me now.
--Larry L. Dill
Waynesville, North Carolina
May 1, 2007
Madison Dixon, Tomas and Michael Zenteno and, in the foreground, Alex Joseph Dixon.
A Tale of Two Sisters:
"I Found My Calling"
Notes on THE PICKLE: DILL-icious News about the vegan lifestyle
By Jessica Dill
And Now For Something Completely Different
By Camen Dill Gupta
Complete Site Index
larrydill@newhopejournal.com
www.newhopejournal.com
copyright 2007 by Larry L. Dill