A, MEET B Nicholas Ripatrazone & J.A. Gaye

A = Nicholas Ripatrazone

Ray Baxter is the former groundskeeper of Middlebury College. He retired in 2006. He is currently restoring a 1956 Chevy Cameo Carrier and a 1949 Massey Ferguson, parked side-by-side in his barn. 

B = J. A. Gaye

This persona roots in a foggy projection of James Franco's character from the film 127 Hours, which I have not seen. Thus, water; thus, children; thus, sunlight.

A: Hi! I've been thinking about home a lot recently. Winter does that. I miss home.

I can't believe those college kids destroyed Robert Frost's cabin. I know it was a few years ago but I thought of that this morning.

B: Mostly thinking about home makes for thinking about swimming in large vague circles in an overground pool in fall. One thinks with leaves of The Great Gatsby. One thinks, and includes Robert Frost, alive, having a catch, of violence, of undue violence even. The violence of celebrity. Today, I climb rocks while alone. And you?

A: Circus in the morning. Big type making the local rounds. I asked someone about the elephants and they assured me as much care as possible is taken. I want to believe them. When I walked back to my car I peeked wherever I could but it always seemed dark in the places I shouldn't have been looking.

Rock climbing makes me think of chalked hands. What did you think about while up high?

B: Apologies for the delay, B. Or is it A? One does wonder. I have been biking and smiling at strangers and tracing the horizons of coastal beauty. I have been privatizing the public domain, while considering the cold, wet, weary, and romantic. Up high, physics are foreign; the mind is agilest when alone, and buoyant.

Like prayers. Like I love the sunglasses and guilt-filled footprints that complement a virgin beach.

And books; filmed poets; one-on-one's.

Do you garden?

A: I think about it. I like rows, and I like seeds, and I want to watch something grow, but I want to film it. I want to see every moment of shifting and breathing.

I have not worn sunglasses since I was seven. But I have known guilt. And this is the season for prayers.

When does your sun rise?

B: Where I am there are sunlights like 8 minute cathedrals. Combed with the confessious. Late, when it is already hot. I am unshowered. There are floods in dreams and I drink. Are you married? Are you a father? A mother? I have seen visions of children at the bottom of sunlights like wells. Here are they shifting and breathing. Am I approaching your meaning?

A: Are you showered now? I think light is water. It is sometimes necessary to hold my breath under the sun. I am guessing that you have children. It sounds that way because of how you clothe your words.

B: I am unshowered, behatted, dreaming of bicycles plied with brittle trees. Where I am, there are visions of children, a little boy in a well of sunlight. I understand the holding of breath. Do you swim? Are you weightless, in your light?

A: Eyes closed, I feel weightless. I think visions of children are children. I wonder if that is your little boy in the well. Visions mush be enough for boys to remain. They do not disappear when we blink.

B: Bloodless and blood loss, a half a hug. It has been nice to know you. It has been nice to have a son.