Intrepid Murmurings

Lost poem, found

 

My plan was simple.

Another year of school would save me.
Of course it would.
The hunt for a job could be held at bay
– tenuously – for another year, at least.

No interview suits to buy and iron,
no resume sparkling on thick, smooth paper.
After that it would all be easy
everything falling into place.

And so it went.
Books, papers, discussion and debate
inspiration – steps to help us save the world
were dangling precariously, tickling our fingertips.

But then, on a bright and warm summer day
it all came crashing down. With hat and paper in hand
“do good things,” they said, and pushed me out the door.
The sky opened wide, and sparkled clear.
Birds were singing, there was a band, I think...

But I, like a dog sensing eminent danger
stiffened and looked back,
claw marks digging deep
into a shiny, polished floor.

Remembering a friend (**links added)

Remembering a friend,
gone too soon,

Who lived life hard
and fast,
and full!

an adventurer
seeker
rainbow chaser

My reggae dancing buddy,
we danced beneath a wide drunken sky
"If you know what life is worth
then you will look for yours on Earth..."

The way you lived your life,
its like you knew

Always a smile,
a laugh,
an offer to help;
my go-to guy anytime
a 2am computer crunch
rescuing my first webpage,
and my sanity
now here I am, still...!

Well, we went our own ways
you East, me West
our paths haven't crossed in years.
I have only heard of your struggles
secondhand, bits and pieces
passed through others.

But my thoughts have flown to you
often
and I know you fought a good fight
I'm sure of it
with grace, dignity,
beauty,
love.

We will miss you Eric Yann Battle 9/14/76 - 8/28/06

**There is a new blog set up to honor Yann online. Find it here: Remember Yann Here is Yann's Old Webpage (best viewed in IE, not Mozilla). To follow the broken links, just replace the outdated "acns" part of the address to "res".

A Poem (For Dr. King's Birthday)
So I wrote this for a class I took back in college called "The History of Nonviolent Protest". It was taught by Marv Davidov, this guy who was not really a professor (at least at my school) but a crazy, passionate life-long activist, and an entertainer who for much of every class told us stories of things he had known and witnessed in his past. He'd been in the thick of it all, having traveled South to participate in the Freedom Rides in Jackson Mississippi, as well as so many other protests and other actions throughout the years. Definitely someone who has had his share of some interesting life experiences, and unlike anyone I had met before. He was a Minnesota native, if I recall, and I remember being really impressed at the time that he was friends with one of my favorite poets, Robert Bly. This poem is pretty much a collection of my notes from the things he'd said in class that day.

Here's one of my favorite poems...
A Ritual to Read to Each Other By William Stafford If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dike. And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail, but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park, I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact. And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all who talk: though we could fool each other, we should consider — lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark. For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe — should be clear: the darkness around us is deep. From The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems by Graywolf Press, 1998. Kelp Circle, 2005

This Poem's Kiss
Tonight, I start another poem that will not be finished. Yes, there will be something— a knock on the door, a teakettle whistle— it will catch my attention and I will put down the pencil, rough lines left hanging, words making only half sense. Then the phone will ring, or I’ll decide to take a shower. These thin sheets of paper will flutter softly, touched by sunset and a breeze from the open window. Honey colored shadows will creep across the floor, the deepness of night swallowing table, desk, and chair. Tomorrow I might find this half-poem sitting here alone, and think it ugly. Or I will touch it and it will stir, alive again, breath whispering words I haven’t yet thought, scolding for my negligence, forgiving, with a kiss.

Reflection of a City Schoolyard
Kristin Hutchinson Homework week 1 April 21, 2004 Sitting on familiar steps, my back pressed against against warm brick, I listen to distant city sounds --
the squeal and honk of traffic down the street, the metallic groan of dumpsters emptying their load, the thunderous roar of a jet as it passes overhead, then fades again, slowly, into the horizon, a thin white string hanging in the sky. Closer to me, the bounce of a basketball, the splash of a fountain and buckets scooping it up, the rise and fall of chatter and children playing in the sun. I am on the playground, behind the big brick bulk of a church, surrounded by walls and a patchwork of fence, carefully mended. This was once a flat square empty lot, paved throughout (I have seen the pictures!) --
but now, it is a different place. I watch, through waves of heat rolling up off hot asphalt, the swaying back and forth, back and forth of a empty swing, its occupant recently departed. Kids scramble up the wooden structures, is it a boat, a house, a castle, a train? and jump into piles of soft wood chips. I see slices of rosy faces peering through the slats, black curls bobbing up and down, a flicker of bright clothing, bare legs and dusty sandals. City kids, they do all right, rustling in the shady branches of an old willow (did nuns nursed it to life, years ago?) or squatting underneath, digging tunnels in the dirt and sand. Some hide behind the weeds and flowers, collecting caterpillar families, holding them tight in round cupped hands. A breeze wafts in through the chain link fence, and then the sweet sweet smell of doughnuts, pastries, bread, from warehouse ovens one block down. Beyond the gate, I watch the slow, silent shuffle of men and women, alone or in pairs, waiting in line for food from the shelter, on a good day piled high in brown bags and boxes halves. Before school is out, those folks will gone again, with their heavy loads down the street, to the crowded bus stop, and away. Then, long shadows will creep across cracked sidewalks, busy feet will patter home, hand in hand. Doors and windows will shudder and slam tight, the gate will rattle, then be still, closed, silent. An empty swing will sway back and forth in the wind at sunset, an old gray cat will jump the fence to weave its way through footprints, castles, moonlight. **This was from a writing class I took at the Hugo House last spring. I forget what the assignment was, I think it was to describe a place in detail. This was about the playground of the school I used to teach at, now called Giddens School.

Security Tomorrow will have an island. Before night I always find it. Then on to the next island. These places hidden in the day separate and come forward if you beckon. But you have to know they are there before they exist. Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island. So far, I haven't let that happen, but after I'm gone others may become faithless and careless. Before them will tumble the wide unbroken sea, and without any hope they will stare at the horizon. So to you, Friend, I confide my secret: to be a discoverer you hold close whatever you find, and after a while you decide what it is. Then, secure in where you have been, you turn to the open sea and let go. —William Stafford

Thoughts on Stone Walls
Driving through New Hampshire & Vermont small towns fly by, then forest— woodlands stretching for miles. I watch the stone walls weave and wander by the roadside. Sometimes they disappear, cut off by a bend in the road, driveway, fallen tree, a hill slowly folding in on itself. Some look like they go on forever, straight and steady, pointing out past the horizon and beyond. I think about who built those walls, wonder whose distant relatives heaved those heavy rocks piled them onto sleds, the slap of the whip on horses as they pulled, sweat dripping, muscles aching, the gasping for breath in the frigid air. Could've been mine, could've been yours. They are strong and sturdy walls to have made it this long, hundreds of years, centuries even— built of boulders & slabs scattered from ice ages, dragged across the land and dropped by glaciers, rushing water. But then times changed, land parceled and meticulously cleared. Felling timber, moving rocks, building walls and fences to define a space for planting food and for survival... Hard to imagine how they did it living in those different times— such a short season, so many hills, so much work to be done. History stretches on forever in the east with ancient homesteads, farmhouses and barns, town centers with brick and stone buildings, old but still so strong. And cemeteries everywhere, worn and tipping headstones, filled with generations, the same names repeated in plots next to each other. Hard to imagine so much family living and dying in one place. It is different where I come from—the West. Here, we are young still, with no stone walls to remind us of times past, steady, silent, waiting for spring.

1st apartment
18 ½ bridge square apt #1 northfield MN. up dark steep stairs next to the art gallery and above the bank (that jesse james robbed, years and years ago). it was convenient, just down the street from the coffeehouse and the college. the bathroom wall was painted black, faucets dripped, no window in the kitchen so dark I hung a clip-on work light when I cooked, steam rose and moisture slid down the walls and the plastic on the windows keeping the heat in or the cold out? not much warmth on either side those long winters. thursday was trash day but only then, no dumpster or anything so it piled in the entry, the smell of coffeegrounds and rotting fish. bats in the hallway cat crawled through the walls, i would return her to my neighbor. i hung jars with candles in the window overlooking the square flowers, benches, a popcorn stand in the summer but it had wierd hours. kids hung there on a nice day, and late into the night i could hear their conversations girls with strollers, guys with drugs police busted them a few times never bothered us, though. looking out, you could see the river from there the sound of water splashing over the old dam ducks, train song in the distance still miss it some days, it was a nice apartment.