In (alone) I sit

In (alone) I sit—As much of me is—
Is incomplete.
Nobody knows—
Ever comments on
A poem
Never seen—
And it’s alone,
As much as words
Of me
May be.

Complete? Ask it—
When it shows
A form to you.
When—you know—
As much as words
Of you may be.
Or you’ll never
Sit alone—and
Understand. Who
But God may
Cease both
Whispering alone
And Silence?

Among and
Becoming
One of these—
Though without
The spirit of
Sameness that joins
Any group lacking
faith
Or The Faith.
Complete? These are
Not—these will always
Be “other”—not the
“same” in words
Or on the winds
Of God’s Whispering.

Memorial Day

Who must bear this standard of decay?Broken tombstones—buried ready flames
Every act of hindsight burns away

The memory of a breathless final day.
All these spirits broken break our chains—
Who will bear our standard of decay

Across the muted battle under way,
Beyond the fear that life may not soon wain?
Though every act of hindsight burns away

The hope of pain through lifetimes of delay;
Without the option—quite—of going insane.
Who must bear this standard of decay

That fades as one will never truly say
The truth that may always half remain
Though every act of hindsight burns away.

Though never new will blooming flowers stay
Without the blood from dying—all the same,
Who must bear this standard of decay
While every act of hindsight turns away?

Darker Passage

Then the men into A Darker Passage rush, shouting,
“This is our Place of Light
In us may fall no Shadow!”
Then—into Man the darkness
Rushes—Shouting
“This is our Place of Passage!”
Dig down further into
chambers of imagery.

Why do none ask before Shadow?
Both speak gently to the
Soothsayer
In tones that pass for whispers—
But to one who stays
And listens—after
Some session is deaf.

He may pass by in manlike
Movement
But the Spirit and the Darkness
Don’t understand
Manhood–or Man
Only silence
Either of peace or stupor
After writing so long he is the scholar—
A cramped Professor
Prepare another lesson will you?
Till forever Bent
The World and words soon become a
Case—
Either Doctors or
Darkness
Prevail.

Journal: 29 June 1999

Mike, Drew Fields, Ron Telepietra (sp?), and myself hiked up Mt. Monondak in New Hampshire yesterday morning.

The first leg of the journey is an old toll road leading up (and around the side, I suppose) the mountain. We exchange current events while walking up the grade. Ron is a height junkie; he apparently has a hobby of conquering the highest point in any given geographical division (state, county, town, building—I wonder if he might suddenly stand on a dinner table during polite conversation). “That was the highest point in the county” he relates during the descent, “I don’t know which county this is—but, that was it’s highest point.” Ron hikes in sneakers. Drew is who he is.

On the road, noting every step before attempting it, I notice a troupe of orange newts slowly scrambling across the wide rocky battlefield of sand and rock. Our footfall, like traversing earthquakes, perhaps frightens the fellows into stillness. Who are these resounding rubber-treaded gods above us? A spotted scout nearest my forward boot turns his smiling (have you noticed the smile of lizards) tight yellow lips toward me. I may be merely a resident of bogs and puddles, but you admire my design and decoration; I’ve stopped the mighty moving tread and these bow for a closer look. He is correct, his slick slender body at home amphibious, above that he’s just cute; I would not venture to surmise his contemplation later that day on the nature and vanity of human pursuits. He begins to step away and we continue.

The sky today is more liquid than air; once we pass into the first parts of altitude we walk in a hazy orb of forest and boulders, unable to see very far along our route beyond the next few steps. As we near the top, trees clear away and we scurry up the grey granite face. The air here is so thick with moisture that we cannot see more than fifty feet or so. By this time my domestic strength breakfast had expended and I (being a fatless entity) am without fuel. Soaking wet with sweat and sky, I sit down on an outcropping and look out over—well, into a bank of clouds. There is no sound of industry, only wind pushing gently against the mountainside. On the stone before me, are two entwined insects either devouring one another or mating—or both? Another larger and camouflaged bug stutteringly wanders by minding his own business. Isolated, a hundred feet of rock two-thousand feet above, are three insects and a man in a whirlwind. Thoreau and Emerson (and other three-name people) frequented these rocks. I don’t think their feet carved out so much of the place as God has though. Thousands of seekers ascend to the peaks here annually attempting communion with the wandering spirit of Thoreau but pass by the pervading spirit of God. I hear a voice calling from the mist above (Mike, not God), better get on my feet again and continue climbing.

At the top, Mike offers me a welcome cereal bar. We sit, with a half-dozen other equally dripping calmly contemplative others, and munch. Time to descend; as we near the arrow pointing distinctly “Down”, a hawk glides through an opening in the clouds. “Look” shouts Drew, “big bird.” Drew’s exclusion of “a” before the words “big bird” brings upon us a fit of high-altitude imaginings and humor. We shall begin scriptwriting for “The Muppets Conquer Everest” in late August or early September.

Mike is off to backpack through the remainder of the week. I’ve the days alone to write or wander the streets, camera in hand and unobtrusive. Have Mike take you to the Muddy Waters café during your visit—tastefully alternative with a shot of bookdust.

If you have sadness to bear, do not bear it alone. Distress in a room alone is the worst to endure—and doubly painful if inflicted upon ourselves. I know and risk that gloom every day; it is the great temptation that leads to many others. I am alone and will revel in the pain of stark aloneness. That state of dark revelry is no strength; it is a disguise of pride, I think. The world of “Alone” is a painful cavern of crippling falls. Never wish to stand alone when God is all about you and within—and others are alone nearby. This morning, at the kitchen table typing a letter, listening to choral chant, I am unsure but not distraught.

Wondering Lakeside with Beans and Beagle

What is the balance between the ideas spoken of and the ideas brought to action?
“If I can find a good creative writing program in New England, perhaps I’ll work and go back to school for a bit. My writing skills are not what they should be.”

There. Another idea spoken. Add to list of all others.

“While in the creative writing program, I plan to live in a hand-made lakeside cabin containing only a cot, table, washbasin, and laptop computer.”

“For meals, I shall only consume the best beans and turnips which I raise in a plot beside the cabin.”

“Horace, my companion beagle dog, will be versed in a considerable portion of 20th century poetry and criticism.”

“The cabin will be so remote that supplies of seed and washcloths will be parachuted in by military transport. Horace arrived safely in that manner; the first two cabins did not.”

“I shall write esoteric poetry. The first major work will concern the relationship between one of my lesser early season turnips and the northeasternmost leg of the table. Somehow the turnip found its way to the foot of the table and has (seemingly) made no attempt to move since. Every day I am fearful that it will gain an interest in the cot, thus crumbling the basis of my epic.”

“Horace will, on occasion, bring down a deer and place it (dressed) outside the door. Feasting on the raw meat does not disagree with my digestion and somehow seems purer that potentially tainting the beast with fire.”

“Horace, my brother.”

“If Horace eats beans, he emits substantial pockets of pungent odors.”

“I may also attempt to change the focus of 4-H clubs all over the nation to a cluster of five H’s—the additional “H” symbolic of HOEwoop, my unique agricultural method that must be related only in a series of complex solo polyphonic chants.”

“Horace falls into a trance.”

“I have three chairs also—one for solitude, two for company, three for—the third chair is a sit-and-spin.”

“Horace levitates out the eastern window.”

“Sometimes living so is lonely and alone.”

“I’ve beans to hoe.”

Father's Day 1999

Today, on a father-son-bicycle-rails-to-trails excursion, we pass through a quarter mile rail tunnel (construction finished in 1868, according to the capstone). Stalactites reach down from the arches like teeny grey whale teeth around uneven stone lips. Drop, drop, water falls on my helmet from the craggy hewn rock supports overhead. Spaced in run-for-your-life-Joe Hobo intervals along the wall are human sized cubbyholes for calm observation of hurried steam engines—four or five feet away. No such locomotion today; only black rivulets of water sweating coolly down the bricks—either eroding away the mountain inside, or slowly covering the evidence of man’s intrusion with musty mineral plaster. The damp walls will suffer no mark of graffiti; some fading painted promises attest to loves or declare someone’s existence on a certain date. In the center is almost darkness—silverglowing cave rain excluded. Every whisper returns in chorus—voices of men who hurled the first picks into the still solid stone, but never saw an exit for the entrance made. Drop, drop. Dad says that, during WWII, the tunnel was guarded by a military unit. Without rail transport, no troops or tanks could traverse to the sea—to ships, then to planes, to Germany or to Japan, we’ll go out and bomb ancient tunnels in other lands so, someday, this one will still stand open. Today it stands free, no guards or even rails, only the occasional horse or hiker passing unimpeded. Another memorial for dying recreational men remembering the dead. A passage made during war in this place to move men quickly to war in another—today, quiet and forgotten, it stands unused for such a scale of conflict—only for father and son to dismount and walk carefully through. Drop, drop and memory—for those who care to remember—and use an open space for dreaming.

On the trail—outside caves and such—passing houses, underpasses, churches, and other signs of occupation, I gave a thought to my prejudices and misgivings. We all have some picture of the nation around us; we have some notion of history related to us and hope of relating some part of the future on to others. What do I really know about the people here and down the trail? For part of the trip we ran parallel to the freeway—quickly, quickly, sealed inside and five miles over the speed limit. Is the purpose of travel only reaching a destination—if so, I should wish to pass on soon from living, there is a destination waiting for me. How much of travel is relating to the other travelers, a history of the trek behind and listening to a word from those more traveled? I would like to bike or hike across some goodly sample of America someday (soon?). There is more to see that what is shown—so much communication, however, who knows someone else down the trail? Christians are good with introductions—or should be. (I speak condemning myself more than others).

Tonight, at dinner on the deck, a not-too-distant neighbor expended several dozen rounds of semi-automatic ammunition. Do I know him? Do I really wish to? Perhaps the militia is rounding up again (most of the local militiamen are fairly round at the outset). Will they guard the tunnels? I think the next effective army must be armed with language—a war fought with words. Am I training well? Drop, drop—aging memorials call for their historians. Someone needs to record the memory of today or tomorrow will forget all the voices in the tunnel, the wars, the father and son, the open passages for dreaming will close upon themselves.

Tea: The World’s Going to Pot

Mental benefits of Tea

• brainwaves may begin to synchronize based on regular tea consumption
• memory recall enhanced by unknown ingredients of tea leaves
• heightened state of alertness

Social benefits of tea

• good excuse to wear tweed and corduroy
• others associate tea with Britain, where many great writers, artists, and statesmen have lived
• it is visually impressive to talk or think with a cup of tea in hand.

Physical benefits of tea

• one’s body need not expend as much energy to awaken in the morning when tea participates in the event
• several cups of tea on a hot day allows one to sweat without the expense of a sauna
• as exercise, tea can make one feel either relaxed or excited

Artistic benefits of tea

• if an artist consumes no solid food with his tea, his shaking hands make paintings appear professionally impressionistic
• since the tea drinker is wearing tweed, he can more fully appreciate England; Milton was from England
• colours and sounds are somewhat altered by the tea experience

Moral benefits of tea

• the caffeine in coffee makes one cross—the caffeine in tea makes one mellow
• one cannot see tea brewing inside a pot, therefore tea encourages faith
• people of the Holy Land, for the most part, drink tea

First visit to NYC: 24 September 1999

Hmm. How to explain all this?
Arrived this morning in New York.
This is an odd land.

Mixed chemistry for processing this Saturday’s shoot (Which will be nearby on the Hudson River. I think my job will be canoe wrangler. I hope they give me a set of waders. It will either be that or operating the artificial bird.)

This afternoon I went out with Mr. Smith to the hardware store and the supermarket. It sounds like a cheezy Kodak prize campaign. “If you win you can spend a day shopping at SaveMore with one of America’s top photographers. . .” One notice, he pays no mind to red lights—kind of a “O they’ll stop, I’m sure they can see me” driving faith. We ran two today.

We had dinner (Smith, His Daughter, The Nanny, The Lady of the House Cleaning, Judy {the lady I’m staying with}, and myself) at a Chinese restaurant with a Jewish name in a place that looks like a soda joint. Had a milkshake with my rice. On the way to dinner we drove over the George Washington Bridge at sunset. I’ve never really seen NYC. It is a breathtaking cityscape at first sight—especially through all the evening smog.

I’m staying with Judy, a good friend of Mr. Smith’s. She’s a sprightly older lady in this rustic (what style this house is I don’t know—it has wide plank floors and post and beam ceilings.) Her husband was an art critic for The New Yorker magazine for many years. I would like her to tell me a story. She has that “sit down and let me tell you a story” persona mixed with an (she actually said this) “I’m the oldest person left in (this city), the strongest, and I’ve lived the most places” crustyness

We walked into her living/dining room and I nearly fainted. My favorite favorite print ad of all time was shot downstairs. It’s an ad for Waterford crystal with a woman sitting at a table with a crystal vase in the middle. The copy reads “You’re never alone in a room with a thing of beauty”. I didn’t know that Smith shot that picture. It was excessively creepy.

This is a sketchy report. Will fill you all in more after some digestion.
I won’t be able to mail this till morning.

P.S. In the far distance I can hear the tugboats sounding. Judy says the only true way to first see NY (or presumably America) for the first time is to arrive via the harbor on a ship.

From my Grandmother's house: 15 June 1999

This is from my father’s boyhood room—the same furniture and some of the same decoration it had when dad was my age. I’m sitting in an old vinyl chair that has been in this same position for as long as I can remember.
The curtains are new though. I can remember looking far off through them into the ancient (Greek?) homes depicted on the lacy tossing loosely knit folds. Street light would filter in and illuminate the stone in my imagination. Somehow, vaguely, I remember a conversation with my cousin one night as we were finding dreams before sleeping; we wondered how far away were the fabric houses. They must be somewhere. Somewhere in dreams before sleeping.

On the dresser, a portrait of my uncle in uniform—W.W.II, he never liked to speak of—In a battle he stood the middleman of three soldiers abreast, a grenade fell before them, the two fellows on either side were blown into parts, my uncle was not even bruised. A nativity props up the portrait of my uncle in uniform—symbolic. Both the uniform and my uncle are past away, the nativity was long ago. But here are two memorials on a father’s boyhood dresser—one standing supported by the other.

On the chest of drawers is a lithograph of, I think, Oliver Cromwell in full military regalia (if he’s not Cromwell, he’s the Man of LaMancha). Oliver Cromwell is not so closely connected to my family—but since he’s there he deserves a mentioning.

In the shelf over the bed is a Reader’s Digest condensed version of Treasure Island that I’ve read through at least twice through years of Grandmother visits. It has the Wyeth Illustrations that incline the reader to swear heartily and wear an open-necked blouse the day following.

A hundred dogs across the river just shouted in unison at invisible intruders invading the secret industry that does not exist in the laid back backwoods river hunting houses across the water with a hundred dogs becoming silent now.

My Grandmother had eye surgery today. I came down to spend some time with her. A woman my mother once babysat came by with her son. I remember when the son was born. She and the father decided to marry. Her son’s team just won the little league championship; he brought the trophy to show my grandmother. She said he ought to be proud. He fixes breakfast and takes care of his little brother while his mom is at work. His father divorced her a few years ago. He wants to try out for the football team too.

The dogs, after some silence to devour the previous interloper, have now their sights upon another and raise a new complaint.
Outside a wimpy sounding grunt calls out to his brothers across the great flow.
Some kids (jeez, at 11:00?) ride along the street; there is not much danger of traffic after about seven.

The twangy digital chime clock just struck downstairs. I suppose it’s time for sleeping—though dreaming before sleep I sit in a father’s boyhood chair. If I can figure out how to connect the computer to this ancient phone jack, you might receive this message. Odd, in seconds we can send the words, but the chair, the portrait, Cromwell, and Treasure Island are all part of some span of time—some time we have now to look back on. Who will recall us in rooms of the past someday?

What dreams are present–I wish you could have seen the houses.

PS: The wimpy dog sounds like the street urchins are utilizing him as a road obstacle. A matronly reproving voice booms out now to correct the children’s humanitarian faux-paus.