Twelfth Annual Northcoast Men's Gathering

It began before it began.

It began before I even decided

to tell a friend I had made plans

to go to this year’s event

and he said, "Sounds boring."

It began before I told another friend who

then sat me down to discuss

women and men, sex and death, and the fact

that he felt, after much thought,

most men our age give up.

It began before I gave up,

before Little League practice, before dating girls,

playing with boys, learning to

be who I was, who I

am here now.

It began before I got here,

before I was born, before my father was born, before

the men on the corner greeted my grandfather,

"Come vá, Franco?  Come stí?"

To which he replied, e male."

A young man from Italy taught me this phrase.

He was someone I used to work with, someone

I did not know very well, someone I never got

close to, another young man

in my life full of young men.

"Follow your heart." my wife says to me.

"I honor your heart," a man says to me.

"I am my heart." I say to myself.

And my self replies with silence.

My heart beats on its own.

- Vincent Peloso, Camp Mattole, 6/1/02