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August 29 Paradise and AllParadise and All
Part I
The call came during the second half. Iran was already down 1-0 and time was running out on them. The phone buzzed to life on the bar my elbows were resting on. I checked the time- 10:30am- and picked up.
-“Good morning sweetcheeks,” came through thick and accented. It was Samir, my Bosnian friend.
-“I’m up, I’m up,” I grumbled. “I got here at 9:30. Portugal’s winning 1-0.”
-“Good. Ven are you coming?”
-“Well, Lucas is still sleeping, but when he gets up he’s going to pick up his tent. At 12 Ghana plays the Czech Republic and at 3 it’s US/Italy, so we’ll probably head out around 5:30 if we find time to pack between games.”
-“Good. Call me venever someone scores a goal.”
-“Okay. What’s it like down there anyway?”
-“Oh man, it’s paradise.” I smiled at the way he rolled his r’s. “Ve have a river right below us, and the lake. It’s paradise man, it’s paradise.”
-“Sounds good. Gotta run man, Portugal just scored again. 2-0. Call me after the game with directions.”
-“OK Capitan. Goodbye.”
I hung up and the barkeep walked over.
-“You want a beer?”
I looked around. A few old guys sat at the bar happily with half-empty glasses. I checked the time again, 10:40am.
-“Not yet. I’ll be back for the next game.”
I hadn’t been home yet, and was still wearing a shirt and blazer from last night. There was a long day ahead, and I was the one driving. The barkeep smiled at me.
-“It’s your call boss. We ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
He turned back to his regulars.
-“Hey Lefty!” he called out, “I saw that hearse yesterday. He only wants $1500 for it. I’ll call him up right now, tell him I want it.”
Lefty looked up.
-“Sure would look good here,” he smiled. “Paint our names on it and drive around like a deathdance.”
He turned to the man on his left.
-“Maggot! You seen it! Does it come with those little flags in the front?”
-“No it don’t Lefty. It’s older than that—a beautiful deep blue hearse.”
He tapped his glass on the bar.
-“Paint it right on the side of it there: The Olde NorthEnder- Dying To Get In.”
They all laughed loudly, and I smiled with them. I looked up at the game. It was all over for Iran. I had an hour before the next one. I paid and walked out.
At 12:45 he called again.
-“Vat’s the score?”
-“1-0 for Ghana,” I replied. “It’s halftime. They’re playing beautifully.”
-“Good!” he exclaimed. “I vant the Czechs to lose. Call me at the end of the game. It’s so beautiful here you know.”
I ordered a pint and sat back in my stool. Lefty was arguing about the weather with his neighbor.
-“No you tell me, Bob! I heard the weatherman this morning on the radio, and he said partly cloudy.”
-“You’re a damn fool, Lefty. Can’t you see the sunshine? Ain’t no part in cloudiness out there.”
-“Well which is it Bobby? The sun shines through the clouds and Mr. Brightskies says it’s party cloudy. Why didn’t he say partly sunny, huh? You tell me Bob, is it partly cloudy or is it partly sunny? What’s the difference Bob?”
-“Shut up Lefty, and listen to me. I’m Bobby Standard and I’m telling you: Lefty, you’re a damn fool.”
I found two dollars in my wallet and pushed them across the bar. The game was almost over now. I took a long sip and dialed Samir’s number. The beer was cool on my tongue and the sun shone through the window and cut across the rows of bottles.
-“Hello? Who is this?”
-“It’s me again.”
-“Ah, Capitan. So, who won?”
-“Ghana beat ‘em, 2-0. Great game.”
-“Excellent. Now go pack. It’s paradise here.”
Part II
The truck rattled and spluttered awake. Lucas swung his bag into the back next to the tent and opened his door. At his feet lay a half bottle of Johnnie Walker Red and a case of Pabst.
-“All set to go?”
We swung out onto Route 7 South as the sun hung low to our right over Lake Champlain. The traffic was light, and we were making good time. We’d barely made it through Shelburne when I saw two hitchhikers on the side of the road.
-“Lucas, you wanna pick them up?” I asked.
I pulled onto the curb and honked. They grabbed their bags and shuffled down the road towards us.
-“Too late to say no now,” he said.
He got out to open the back for their bags while I piled our mess over to one side of the cab to make room for them. I checked the rearview mirror and took off again amidst a chorus of thank yous. I looked back at them. They seemed to be a young couple. The girl sat with her head against the window and a tired look in her eyes while the guy told us their story. They had left Providence, Rhode Island that morning and had been traveling all day. Their destination was Kalamazoo, Michigan. He was going home for the first time since he had left 9 years ago, just in time to celebrate his 25th birthday. We pointed out the Adirondack mountains and the lake, and told them about the paradise we were headed to for the night. They stared out at the cows grazing in the pastures. I asked him about northern Michigan and he conjured up melancholic pictures of untouched wilderness by the great lakes. Images of Hemingway’s Michigan stories flashed through my mind, and I resisted the urge to drive right past our turnoff and head out westwards towards the setting sun. I looked over at Lucas and knew he was thinking the same thing. My phone buzzed me out of my reverie, and I picked up as the truck chugged up a steep hill. A deep accented voice came on.
-“Vere are you man?”
-“Almost there. Just passed Middlebury, though you almost lost us for good, you know.”
-“Yes, vell. Almost is a thing that never happens, Capitan.”
Samir had developed a passion for sayings and lore which he had taken to trying out on me. And for the most part, I thought they came out even better in his heavy English.
-“Listen to
me,” he continued, “if you do not get here soon, you vill not find it. The sun
is low and my patience sets with it.” At the turnoff for Lake Dunmore, we said goodbye to the two travelers. The girl kissed me on the cheek and we drove off down the dirt road. Lucas was skeptical about our destination, but I had convinced him of the beautiful place Samir had created in my mind. We turned a bend and caught our first glimpse of Lake Dunmore. A giant metal squirrel, its red paint peeling in the sun, grinned down at us and pointed to the waters. Lucas coughed and cleared his throat. The road twisted along the edge of the lake, and flashes of blue shone out between the cottages and dockings. A motorboat raced through the waves. Two jetskis tagged along, crossing in its wake.
-“You think this is it?” I asked quietly.
-“You bet. Paradise and all,” came the reply.
We pulled off the road at the campground, and were greeted by a swarm of mosquitoes and Samir standing on a rock waving his hands in the air.
-“Isn’t this grrreat?”
He smiled down at us and swatted a mosquito.
-“I keel you!” he shouted triumphantly. “Hey Capitan! Did you bring my friend Johnnie?”
I smiled and waved the half-bottle out the window.
-“You are a good man,” he exclaimed. “Now come sit around the fire, it is time for the good times to roll.”
We dropped our bags by the fire just as the sun was setting. The peaceful quiet of early evening was interrupted only by the gentle crackle and hum of bugs around the streetlight. A car drove by and I lay my head back against the soft wood of the tree and listened to the sounds of paradise.
I landed on my hands and knees and crouched there silently, looking around. The fire smelled good in my clothes. I heard a low whistle behind me and leaned back against the tree, holding my breath. A bottle clinked nearby. I stuck my head around the tree and tapped the ground. The bottle clinked again and the grass rustled, and Lucas crawled up beside me brushing the straw from his arms.
-“You okay?” I asked.
-“No. There’s been a casualty,” he whispered. “Johnnie fell at the turnaround. I tried to save him but he went down, and I don’t think he’s gonna make it much longer.”
I looked down at the quarter-bottle left, and then back at Lucas.
-“You’re completely drunk, aren’t you?”
He looked up at me and furrowed his brow.
-“I take offense, Mackenzie. It was your idea to come out to this paradise, your idea to give ourselves all camping nicknames, and your idea to crawl down through the tents and trailers commando-style towards the lake.”
I stared back at him silently. He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a swig.
-“And yes, I am completely drunk.”
I smiled.
-“Good man. Now where’s Ignacio?”
Lucas was right, it had all been my idea. We left our dreams of wild Michigan behind us in a cloud of dust and drove up to these pearly gates with weary eyes, only to find them rusted and creaking loosely on their hinges. Around the fire we had passed the bottle around and laughed and joked about the long work week and the long drive down here. I became Mackenzie, Samir was Ignacio, and after some convincing, Lucas chose Steve. We had stared at the hot coals and at the flames licking up against the side of the pan where the sausages spat and crackled. We sat silently in the fiery heat and ate with the cold night at our backs. The streetlight was dim but it was there, and so was the road, and the cars, and the jetskis on the lake. We had left town to get away from it all for just a little while. It was our escape to a still silence. The smell of crushed pine needles under foot and of fire in my clothes called out from the woods but this was as far as we had gone. And now all around us the still, dark night beckoned us out further and further.
-“Ignacio!” I half-shouted through clenched teeth.
The camp was quiet. The lake lapped against the boats down at the dock. Their wooden frames creaked calmly in the night.
-“Where is he?” I muttered.
We picked our next tree and elbowed and crouched our way through the grass until we were leaning against it. The water was almost visible behind a last row of trees. The dark outline of a boathouse loomed to our right. A branch cracked behind us and we turned just in time to catch a glimpse of Commandante Ignacio himself as he streaked by us in a fit of cackles and a flurry of knees, waving his clothes above his head.
-“Capitaaaaaaaaaan!” His voice faded.
Our heads followed him as he disappeared behind the treeline. A splash of water was greeted with a hoot and a barrage of thick curses. I turned to Lucas. He looked back at me without a sound and handed me the bottle. I laughed and drank from it. Lucas stood up and hitched his thumbs in his belt to address me.
-“Private Mackenzie,” he said, “it’s boy meets man time. The brave Vermont waters need our services. Make me proud, son.”
I saluted grimly. We headed for the last defense of trees and stripped down. The cold night air wallowed around us. Across the bay the lights from the cottages shone out into the lake. Ripples of laughter and clinking glasses sounded faintly from the distant shore. The murky waters stretched out an icy arm to greet us and pull us in. We waded out, toes gripping the pebbles, shuddering to stay warm.
-“Capitan!” I heard an urgent whisper. “Capitan, this way! Lie on your back, the show is about to begin.”
We floated around in the still cool night and stared up at the stars far above us. In the pale moonlight we lost sight of each other, but the telltale splashes kept us close. It was too cold to stay long. We headed happily towards the dark shore and used our shirts to dry ourselves. We sat down in three wooden Adirondack chairs which seemed as if they had been left there just for us. The black surface of the water stretched out at our feet, resting in the stillness of the night. A car sounded on the shoreline road, and I could make out the headlights flashing through the trees and around the bend. Across the lake the laughter had died down and the sound of clinking glasses was fading away. The sparkling night sky was a deep, deep blue. A haze of light rose from a distant town behind the lake. Ignacio stretched his arm out upwards into the skies.
-“So Capitan, is this it, or vat?”
I smiled and closed my eyes. The boats creaked against their moorings, and the water lapped its ancient rhythm into the shore. Here we were, far from home and yet together, far from our own worlds, looking in at the lives of the lake people. It was all familiar, those cars rolling by, and the streetlights, and the buzz of electrified living. Close, but it wasn’t our world. Up above us the sky opened wide and as we sat there and stared up in silence, I felt close and quiet and ready. I looked over at Lucas. It wasn’t Michigan, but it wasn’t all too far from it either, and the way he was gazing into the deep I knew he was thinking the same thing. Ignacio tapped his hand on the wood of the chair.
-“Paradise, I tell you,” he said, “it is a place with varm people. It is vere the things that are lost and the things that are forgotten come back again vith the new ones. Capitan, vat you think?”
My eyes stayed closed. I wasn’t listening anymore. All I could hear was the lull of the water against the shore. Ignacio coughed. The bottle clinked against his ring as he reached for it. He cursed under his breath, and I heard the empty thud as it hit the ground but I was already far away in the night.
July 12 Hell's Gate
Hell’s Gate
…I just have a very fond memory of beans in morning over fire…
Emily Dawson lay awake in her tent listening. She could hear the steady, dull roar of the rapids in the gorge below. The rains had ended last week. The waters were swirling and churning and racing towards the lake. Soon enough that roar would weaken, until the faint trickle remaining could only be heard if you were down on its banks. A movement outside made her sit up. She rubbed her eyes, pushed the green flap of the tent back, and looked out. The early morning sun swept across the ground and gathered the light low and clean. She put her hand down and felt the cool, unheated rock. The tent was placed on a grassy surface, but the surrounding area was just hard, flat rock. Two big boulders stood at the edge of the cliff.
Her brother Edward was kneeling next to the fire pit. She heard paper crunching and the crackle of wet twigs. She wrapped a blanket around herself and walked towards the fire. She sat down on one of the stumps and pulled the blanket close. He was concentrating on the fire. The paper was lighting the wet twigs, and he lay some small, thorny acacia branches over them in a cone. The thorns burnt well. He pushed the branches around with a stick and placed three big logs on them. The blue and yellow flames licked up the side of the logs where the moss was and hissed and snapped. The moss blackened and curled up and fell into the fire, and the wood started to burn. He tapped a log with his stick and watched the flames gather and fall apart, and then sat back on a rock and stared into the heat. She leaned in and touched him on the shoulder. Edward looked up at her and then looked away and tapped his stick on the log again. She sighed and turned back to the fire.
When the logs had turned grey and black and charred, Edward broke them apart with his stick and raked the coals together into a small dome. He grabbed the pot and pushed down the top of the dome so that it nestled in the coals. Then he pulled the pot out again and poured a bit of water in it and sloshed it around to clean out the ashes from the coals. He emptied the water beside the fire and then poured some more in and placed the pot back on the broken dome. Emily stood up and stretched and walked out to the edge of the cliff. She sat down on a boulder close to the edge and looked down into the valley. There was the river, carving its way through the gorge. Her eyes followed its course until it disappeared behind a dip in the land. The faint outline of Lake Naivasha was visible in the mist just beyond. She looked up. Another cliff-face rose up on the other side of the river and the two stretched along opposite each other for a few hundred yards. Hell’s Gate, she thought to herself. What a place to spend our last night in Africa. She turned towards the southeast and looked out at Longonot’s massive crater rising out of the grassy plains in the distance. The sun’s early rays fanned across the old volcano’s rise. And to think we’ll drive by it for the last time later on today on the way back to Nairobi, she thought, and scratched her palm against the rock.
She turned back towards camp. A pot clanged on a rock, and she screwed up her nose at the smell of strong, black coffee. Edward had opened a can of baked beans and was pouring them out into a smaller pot. He picked up a stick and stirred the beans. Then he checked the can, shrugged, and emptied it into the pot. He placed it back on the hot coals and poked at the beans with his stick, then blew on his coffee and took a careful sip and looked up at her.
-“Might as well finish it all off.”
-“Might as well. We can’t keep them anyhow, there won’t be any room. And besides, we wouldn’t be allowed to.”
Edward held her gaze. The beans bubbled and spat and he turned back and stirred them again. Emily touched him on the shoulder.
-“Is there more water? I want tea.”
He leaned over and picked up the bigger pot. She dropped a teabag in her cup and held it out for him to fill.
-“Do you think they’ll have English Breakfast in America?”
He smiled, opened his knife, and cut off two slices of bread. He balanced them on his knee and broke off two long, thin branches. He pushed the thick end of the branch into the ground next to the fire and then poked the bread onto the other end so that the two slices hung over the hot coals. Then he stood up, wiped his hands on his jeans, and walked towards the tent.
-“Let me know when the toaster pops,” he said, as he disappeared behind the flap.
Emily sat down, drew out her teabag with an agile finger, and threw it into the fire. The coals hissed and smoked. She sipped her tea slowly, keeping one eye on the slices of bread. An eagle flew by above her and swooped down over the cliff. She’d often seen them nesting in the rocky basalt faces. In the evening there was usually a pair of them circling above Hell’s Gate. When she was younger she used to stand near the edge of the cliff, high above the plains, and watch them soaring even higher above her without flapping their wings. Sometimes she still closed her eyes when the wind blew strongly and thought of the eagles’ flight, and saw everything they could see from up there. She saw the open plains and the burnt, yellow grass, and the thorny acacia trees bent and struggling. She saw the buffalo drinking at the waterholes, while the impala sneaked in nervously next to the Thomson’s gazelle and the klipspringer until something startled them and they all darted away to their herds. Sometimes she’d get lucky and swoop down on a pride of lions resting in the shade of a baobab tree. Then she’d soar high up again to watch the smoke coming through the trees in Longonot’s crater, before sailing away from Hell’s Gate towards the Ngong Hills.
The burning smell snapped her out of her reverie. She grabbed the smoking pieces of toast and dropped them onto a metal plate. Edward stuck his head out from the tent, then pushed the flap aside. She looked up at him.
-“I’m sorry, Eddie, my mind was elsewhere. I didn’t mean to let them burn.”
-“It’s alright. Pass them to me, they’ll do fine.”
He opened his knife, wiped the blade on his jeans, and scraped the toast until it looked alright. Emily smiled and spread two plates on the ground. He dropped the toast on the plates and picked up the pot of beans.
-“There’s butter in the cooler.”
She opened the blue plastic box and found the butter. She cut off two chunks, making sure to spread it thinly on her piece so that the yellowness melted and soaked into the bread. Edward stirred the beans one last time and then tilted the pot sideways over the plates and used the wooden spoon to scoop the steaming beans onto the toast. They smelled sweet and red in the cool morning air. Emily closed her eyes again.
-“Do you think they eat beans on toast in America, Eddie?”
He laughed. His fork clinked on the plate.
-“I don’t know, Em. I don’t know what it’s going to be like at all.”
They ate in silence. All around them the sounds of eastern Africa awakening grew steadily louder. The insects chirped, and a small rodent scraped and scurried in the rocks. A scuttle of stones bounced down off one of the big boulders and over the edge of the cliff and dropped out, hitting against the rock face until the sound faded away. From the plains below a distant roar broke out. Edward cocked his head.
-“Sounds like buffalo. Maybe we’ll see them on the drive back.”
He picked up a piece of obsidian and rubbed the smooth surface. The glassy, black rock was common in this area. When Longonot erupted far in the distant past, the molten lava had crept across the surrounding plains. Where it had come into contact with water, it had rapidly cooled into obsidian, and the iron and magnesium gave it its shiny, dark color. He closed his hand around it and put it in his pocket.
-“We have to go, Emily.”
She rinsed out the plates and forks and pots with the rest of the water while Edward packed up the tent. They loaded everything into the box-shaped car. Edward stamped out the fire and poured some sandy earth and pebbles over it.
-“Don’t want the monkeys to learn to use fire,” he said.
They looked around one last time then climbed into the vehicle. He pushed the clutch in and shifted to first gear, then slowly turned the car around in a wide half-circle while Emily stared out over the cliffs, and set off on the bumpy red road.
The car picked up speed when they reached the bottom of the cliffs and turned through Hell’s Gate towards the main road. Behind them a cloud of red dust kicked up by the car gathered in the still skies. An eagle hovered over the cloud. They turned southeast towards Nairobi. Emily was still looking out at the dry yellow plains.
-“Eddie, I don’t want to go. I like it here.”
Edward drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and glanced at his sister.
-“I know, Em. I like it here too, but we have to go. I’ve heard lots of good things about New York, don’t worry.”
She sighed and rested her head on the bridge of the seatbelt.
-“I’m glad we came out here for the night. It’s a good thing to remember.”
Edward kept looking straight ahead. He turned onto the main road and accelerated. The sun, higher in the sky now, reflected off the Ngong Hills to the west.
-“Do you know where those hills got their name, Emily?”
-“The Ngong Hills? No, I don’t.”
-“Ngong means ‘knuckles’ in Swahili. The story is that a long, long time ago a giant was walking around Africa when he tripped over Kilimanjaro and put his hand out to break his fall. He hit the ground right over there at the hills, and his hand was curled into a fist, and left the mark of his knuckles.”
Emily looked back at the hills. The dips and rises between them did look like knuckles. She looked back past the hills, past Longonot and Hell’s Gate, past the river and the lake and the burnt plains until her eye couldn’t tell where the sky met the earth anymore. She looked back at what they were leaving behind and felt her eyes become wet with tears. Her hand hung out the window. She turned her palms upwards and felt the wind blowing strongly into them, then turned them over once more. She looked over at Edward and at the big city ahead of them and smiled.
---------------------------- ------------------------- May 22 Kon-TikiKon-Tiki is the account of six men who sailed from Peru to Polynesia in 1947 in an attempt to prove the theory that the South Sea Islands could very well have been peopled in this manner. They built a raft of twelve 40-ft balsa logs, named it the Kon Tiki, hoisted a sail, and set off on their journey, which was to last them 101 days (4300 nautical miles). Thor Heyerdahl (from Norway), the author of the book, was the one behind the expedition. On April 28 of this year, Heyerdahl's grandson, Olav, and five companions set sail from Peru on a re-creation of the legendary voyage, aboard the Tangaroa. >>Read the official log of the Tangaroa (click on UK flag for English). Following is an excerpt from Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki: (p.173) The fact that the balsa logs always rode the seas like a gull, and let the water right through aft if a wave broke on board, gave us an unshakable confidence in the dry part in the middle of the raft where the cabin was. The longer the voyage lasted, the safer we felt in our cozy lair, and we looked at the white-crested waves that danced past outside our doorway as if they were an impressive movie, conveying no menace to us at all. Even though the gaping wall was only five feet from the unprotected edge of the raft and only a foot and a half above the water line, yet we felt as if we had traveled many miles away from the sea and occupied a jungle dwelling remote from the sea's perils once we had crawled inside the door. There we could lie on our backs and look up at the curious roof which twisted about like boughs in the wind, enjoying the jungle smell of raw wood, bamboos, and withered palm leaves. Sometimes, too, we went out on the rubber boat to look at ourselves by night. Coal-black seas towered up on all sides, and a glittering myriad of tropical stars drew a faint reflection from plankton in the water. The world was simple- stars in the darkness. Whether it was 1947 B.C. or A.D. suddenly became of no significance. We lived, and that we felt with alert intensity. We realized that life had been full for men before the technical age also- in fact, fuller and richer in many ways than the life of modern man. Time and evolution somehow ceased to exist; all that was real and that mattered were the same today as they had always been and would always be. We were swallowed up in the absolute common measure of history- endless unbroken darkness under a swarm of stars. May 21 The ChangeThe Change The season turned like the page of a glossy fashion magazine. In the park the daffodils came up and in the parking lot, the new car models were on parade. Sometimes I think that nothing really changes-- The young girls show the latest crop of tummies, and the new president proves that he's a dummy. But remember the tennis match we watched that year? Right before our eyes some tough little European blonde pitted against that big black girl from Alabama, cornrowed hair and Zulu bangles on her arms, some outrageous name like Vondella Aphrodite-- We were just walking past the lounge and got sucked in by the screen above the bar, and pretty soon we started to care about who won, putting ourselves into each whacked return as the volleys went back and forth and back like some contest between the old world and the new, and you loved her complicated hair and her to-hell-with-everybody stare, and I, I couldn't help wanting the white girl to come out on top, because she was one of my kind, my tribe, with her pale eyes and thin lips and because the black girl was so big and so black, so unintimidated, hitting the ball like she was driving the Emancipation Proclamation down Abraham Lincoln's throat, like she wasn't asking anyone's permission. There are moments when history passes you so close you can smell its breath, and you can reach your hand out and touch it on its flank, and I don't watch all that much Masterpiece Theatre, but I could feel the end of an era there in front of those bleachers full of people in their Sunday tennis-watching clothes as that black girl wore down her opponent and then kicked her ass good then thumped her once more for good measure and stood up on the red clay court holding her racket over her head like a guitar. And the little pink judge had to climb up on a box to put the ribbon on her neck, still managing to smile into the camera flash, even though everything was changing and in fact, everything had already changed-- Poof, remember? It was the twentieth century almost gone, we were there, and when we went to put it back where it belonged, it was past us and we were changed. Tony Hoagland May 06 What Are Years?What Are Years? What is our innocence, what is our guilt? All are naked, none is safe. And whence is courage: the unanswered question, the resolute doubt,-- dumbly calling, deafly listening--that in misfortune, even death, encourages others and in its defeat, stirs the soul to be strong? He sees deep and is glad, who accedes to mortality and in his imprisonment rises upon himself as the sea in a chasm, struggling to be free and unable to be, in its surrendering finds its continuing. So he who strongly feels, behaves. The very bird, grown taller as he sings, steels his form straight up. Though he is captive, his mighty singing says, satisfaction is a lowly thing, how pure a thing is joy. This is mortality, this is eternity. Marianne Moore (1887-1972) April 30 Fern HillFern Hill Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, The night above the dingle starry, Time let me hail and climb Golden in the heydays of his eyes, And honored among wagons I was prince of the apple towns And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves Trail with daisies and barley Down the rivers of the windfall light. And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home, In the sun that is young once only, Time let me play and be Golden in the mercy of his means, And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold, And the sabbath rang slowly In the pebbles of the holy streams. All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air And playing, lovely and watery And fire green as grass. And nightly under the simple stars As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away, All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars Flying with the ricks, and the horses Flashing into the dark. And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all Shining, it was Adam and maiden, The sky gathered again And the sun grew round that very day. So it must have been after the birth of the simple light In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm Out of the whinnying green stable On to the fields of praise. And honored among foxes and pheasants by the gay house Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, In the sun born over and over, I ran my heedless ways, My wishes raced through the house high hay And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs Before the children green and golden Follow him out of grace, Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, In the moon that is always rising, Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him fly with the high fields And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) April 27 When You Are OldWHEN YOU ARE OLD
April 26 APO 96225APO 96225 A young man once went off to war in a far country, and when he had time, he wrote home and said, "Dear Mom, sure rains a lot here." But his mother--reading between the lines as mothers always do--wrote back, "We're quite concerned. Tell us what it's really like." And the young man responded, "Wow! You ought to see the funny monkeys." To which the mother replied, "Don't hold back. How is it there?" And the young man wrote, "The sunsets here are spectacular!" In her next letter, the mother pleaded, "Son, we want you to tell us everything. Everything!" So the next time he wrote, the young man said, "Today I killed a man. Yesterday, I helped drop napalm on women and children." And the father wrote right back, "Please don't write such depressing letters. You're upsetting your mother." So, after a while, the young man wrote, "Dear Mom, sure rains here a lot." Larry Rottmann (b.1942) Fear No MoreFear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages. Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Fear no more the frown o'er the great; Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak. The scepter, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finished joy and moan. All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) April 24 We Real CoolWe Real Cool The Pool Players. Seven At The Golden Shovel. We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon. Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917) April 23 A Light exists in SpringA Light exists in Spring A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period-- When March is scarcely here A Color stands abroad On Solitary Fields That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels. It waits upon the Lawn, It shows the furthest Tree Upon the furthest Slope you know It almost speaks to you. Then as Horizons step Or Noons report away, Without the Formula of sound It passes and we stay-- A quality of loss Affecting our Content As Trade had suddenly encroached Upon a Sacrament. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) April 22 good timesgood times My Daddy has paid the rent and the insurance man is gone and the lights is back on and my uncle Brud has hit for one dollar straight and they is good times good times good times My Mama has made bread and Grampaw has come and everybody is drunk and dancing in the kitchen and singing in the kitchen oh these is good times good times good times oh children think about the good times Lucille Clifton (b.1936) April 21 Is My Team PlowingIs My Team Plowing "Is my team plowing, That I was used to drive And hear the harness jingle When I was man alive?" Aye, the horses trample, The harness jingles now; No change though you lie under The land you used to plow. "Is football playing Along the river shore, With lads to chase the leather, Now I stand up no more?" Aye, the ball is flying, The lads play heart and soul; The goal stands up, the keeper Stands up to keep the goal. "Is my girl happy, That I thought hard to leave, And has she tired of weeping As she lies down at eve?" Aye, she lies down lightly, She lies not down to weep: Your girl is well contented. Be still, my lad, and sleep. "Is my friend hearty, Now I am thin and pine; And has he found to sleep in A better bed than mine?" Yes, lad, I lie easy, I lie as lads would choose; I cheer a dead man's sweetheart, Never ask me whose. A.E. Housman (1859-1936) April 20 Desert PlacesDesert places Snow falling and night falling fast, oh fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last. The woods around it have it--it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares. And lonely as it is that loneliness Will be more lonely ere it will be less-- A blanker whiteness of benighted snow With no expression, nothing to express. They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars--on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places. Robert Frost (1874-1963) April 09 WarQuotes taken from the magazine The Sun (www.thesunmagazine.org)
If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.
-Pentagon official on why the US military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War.
O Lord, our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sport of the sunflames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it-- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the source of love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
Mark Twain
I will not carry a gun... I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to old Virginia, I'll even hari-kari if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!
Hawkeye, in the TV show M*A*S*H
As the bomb fell over Hiroshima, we saw an entire city disappear. I wrote in my log the words, "My God, what have we done?"
Captain Robert Lewis
The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... The solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.
Albert Einstein
April 08 FinnI never got around to reading Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and am doing so now. A funny excerpt from Ch. XIV: Huck and Jim, runaway slave and companion to Huck, are talking. I read considerable to Jim about kings, and dukes, and earls, and such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, 'stead of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He says: "I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't hearn 'bout none un um, skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a pack er k'yards. How much do a king git?" "Get?" I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to them." "Ain' dat gay? En what day got to do, Huck?" "They don't do nothing! Why how you talk. They just set around." "No- is dat so?" 'Of course it is. They just set around. Except maybe when there's a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or go hawking- just hawking and sp- Sh!- d'you hear a noise?" We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a steamboat's wheel, away down coming around the point; so we come back. "Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads off. But mostly they hang round the harem." "Roun' de which?" "Harem." "What's de harem?" "The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you know about the harem? Solomon had one; he had about a million wives." "Why, yes, dat's so; I- I'd done forgot it. A harem's a bo'd'n house, I reck'n. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck'n de wives quarrel considable; en dat 'crease de racket. Yit dey say Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan' take no stock in dat. Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids' er sich a blimblammin' all de time? No- 'deed he wouldn't. A wise man 'ud take en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet down de biler-factry when he want to res'." "Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me so, her own self." "I doan k'yer what de widder say, he warn't no wise man, nuther. He had some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know 'bout dat chile he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?" "Yes, the widow told me all about it." "Well, den! Warn't dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'? You jes' take en look at it a minute. Dah's de stump, dah- dat's one er de women; heah's you- dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish-yer dollar bill's de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun' mongs' de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill do b'long to, en han' it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat anybody dat had any gumption would do? No- I take en whack de bill in two, en give half un it to you, en yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat's de way Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what's de use er dat half a bill?- can't buy noth'n wid it. En what use is a half a chile? I would'n give a dern for a million un um." "But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point- blame it, you've missed it a thousand mile." "Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints. I reck'n I knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as dat. De 'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a whole chile wid a half a chile, doan' know enough to come in out'n de rain. Doan' talk to me 'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back." "But I tell you you don't get the point." "Blame de pint! I reck'n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de real pint is down furder- it's down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was raised. You take a man dat's got on'y one er two chillen; is dat man gwyne to be waseful o' chillen? No, he ain't; he can't 'ford it. He know how to value 'em. But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million chillen runnin' roun' de house, en it's diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. A chile er two, mo' er less, warn't no consekens to Sollermun, dad fetch him!" I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there warn't no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off in France a long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died there. "Po' little chap." "But some says he got out and got away, and come to America." "Dat's good! But he'll be pooty lonesome- dey ain' no kings here, is dey, Huck?" "No." "Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne to do?" "Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them learns people how to talk French." "Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?" "No, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said- not a single word." "Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?" "I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. Spose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy-- what would you think?" "I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head. Dat is, if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat." "Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying do you know how to talk French." "Well, den, why couldn't he say it?" "Why, he is a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's way of saying it." "Well, it's a blame' ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it." "Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?" "No, a cat don't." "Well, does a cow?" "No, a cown don't, nuther." "Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?" "No, dey don't." "It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't it?" "'Course." "And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us?" "Why, mos' sholy it is." "Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk different from us? You answer me that." "Is a cat a man, Huck?" "No." "Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a man?- er is a cow a cat?" "No, she ain't either of them." "Well, den, she ain' got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?" "Yes." "Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he talk like a man? You answer me dat!" I see it warn't no use wasting words- you can't learn a nigger to argue. So I quit. April 07 FoolsAnother excerpt from Cry, the Beloved Country (ch. 26)
The strike has come and gone. It never went beyond the mines. The worst trouble was at the Driefontein, where the police were called in to drive the black miners into the mine. There was fighting, and three of the black miners were killed. But all is quiet, they report, all is quiet.
The annual Synod of the Diocese of Johannesburg cannot be supposed to know too much about the mines. The days seem over when Synods confined themselves to religion, and one of the clergymen made a speech about the matter. He urged that it was time to recognise the African Mine Workers' Union, and prophesied a blood-bath if it were not. It is supposed that he meant that the Union should be treated as a responsible body, competent to negotiate with its employers about conditions of work and pay. But a man called a spokesman has pointed out that the African Miners are simple souls, hardly qualified in the art of negotiation, and an easy tool for unscrupulous agitators. And in any event, everyone knows that rising costs would threaten the very existence of the mines, and the very existence of South Africa.
There are many sides to this difficult problem. And people persist in discussing soil-erosion, and tribal decay, and lack of schools, and crime, as though they were all parts of the matter. If you think long enough about it, you will be brought to consider republics, and bilingualism, and immigration, and Palestine, and God knows what. So in a way it is best not to think about it at all.
In the meantime the strike is over, with a remarkably low loss of life. All is quiet, they report, all is quiet.
* * * * *
In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest there is a leaf that falls. Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools.
March 31 Tennessee"Don't look forward to the day you stop suffering because when it comes, you'll know you're dead."
--Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) |
HEN you are old and grey and full
of sleep,
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