Minnesota Memory

They grow up out of the loamy soil and fill the car. Uncles, now old or gone, are young again, and I hear their voices. They stand with a beer in hand and laugh with their brothers. They don't notice a younger me watching, absorbing, imitating. They talk work and things but stay away from feelings, from talk about love, from fears of what might come next. So-and-so got a new boat; and that new Impala, the '65, has a curvy shape, a wing over the the rear wheel. They say the 350 is the best ever. But there is more going on between the lines. I can see how they love each other but hold back while they lean into the time they have together. There have been wars, a brother lost to alcohol. They are bound to each other. I want to know how to do this thing they are doing, this being a man, so I watch closely. I am nine years old. Their voices fill the car as I drive past the rolling, verdant, fecund hills and waters of Minnesota. This is my homeland, my roots, and the voices are everywhere. I worry that I have not lived up to the job given to me by these men of my past. I worry that somehow I have failed to become the kind of man I was supposed to be. I shake my head and the voices fade back into the ground. I am here, watching and listening and trying to fill out this body that is now much older than they were, back then, showing me how it was done.