The Seer (Chapter 01) Poem by Kim Barney

Charlie was...
different.
he was just
one of the
kids, and yet
he wasn't.

One day we were playing
baseball against the Glenwood
nine. Awaiting our turn to bat,
together there on that pine bench,

and Charlie turned to me and said
I hate spaghetti
and Mom is fixing spaghetti
for supper.

Then he took his bat
to the on-deck circle
and Eddie turned to me and said
Charlie has been with us all day

so how does he know
what his mom is fixing for supper?
I said, Oh, his mom fixes spaghetti
every Saturday night.

That was a lie. His mom rarely
fixed spaghetti. The truth was that
Charlie always knew things he had
no obvious way of knowing.

Whenever he said something like that,
it always turned out to be true.
The first time I became aware
was when just the two of us

were swimming at the hot springs
in Monroe. Suddenly he said
I think we better get out of
the water. We'll get rained on soon.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky.
I told him he must be crazy.
He just shrugged and got out of
the pool and went and got dressed.

Minutes later big clouds came
out of nowhere, white at first,
and then darker and darker.
I jumped out of the pool as well,

and before I got inside, the raindrops
were already starting to fall.
A flash of lightning and a crash
of thunder, simultaneous almost,

split a huge Russian Olive tree
and sent half of it into the
pool where we had been. I never
doubted Charlie after that.

to be continued...