It’s unfair to compare a life

of a giant to that of a man

Does a giant ever feel small

like a man might feel inflated?

—

When does a giant

shrink back to a man?

Perhaps once he is Hurt

Perhaps when he stops being seen In Black

—

Giants were kids once, too

Giants might have been afraid

of mom or dad

Giants might have lost their brother

and felt shame

—

When I lost a brother

I was already a man

He was just a junior giant

when he lost his

—

Mine wasn’t a blood brother

like His was

But Johnny’s Jack’s death

was an accident

My Dek’s wasn’t 

—

Maybe pain doesn’t differentiate 

between giants and men

maybe it’s reach and bend

transcends heights

—

Johnny, J.R., couldn’t have been a giant when

he grew up in Dyess Arkansas

It’s too empty and open 

too flat and horizontal to harbor a giant 

—

I tucked in quite nicely in the streets of

Townsend Montana, tucked quite nicely between the mountains

tucked quite nicely into the Rocky Mountain Front

tucked quite nicely into the continent

—

The big billowing clouds

attempting to block out the royal blue sky

in Dyess,

in Townsend

had the same impossible mission

—

Did J.R., before he was Giant Johnny

sit on his front porch stoop

as I did

and imagine

other places with those same clouds?

—

Of course he did.

The Air Force took him well above

well beyond Dyess

It took him to Germany,

It took him to see those Blue Suede Shoes

—

The Air Force took my brother to the desert

to bombs on babies

to IEDs 

to PTSD and a diet of Jack Daniels

—

Johnny probably liked Jack as well

He probably more than once

Thought of Jack as he drank Jack

—

I never much liked Mr. Daniels

He’s not kind to me

In fact, he’s not kind to anyone I know

But apparently he’s a hell of a companion

—

Johnny, like Jack

(Daniels, not his long-dead brother)

was iconically American:

Southern, addictive, bold, not a fan of prohibitions, dressed in black

—

But Johnny was also red, white, and blue

and addicted

Iconically American: 

amphetamines and border crossings, Billy Graham crusades

and Folsom prison capitalization

—

There are too many ways 

in which our paths stray

Johnny and I

—

Even in my Emo phase

I didn’t wear much black

instead of boom-chicka-boom

our guitar cried midwest emo hammer-on ballads

—

But it was the Man in Black I idolized

because when I would deliver

hand-me-down furniture to people in the trailer park

from the second-hand ministry my mom ran

(who’s dad loved Cash)

Johnny’s words rang loud in my head:

—

“Well, there’s things that never

will be right, I know

And things need changin’

everywhere you go”