Picture if you will a bright summer Saturday. It is hot — 90 degrees or so — and there is a stiff breeze blowing from the west. It is nearly noon, and the last of your kids has hugged you and walked off into his future and your past. You have 24 hours before the next crew rolls into camp. Depending on your disposition, you have a choice ahead of you: grab lunch at the lodge and go immediately to bed to catch up on some much-needed sleep; load up the car with a change of clothes and your favorite tapes and head off to spend the night at a friend’s house a couple hours away; cash your check at the office and head into Whitewater or Elkhorn with a load of laundry; or, if you’re lucky, take yet another shower and begin preparing for your big date in Lake Geneva tonight.
Or maybe it’s your night off. A tense wait at the dinner line leaves you fearful that your relief counselor is going to beg off for the night, but to your relief he arrives and leaves you free to explore the Wisconsin countryside as you see fit. Sneak into the Lodge long enough to grab a pear or an apple for the road, and make your way to your trusty LTD, Caprice, or Chevette for a few hours of automotive abuse on Phantom Lake Road. After sundown, you and a few friends will head to Lauber’s for ice cream and general hanging around. Later, you’ll take command of your cabin once more. When you’re sure your kids are asleep, you’ll spend a few hours talking, laughing, and eating cheese and summer sausage in the village center chalet with some fellow counselors and your village leaders. If you’re in Oak Ridge, you’ll laugh at Rat Patrol when you take the back trail to family camp for a load of Coke, Sprite, or Barq’s root beer from the pop machine to replenish your supply.
Whether it’s the weekend, your night off, an hour or two stolen while your co-counselor watches your cabin for you so you can spend some time by yourself, it’s likely that you’re accompanied by music that will come to mark these days as some of the best you will ever know. There isn’t a soundtrack to those days, but I hope these disks come close. Some of these songs may cause you to flinch in embarrassment; others may yet be living healthy, active lives in your CD player or car stereo; still others are very specific reminders indeed of certain moments you will never forget. (U2’s Spanish Eyes will forever bring back to me a car ride shared with Paul Robinson, Jim Fritzsche, and Jim Perry back from Lauber’s late one night.)
We were young and stupid: why didn’t we ever pause to consider whether we were really equipped to do what it was we were doing at Timber-lee those summers? Now that we’re all so much older, we know that this is precisely why we were so perfectly equipped.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Young, Beautiful and Stupid
Back in high school and even into college, I spent my summers at Camp Timber-lee serving in various capacities. Those were formative years for me, and I met friends there who are friends for life. A few years back I put together a set of CDs containing music from the era that more or less served as the soundtrack for those summers -- at least for myself. As the era of Facebook has brought me back into contact with many dear friends from my Timber-lee days, I thought I'd share the "liner notes" (ha!) I wrote for that set of CDs. And here they are:
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Remaining
Some words are as old as God—
meant for things barely remembered,
or assigned to wonders
seldom seen.
Think of stopped
watches
buried beneath
the pike;
night dissolving
in aurora
quietly above
the final miles
of dead-ends.
There are songs that have only been sung
in imaginations of men
long dead,
whose bone-dust
stays in graves
that flute
the tired meadows.
There is a world there
left open, always,
slipped beneath
the mundane
daylight of
ladder-climbing
and fencelines.
The pathway always cuts away
from even fields
of fine and fertile soil;
and fades from
forever-lit cities
and monuments
hoping to commemorate
the past self,
the future self.
There, when eyes
have ceased insisting
on life’s plentiful lies
and settle—defeated if need be—
for the muddy, cricket-chirp truth,
then there is the silver script;
lost words of a beautiful tongue.
And we are wondrous again,
and fearfully made.
As few as we may be,
and lower than the angels
with our landscapes sweetly fading,
the wind is always new
on redemption-white, cold winter nights.
And in the middle of what once
I named nowhere,
I sit and watch the owl-wing clouds
fanning fire and ages
through a tired flesh
that stretches over the sky.
It is a pilgrimage in sitting still;
epiphany in remaining—
watching the old order
pass so quietly away
with eyes wide
and left behind.
meant for things barely remembered,
or assigned to wonders
seldom seen.
Think of stopped
watches
buried beneath
the pike;
night dissolving
in aurora
quietly above
the final miles
of dead-ends.
There are songs that have only been sung
in imaginations of men
long dead,
whose bone-dust
stays in graves
that flute
the tired meadows.
There is a world there
left open, always,
slipped beneath
the mundane
daylight of
ladder-climbing
and fencelines.
The pathway always cuts away
from even fields
of fine and fertile soil;
and fades from
forever-lit cities
and monuments
hoping to commemorate
the past self,
the future self.
There, when eyes
have ceased insisting
on life’s plentiful lies
and settle—defeated if need be—
for the muddy, cricket-chirp truth,
then there is the silver script;
lost words of a beautiful tongue.
And we are wondrous again,
and fearfully made.
As few as we may be,
and lower than the angels
with our landscapes sweetly fading,
the wind is always new
on redemption-white, cold winter nights.
And in the middle of what once
I named nowhere,
I sit and watch the owl-wing clouds
fanning fire and ages
through a tired flesh
that stretches over the sky.
It is a pilgrimage in sitting still;
epiphany in remaining—
watching the old order
pass so quietly away
with eyes wide
and left behind.
Poor Man's Pockets
I have a poor man’s pockets
full of roadside monuments;
the sparrow-speak of
seraphs’ wings sewn into my soul
with Indian tobacco,
pocket watch tickings
slow so near
the mass of heaven;
a bedroll full of ashes.
I have collected recollections—
tire-iron frenzy
in the valleys nearing dusk;
Kerouac ghosts
in troopers’ eyes,
passersby
as angel as
damselflies
beneath the bridges;
breathing down the corridors
of wide expanse,
weak invincibility
made perfect, whole, and round,
and all these things made new
beneath a Jesus-feet sky,
crucifix power-lines
glowing in the sun;
the grace of fire
frightening
spiders
from my sleep,
mandibles
of old hard breaks
away,
glamorous lies
fading in the blood-red flames
that flare behind closed eyes.
I have a brimful of life
pouring over
duct-tape thin-worn boots,
shimmering wilderness years
through great cities,
overland all night
to dawn;
empty pockets
inside out
and mopping up the wonders.
full of roadside monuments;
the sparrow-speak of
seraphs’ wings sewn into my soul
with Indian tobacco,
pocket watch tickings
slow so near
the mass of heaven;
a bedroll full of ashes.
I have collected recollections—
tire-iron frenzy
in the valleys nearing dusk;
Kerouac ghosts
in troopers’ eyes,
passersby
as angel as
damselflies
beneath the bridges;
breathing down the corridors
of wide expanse,
weak invincibility
made perfect, whole, and round,
and all these things made new
beneath a Jesus-feet sky,
crucifix power-lines
glowing in the sun;
the grace of fire
frightening
spiders
from my sleep,
mandibles
of old hard breaks
away,
glamorous lies
fading in the blood-red flames
that flare behind closed eyes.
I have a brimful of life
pouring over
duct-tape thin-worn boots,
shimmering wilderness years
through great cities,
overland all night
to dawn;
empty pockets
inside out
and mopping up the wonders.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
All the Worlds in Each of Twelve Hours (fragment)
~~~
Even great diesel engines cannot last forever.
They have to give out in the end
with a fierce finality,
usually near ruined steelworks,
liquor shacks in bad ends
of towns.
There might be a long walk
through tall grass,
fields of wreckage
where nothing parts
to allow passage.
And life is full of climbing
and tetanus.
You find yourself in the strangest
places,
waving to imaginary companions
to avoid armed robbery,
begging hot showers off of
motor inns.
You learn to drink whiskey.
You force upon the tired world
improbable miracles:
the night’s last sober man
loves God
and has been where you are going,
tells you where to sleep;
a woman you know
worries about you
and decides that she is in love;
an old man in a bar
warns you about bears,
offers you a gun.
~~~
Even great diesel engines cannot last forever.
They have to give out in the end
with a fierce finality,
usually near ruined steelworks,
liquor shacks in bad ends
of towns.
There might be a long walk
through tall grass,
fields of wreckage
where nothing parts
to allow passage.
And life is full of climbing
and tetanus.
You find yourself in the strangest
places,
waving to imaginary companions
to avoid armed robbery,
begging hot showers off of
motor inns.
You learn to drink whiskey.
You force upon the tired world
improbable miracles:
the night’s last sober man
loves God
and has been where you are going,
tells you where to sleep;
a woman you know
worries about you
and decides that she is in love;
an old man in a bar
warns you about bears,
offers you a gun.
~~~
Spirit Moves
What can I say?
The grass leans that way
and light pours between.
Dusk shakes shadows
from the hours.
In empty houses far from towns,
curtains breathe
through open panes.
And suddenly I am home.
I invest myself in being led
to certain strangers’
doorways;
in lying unnamed with my days
across a grandfather’s grave.
And suddenly I can fill anyone
with lamppost light
that shivers like leaves
near bays;
with the patience
that carefully wears
all lives from slate.
And you recall
moonlight over church roofs.
You smile in my distance.
Wind pushes smoke into my eyes,
and I can live in quiet persistence.
The grass leans that way
and light pours between.
Dusk shakes shadows
from the hours.
In empty houses far from towns,
curtains breathe
through open panes.
And suddenly I am home.
I invest myself in being led
to certain strangers’
doorways;
in lying unnamed with my days
across a grandfather’s grave.
And suddenly I can fill anyone
with lamppost light
that shivers like leaves
near bays;
with the patience
that carefully wears
all lives from slate.
And you recall
moonlight over church roofs.
You smile in my distance.
Wind pushes smoke into my eyes,
and I can live in quiet persistence.
Heading East
These nights come to us
in waking dreams,
where American freightways
disappear before halogen
can find them.
We strike our recollection
on the anvil of distant
storm fronts,
break open the great sadness
of time’s passage
to find six or seven words,
then silence; the smell
of distant shoreline, rainfall.
These towns are dying on the
onyx chain of suffering
roadbed —
the faulted pavement of troubled tributaries
bypassed by larger streams.
Still the dim, gold light
of faltering mainstreets
remains amazingly bright,
and we pass through
until a world of twilight
fades into creosote again.
Distant lightning
has called us further out
into the ionized air,
away from cities
where forced light
paints with murder and with shadow.
Two comets hang
loosely over great plains,
and the arms of the galaxy
are thick with entropy
and slowing spin.
We think of orbits;
the rotation of storms;
and ages end in the
miles behind us
where the roadway
dies into a faint red glow,
and taillights in the rearview
are Perseid showers
that dip below slight rises.
Every memory flickers and waves then,
blinks out into static
between each station.
We have spent the miles well
and lost the moments wisely,
launching our eyesight upward
from the road into the
edges of storms,
and then starlight,
the dead radio silent of
all ghost-green time,
dying signal near the sea.
in waking dreams,
where American freightways
disappear before halogen
can find them.
We strike our recollection
on the anvil of distant
storm fronts,
break open the great sadness
of time’s passage
to find six or seven words,
then silence; the smell
of distant shoreline, rainfall.
These towns are dying on the
onyx chain of suffering
roadbed —
the faulted pavement of troubled tributaries
bypassed by larger streams.
Still the dim, gold light
of faltering mainstreets
remains amazingly bright,
and we pass through
until a world of twilight
fades into creosote again.
Distant lightning
has called us further out
into the ionized air,
away from cities
where forced light
paints with murder and with shadow.
Two comets hang
loosely over great plains,
and the arms of the galaxy
are thick with entropy
and slowing spin.
We think of orbits;
the rotation of storms;
and ages end in the
miles behind us
where the roadway
dies into a faint red glow,
and taillights in the rearview
are Perseid showers
that dip below slight rises.
Every memory flickers and waves then,
blinks out into static
between each station.
We have spent the miles well
and lost the moments wisely,
launching our eyesight upward
from the road into the
edges of storms,
and then starlight,
the dead radio silent of
all ghost-green time,
dying signal near the sea.
East Kill Valley
After a thin lifetime,
the only center is
light reflected from often-safe bays,
and in the distance
the horrifying onyx of
the open sea at night.
There are silent times
of gathering worn fabric
to the sternum;
of keeping warmth.
There is a single, new moment
that rises up and surrounds
the sudden knowledge
that there is still unalterable,
unspeakable sadness left
after all wrong gods
have stepped from shadows
to be felled by grace.
And you find yourself standing
on coastlines, unvoiced
beneath a turning sky,
and you are as empty
as the dark between the stars.
And in that moment —
in that same, ancient, wave-weathered
moment —
you want nothing more than to
turn away from
the ocean you have found
opening up at the end of every trace.
You want nothing more than to
turn inland,
find deep-valleyed
graveyards where uncertain, distant
ancestors lie
and say,
“I have been where you have been”
and,
“I feel your bones
beneath my feet.”
the only center is
light reflected from often-safe bays,
and in the distance
the horrifying onyx of
the open sea at night.
There are silent times
of gathering worn fabric
to the sternum;
of keeping warmth.
There is a single, new moment
that rises up and surrounds
the sudden knowledge
that there is still unalterable,
unspeakable sadness left
after all wrong gods
have stepped from shadows
to be felled by grace.
And you find yourself standing
on coastlines, unvoiced
beneath a turning sky,
and you are as empty
as the dark between the stars.
And in that moment —
in that same, ancient, wave-weathered
moment —
you want nothing more than to
turn away from
the ocean you have found
opening up at the end of every trace.
You want nothing more than to
turn inland,
find deep-valleyed
graveyards where uncertain, distant
ancestors lie
and say,
“I have been where you have been”
and,
“I feel your bones
beneath my feet.”
How All Things Are Made New
A pond suddenly awakens,
takes notice of the wind
breaking moonlight over its surface.
A circle of trees grows inward
toward a center.
I spill whiskey beneath a table lamp,
find something otherwise unseen
reflected from the hallway.
I am kept from one conversation
too many,
and so it is that I am traveling
over mountains,
see the bruised treeline open up
into thin air,
collect an age of words
in that broken-throated moment.
A ring of galaxies abruptly
tilts its face-plane earthward;
rafters in firelight throw
crucifix shadows against a ruined wall,
torn curtain;
a linen closet door is left open
in the middle of the night,
and all moments rearrange themselves
into one endless orbit.
Creation paws at your
crumbling doorframe
until you notice,
stand up to see
what is the matter.
takes notice of the wind
breaking moonlight over its surface.
A circle of trees grows inward
toward a center.
I spill whiskey beneath a table lamp,
find something otherwise unseen
reflected from the hallway.
I am kept from one conversation
too many,
and so it is that I am traveling
over mountains,
see the bruised treeline open up
into thin air,
collect an age of words
in that broken-throated moment.
A ring of galaxies abruptly
tilts its face-plane earthward;
rafters in firelight throw
crucifix shadows against a ruined wall,
torn curtain;
a linen closet door is left open
in the middle of the night,
and all moments rearrange themselves
into one endless orbit.
Creation paws at your
crumbling doorframe
until you notice,
stand up to see
what is the matter.
Storybook
Trees whisper.
You sit by a lake
or an ocean at night,
and the world of moments
you have not yet lived
is strangely familiar again.
There is an ancient story
like that,
where an old man
finds his way to shores
by mistake,
knocks on the unfamiliar door
of a darkened coast-house
and his son,
for decades estranged and given up for dead,
answers and welcomes his father home.
Or a young girl
walks into the
storm-swept waves
and is never heard of again,
until she makes it back
to town for a funeral,
and in the cool summer evening
beneath the trees
she remembers that she is that girl,
and in knowing this is saved.
You know stories like that:
The fragrance of full green leaves
after rain
reminds you that you
once believed in heaven,
or the sound of your feet
on a gravel road
at twilight
makes you suddenly want
to cry
or talk to children.
This story is yours.
Look; if you go outside
and find trees, or water,
or tall grass,
the wind will murmur it.
The world wants to tell you
why it is so tired.
You sit by a lake
or an ocean at night,
and the world of moments
you have not yet lived
is strangely familiar again.
There is an ancient story
like that,
where an old man
finds his way to shores
by mistake,
knocks on the unfamiliar door
of a darkened coast-house
and his son,
for decades estranged and given up for dead,
answers and welcomes his father home.
Or a young girl
walks into the
storm-swept waves
and is never heard of again,
until she makes it back
to town for a funeral,
and in the cool summer evening
beneath the trees
she remembers that she is that girl,
and in knowing this is saved.
You know stories like that:
The fragrance of full green leaves
after rain
reminds you that you
once believed in heaven,
or the sound of your feet
on a gravel road
at twilight
makes you suddenly want
to cry
or talk to children.
This story is yours.
Look; if you go outside
and find trees, or water,
or tall grass,
the wind will murmur it.
The world wants to tell you
why it is so tired.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
It's been about a year
One thing I've learned over this past year: People don't like to talk about dead babies. I'm sure just reading that last sentence made you uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable too. It was about a year ago that we lost our baby, and long before this milestone was upon us the "get over it already" vibe had taken hold among many of our friends, family, and co-workers. And, in fact, many of them had suffered the same kind of loss. (I still cringe when I think about the day my very thoughtful and well-meaning boss told me, "God is in control, and everything happens for a reason" and I shot back, "He was in control of the Holocaust too, and that happened for a reason: Does that make it OK?") Innumerable times, my wife and I have looked at each other and wondered out loud, "Are we weird, or is everyone else?" Is this just easier for some people? Or was this child's life less of a life because we never got to meet him or her? But the truth is that everyone who has lost a child to miscarriage or stillbirth has a choice to make: Suffer as part of a whispery, mostly silent group, or act as if it really wasn't a "whole" loss like the loss of a spouse, parent, sibling, or older child. Either way, it's a lonely, long walk.
So, I've made a conscious choice to do the uncomfortable thing: To honor this lost child by acknowledging his or her life; to always be sure to explain to people that I am the father of three, with two at home.
As you can tell, we didn't get a chance to find out if we were having a boy or a girl. We're not quite sure how or why -- in the rush of the events leading up to the loss -- we did not have the presence of mind to ask for a confirmation, and why nobody had the thought to make us the offer. So, we're left in that hazy perpetual state of mystery that all parents experience with their children early on. Blue or pink? New clothes or hand-me-downs? In a way, that makes it more difficult. (Grammatically, especially: It's hard to be eloquent when you're constantly saying "his or her," "he or she," "his or hers." But we refuse to dishonor him or her with the label "it.") In another way, it leaves a surprise to one day look forward to. Either way, we wanted to name this child, so we settled -- somewhat tentatively, I think -- on "Wynn." It's an ambiguous name, but also a family name, on my dad's side. For a long time, we had considered a Puritan name, like "Welcome" -- also, as it turns out, a family name. It would be a fitting name, because in spite of the loss, Wynn was most surely Welcome. And I take comfort as much as I can in two things: First, that all this baby ever new of life was peace, comfort, and love; that he or she knew the muffled sounds of the joy of his or her brothers, mother, father, and grandparents. Second, that God has a perspective so wildly different than that of my own mind's comprehension, that in some way in his vast being, this is somehow not a loss at all, and we just haven't entered into that knowledge yet.
At any rate, today I remember Wynn. This child was precious to us, and very much loved.
So, I've made a conscious choice to do the uncomfortable thing: To honor this lost child by acknowledging his or her life; to always be sure to explain to people that I am the father of three, with two at home.
As you can tell, we didn't get a chance to find out if we were having a boy or a girl. We're not quite sure how or why -- in the rush of the events leading up to the loss -- we did not have the presence of mind to ask for a confirmation, and why nobody had the thought to make us the offer. So, we're left in that hazy perpetual state of mystery that all parents experience with their children early on. Blue or pink? New clothes or hand-me-downs? In a way, that makes it more difficult. (Grammatically, especially: It's hard to be eloquent when you're constantly saying "his or her," "he or she," "his or hers." But we refuse to dishonor him or her with the label "it.") In another way, it leaves a surprise to one day look forward to. Either way, we wanted to name this child, so we settled -- somewhat tentatively, I think -- on "Wynn." It's an ambiguous name, but also a family name, on my dad's side. For a long time, we had considered a Puritan name, like "Welcome" -- also, as it turns out, a family name. It would be a fitting name, because in spite of the loss, Wynn was most surely Welcome. And I take comfort as much as I can in two things: First, that all this baby ever new of life was peace, comfort, and love; that he or she knew the muffled sounds of the joy of his or her brothers, mother, father, and grandparents. Second, that God has a perspective so wildly different than that of my own mind's comprehension, that in some way in his vast being, this is somehow not a loss at all, and we just haven't entered into that knowledge yet.
At any rate, today I remember Wynn. This child was precious to us, and very much loved.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Things Unseen
Maybe things aren’t as bad as you think they are,
Or maybe they are, or they’re worse.
Seconds pile up in the river against
Broken tree limbs and dead muskrats,
And that’s the way minutes, hours, and eons are made.
That’s life, the way it is.
It’s the ugly truth.
Your children are sweet,
But this does not
Necessitate a future
Free from cocaine, pornography;
Legs lost in foreign lands.
Links, bonds, marriages
Are made and broken. Who remembers? Why?
We all lose sleep — in some measure —
Trying to remember if we are remembered;
If we still matter in some way to this person or that,
Bandaged in the snow.
In the end, just one question:
Is there something more, or nothing more?
It only matters
If you care about the way your cousins
Laughed when you were seven
And wonder if that has made a difference;
If you have watched the leaves turn
Gold, red, orange
And supposed this captured meaning
Beyond apparent logic.
Or, if all else fails,
And the great multitudes of distances
Between darkness and light —
Gradients to some and gulfs to others —
Are unconvincing,
And you should choose to waiver and wager
Trackside in the morning,
Remember that
If you travel north and leave a body
For moose hunters to find
In the spring,
You were worth everything
To somebody
In the moment before the last,
And this singular truth lights great fires
Along narrow pathways
Through the dark woods.
Or maybe they are, or they’re worse.
Seconds pile up in the river against
Broken tree limbs and dead muskrats,
And that’s the way minutes, hours, and eons are made.
That’s life, the way it is.
It’s the ugly truth.
Your children are sweet,
But this does not
Necessitate a future
Free from cocaine, pornography;
Legs lost in foreign lands.
Links, bonds, marriages
Are made and broken. Who remembers? Why?
We all lose sleep — in some measure —
Trying to remember if we are remembered;
If we still matter in some way to this person or that,
Bandaged in the snow.
In the end, just one question:
Is there something more, or nothing more?
It only matters
If you care about the way your cousins
Laughed when you were seven
And wonder if that has made a difference;
If you have watched the leaves turn
Gold, red, orange
And supposed this captured meaning
Beyond apparent logic.
Or, if all else fails,
And the great multitudes of distances
Between darkness and light —
Gradients to some and gulfs to others —
Are unconvincing,
And you should choose to waiver and wager
Trackside in the morning,
Remember that
If you travel north and leave a body
For moose hunters to find
In the spring,
You were worth everything
To somebody
In the moment before the last,
And this singular truth lights great fires
Along narrow pathways
Through the dark woods.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Is Canada Haunted?
This Halloween, as I was lighting the candles in our hastily carved jack-o’-lanterns on the front porch, I was wondering what I would one day tell my kids if they asked me to tell them a real-life ghost story. My brushes with the paranormal have been few and far between, no doubt, but there have been a few. Nearly all – secretly – I’ve been able to dismiss using any number of rational explanations with a wink and a nod. Oddly, most have been experiences shared with others: There was that stage screw that flew in a straight line stage-left to stage-right in the supposedly haunted auditorium of Thornridge High School right before the startled eyes of myself and my friend Greg as we prepared to lock up, the only two remaining souls in the building … or so we thought!; There was that mysterious man who seemed to materialize out of nowhere before my cousin Alan and me near the old decrepit hunting cabins in Gladwin, Michigan in the November snow. (Only years later did it occur to me that he may have been … a hunter.)
Some twelve years ago, I found myself in circumstances that – at the time – seemed to warrant a bit of coming unhinged. We won’t go off into the weeds here … suffice it to say there were freight trains, lost vacations, and rubber-tramping ventures into the jungle.
One week in November, I had the crazy fool notion to point myself north and see just how far I could get. I had a map, and the vague idea that I’d like to see what Manitoba was all about. And so it was that I found myself well north of Winnipeg in what was supposedly a haunted motel -- or so the elderly-ish woman named Marge who managed the place told me. As it happens, I had a terrible time getting to sleep that night. On one occasion, I heard what was clearly the sound of something heavy falling and hitting the floor somewhere in the room, only to find nothing out of place. On several occasions, I was startled awake by what I though was someone shouting "Kevin!" I ended up walking back to the lobby/lounge area, where Marge had a happy fire glowing in the fireplace. Marge and I talked for a long time that night, and I whiled away that night partly in conversation, and partly underneath the Canadian stars.
When I've recounted this to others, they've encouraged me to write about it. The thing is, I've written about it quite a bit. In fact, I wrote this in my notebook the following night, and included it in the preface to a poetry chapbook I "published" back in 1998:
(Why I wasn't handed the Pulitzer Prize for literature immediately upon publication, I'll never know.)
Reading that now, it's clear why I've struggled so often to capture what was going on that night and why it was such a big deal: What is lost in the whole account is the sense of grace that it left me with ... which, admittedly doesn't really make for much of a ghost story. But it isn't the "ghostiness" of those nights that is worth anything anyway: I WAS after all exhausted and sent to bed primed with stories about ghosts waking up weary travelers by shouting their names, so, yeah ... perhaps not really much of a mystery there. The supernatural aspect is much more "Holy Ghosty" in nature, I think. Now, when troubled days come, I think back to that trip and am comforted by it somehow. So here is another attempt to get at what was going on back then, so far away from home:
Remembering
The ride
Up through both Dakotas —
Hands, ears
So cold,
So set against the proud rush;
Embers on the skyline;
Red River
Everywhere that year
And embarrassed with twilight.
Unwashed, unworthy
Of that horizon,
I entered in regardless,
Underneath
Clouds belly-full with snow.
Somewhere
Against an unnamed bay,
The voice of the road
Flickered
From whisper to hush,
And American dollars
Were barely enough
To buy a haunted room
In a haunted inn in November.
Recalling
The walls there —
How they whispered
My own name
Always at the edge of sleep each night
And chased me to fire-lit places,
And warmth —
It is good to know
That name is
As familiar as it is
To wild shorelines;
Abandoned trestles;
Dead innkeepers;
Aurora.
And so, often,
I find myself
Looking north,
Humming to myself “It Is Well”
In times of trouble,
Not because it is,
But because it was,
And will be again.
Some twelve years ago, I found myself in circumstances that – at the time – seemed to warrant a bit of coming unhinged. We won’t go off into the weeds here … suffice it to say there were freight trains, lost vacations, and rubber-tramping ventures into the jungle.
One week in November, I had the crazy fool notion to point myself north and see just how far I could get. I had a map, and the vague idea that I’d like to see what Manitoba was all about. And so it was that I found myself well north of Winnipeg in what was supposedly a haunted motel -- or so the elderly-ish woman named Marge who managed the place told me. As it happens, I had a terrible time getting to sleep that night. On one occasion, I heard what was clearly the sound of something heavy falling and hitting the floor somewhere in the room, only to find nothing out of place. On several occasions, I was startled awake by what I though was someone shouting "Kevin!" I ended up walking back to the lobby/lounge area, where Marge had a happy fire glowing in the fireplace. Marge and I talked for a long time that night, and I whiled away that night partly in conversation, and partly underneath the Canadian stars.
When I've recounted this to others, they've encouraged me to write about it. The thing is, I've written about it quite a bit. In fact, I wrote this in my notebook the following night, and included it in the preface to a poetry chapbook I "published" back in 1998:
"The hotel I am staying in is supposed to be haunted. Last night I awoke with a start to the sound of a woman saying my name, to find the room empty; sub-arctic starlight gracing the room with icy silver. It seems I carry some ghosts with me; perhaps some will stay behind. Margaret, the sixtyish women who manages this place, has found me scrawling these notes as I sit wrapped in a blanket on a worn red-velvet chair before the hearth. She is a poet too, and asks me to read a few out loud. My voice rings strange against the firelight — cold and filtered through smoke; older and more sad than I have ever heard it. She listens, the words straining through days that have lacked all audible speech. She tastes each syllable, her eyes gazing off to a place somewhere far behind me, a smile spreading across her face as though she recognizes an old friend; though clearly there is no one there, in the gold-flickering doorway. When I have finished, she clasps her hands loudly together, surprising the night, and exclaims 'Wonderful! Wonderful!' Grace again in the strangest, most beautiful places. I talk with her long into the night, knowing that her eyes give such wonderful gifts; knowing that already I long to squeeze these hours into some small, antique bottle and keep it always near me."
(Why I wasn't handed the Pulitzer Prize for literature immediately upon publication, I'll never know.)
Reading that now, it's clear why I've struggled so often to capture what was going on that night and why it was such a big deal: What is lost in the whole account is the sense of grace that it left me with ... which, admittedly doesn't really make for much of a ghost story. But it isn't the "ghostiness" of those nights that is worth anything anyway: I WAS after all exhausted and sent to bed primed with stories about ghosts waking up weary travelers by shouting their names, so, yeah ... perhaps not really much of a mystery there. The supernatural aspect is much more "Holy Ghosty" in nature, I think. Now, when troubled days come, I think back to that trip and am comforted by it somehow. So here is another attempt to get at what was going on back then, so far away from home:
Remembering
The ride
Up through both Dakotas —
Hands, ears
So cold,
So set against the proud rush;
Embers on the skyline;
Red River
Everywhere that year
And embarrassed with twilight.
Unwashed, unworthy
Of that horizon,
I entered in regardless,
Underneath
Clouds belly-full with snow.
Somewhere
Against an unnamed bay,
The voice of the road
Flickered
From whisper to hush,
And American dollars
Were barely enough
To buy a haunted room
In a haunted inn in November.
Recalling
The walls there —
How they whispered
My own name
Always at the edge of sleep each night
And chased me to fire-lit places,
And warmth —
It is good to know
That name is
As familiar as it is
To wild shorelines;
Abandoned trestles;
Dead innkeepers;
Aurora.
And so, often,
I find myself
Looking north,
Humming to myself “It Is Well”
In times of trouble,
Not because it is,
But because it was,
And will be again.
Friday, November 5, 2010
"Neverland Wynn's Owl Remix"
One last remix from The Choir's excellent "Burning Like the Midnight Sun" disk. This is the "Wynn's Owl Mix," courtesy yours truly:
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Silver
Won’t your hand
Find my hand
In the watery grave
Of the moon?
When the silver
That drifts
Along the sliver
That lives
Between the light
Of stars
And the ink of night
Alights upon
Leaf-tips;
Sleeping barbicans
In the flicker
Of long-gone autumns?
When the combines
Swarm along state routes,
And their reflections
And their shimmerings
Quiver in the wind
As we pass in the silence —
That Silence.
Among trees;
Among ruined bridges;
Among rail-spans, spillways, and lift-bridges;
Among the shadowed spans of doorways
Awash in the last
Innocent Christmas
You remember;
In the ash that leaves my lips
And settles on my sleeve
As we traverse each distance.
You lean in close,
As the road descends
In its grace
From blacktop, to gravel,
To grass.
You have found a secret; that secret:
An ending — here —
The beautiful ending of lights —
In a world that never once
Deserved those lights,
Or the finding of those lights.
We move together, then:
Beneath, among, above
These horizons that
Have held us to the earth,
And we are free:
As free as
Every silver thing.
Find my hand
In the watery grave
Of the moon?
When the silver
That drifts
Along the sliver
That lives
Between the light
Of stars
And the ink of night
Alights upon
Leaf-tips;
Sleeping barbicans
In the flicker
Of long-gone autumns?
When the combines
Swarm along state routes,
And their reflections
And their shimmerings
Quiver in the wind
As we pass in the silence —
That Silence.
Among trees;
Among ruined bridges;
Among rail-spans, spillways, and lift-bridges;
Among the shadowed spans of doorways
Awash in the last
Innocent Christmas
You remember;
In the ash that leaves my lips
And settles on my sleeve
As we traverse each distance.
You lean in close,
As the road descends
In its grace
From blacktop, to gravel,
To grass.
You have found a secret; that secret:
An ending — here —
The beautiful ending of lights —
In a world that never once
Deserved those lights,
Or the finding of those lights.
We move together, then:
Beneath, among, above
These horizons that
Have held us to the earth,
And we are free:
As free as
Every silver thing.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
It was not all a dream.
My parents recently concluded what can only be called a terrible real estate transaction that began with discussions about the changing economic profile of their neighborhood, the realities of yard upkeep, and proximity to grandchildren ... and concluded with curses issued to our federal government, a brush with financial fraud, and several episodes of yours truly brandishing a glass of straight gin on ice cursing under his breath very late at night. All of this over five months, in the worst real estate market this country has seen since the Great Depression. It's an interesting story, but not meant for this space.
Back in 1976, I was as much of a mess as one 7-year-old boy could be: I was at the top of my form in good old Riverdale, Illinois, in my quaint track-side school that went from kindergarten to third grade: I was the fastest, the strongest, the funniest, and -- I thought -- the smartest in all of Park School. (Ah ... big fish in little ponds.) And then my world went upside-down. When I first caught the scent of the possibility that my parents were considering pulling up roots and moving elsewhere, I was indignant: This was not possible. What motivation could explain this absurdity? Here, all was well: I was within walking distance of my school, my grandmother lived in the "apartment" upstairs, my great-grandma Torrenga lived a mere two blocks away, my best friend's grandmother lived right next door (affording me access to said best friend upon his frequent visits), and all was right with God and his universe. Of course, my seven-year-old brain failed to recognize details such as the gang- and riot-riddled high school my sister and I were destined to attend based upon our address, or the fact that our parents were forced to sleep on a fold-out hide-a-bed so that my sister and I could have separate rooms.
And so we landed in South Holland. I remember how terribly conflicted I felt the first time I stepped foot on the property: Here was a foreign land, a virtual desert expanse of suburbia compared to our near-Chicago bungalow jungle in Riverdale. Here, few backyards had fences; the railroad passed right behind the house -- and there were four sets of tracks! The block offered no less than four neighbor boys -- boys! -- to play with as opposed to the oddly imbalanced overabundance of girls to be found on our Riverdale block. It seemed oddly rural compared to our Riverdale address: there was something sad and lonely about the evenings here, and the dark seemed darker and the night more deep. The school wasn't a simple kindergarten to third-grade affair: No, it was kindergarten straight up to sixth grade. It seemed like a college campus to me, where I was at the bottom of the seniority list.
But, my vote was a small one weighed against our circumstances, and we took the move. I think back on it now, and I feel bad for my parents: The grief I must have caused them. My oldest son cries whenever we cart an old piece of furniture or a decrepit appliance to the curb, he's that sentimental: "But I LOVE our old water softener!" he sobs; "But I love that washing machine." My heart aches for him, but I'm exasperated: Life finds innumerable ways to explain to us the grief we've unknowingly caused others, no? But I digress.
The day we went to our soon-to-be-new house, I was nervous, but excited. There was a basement stairway, with grapevines growing upon the railing. (With real grapes! That you could eat!) There were, of course, the rail lines, with their regular schedule of house-shaking freights. There were dirt bike trails and their attending dirt bikes -- soon to become the nemesis of my father. There were the string of backyards that would become a convenient baseball diamond/football field/battlefield/graveyard. And there were paintings, left by the previous owners, of naked ladies in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Wow! (These were seen once, and never again.)
So we bought our house on Prince Drive in South Holland. We settled in, we made a life, we grew up. It was a good place to grow up -- the right balance of comfort and toughness that a kid needs to learn his way. There were the crazy kids, and the good kids, and the bad kids, just like every other neighborhood. In the summers, we would spend too much time with each other, get bored, get into fist-fights, storm off, and realize that we were the only game in town, and learn to negotiate peace. My poor father -- forever pining for a return to his pure rural roots -- found ample space for a large garden; my mother, a daughter of Chicago, found herself on familiar ground. It was as close to a perfect compromise as the family would ever find.
I don't know what you can say about a home, except that you know what makes it a home while it is yours, and whatever that is can never be truly expressed to anyone else. Thinking back, I have glimpses: Of hot summer afternoons spent swigging cold Coca-Cola from glass bottles beneath the mock-orange tree in the backyard while the freight trains rocketed by; of snow-days and blizzards spent too-long in the backyard making snow forts until runny noses chased us indoors to hot chocolate and Spiderman cartoons. It was a good house, a good home.
My parents stayed as long as they could. Things were getting to a place where I was uncomfortable letting Liz and the kids travel there on their own. It's just one of those things. The church was gone; most of our friends and family were gone. My best friend and I were robbed at gunpoint two blocks away one Christmas: "Throw your wallets on the ground, and there better be money there or you're both fuckin' dead!" There you go. Welcome home. It was time. Dad had to give up a glorious yard, hard-fought-for and hard-won; Mom had to give up the home she'd tweaked to her tastes over three decades. And, for me, on that last day -- as the moving vans closed their doors, and I backed out of that driveway for the last time -- I couldn't resist one last circuit around the old sights. The thing is, I realized fairly quickly that I'd become a relic; a stranger among my old haunts.
My parents are blessed to have a wonderful home in a wonderful neighborhood, not more than 10 minutes from where I live. Our kids are silly with excitement, apparently because they have a new house to explore, but clearly because their beloved grandma and grandpa are now only 10 minutes away instead of 45 minutes. My father has lost a wonderful backyard, but gained an entire neighborhood that is safe to walk around in, day or night. It's taken me a long time to get that life is nothing more than a series of chapters that conclude and subsequently serve as the prologue to the next, and that this isn't a bad thing, or even a sad thing, just a true thing.
Back in 1976, I was as much of a mess as one 7-year-old boy could be: I was at the top of my form in good old Riverdale, Illinois, in my quaint track-side school that went from kindergarten to third grade: I was the fastest, the strongest, the funniest, and -- I thought -- the smartest in all of Park School. (Ah ... big fish in little ponds.) And then my world went upside-down. When I first caught the scent of the possibility that my parents were considering pulling up roots and moving elsewhere, I was indignant: This was not possible. What motivation could explain this absurdity? Here, all was well: I was within walking distance of my school, my grandmother lived in the "apartment" upstairs, my great-grandma Torrenga lived a mere two blocks away, my best friend's grandmother lived right next door (affording me access to said best friend upon his frequent visits), and all was right with God and his universe. Of course, my seven-year-old brain failed to recognize details such as the gang- and riot-riddled high school my sister and I were destined to attend based upon our address, or the fact that our parents were forced to sleep on a fold-out hide-a-bed so that my sister and I could have separate rooms.
And so we landed in South Holland. I remember how terribly conflicted I felt the first time I stepped foot on the property: Here was a foreign land, a virtual desert expanse of suburbia compared to our near-Chicago bungalow jungle in Riverdale. Here, few backyards had fences; the railroad passed right behind the house -- and there were four sets of tracks! The block offered no less than four neighbor boys -- boys! -- to play with as opposed to the oddly imbalanced overabundance of girls to be found on our Riverdale block. It seemed oddly rural compared to our Riverdale address: there was something sad and lonely about the evenings here, and the dark seemed darker and the night more deep. The school wasn't a simple kindergarten to third-grade affair: No, it was kindergarten straight up to sixth grade. It seemed like a college campus to me, where I was at the bottom of the seniority list.
But, my vote was a small one weighed against our circumstances, and we took the move. I think back on it now, and I feel bad for my parents: The grief I must have caused them. My oldest son cries whenever we cart an old piece of furniture or a decrepit appliance to the curb, he's that sentimental: "But I LOVE our old water softener!" he sobs; "But I love that washing machine." My heart aches for him, but I'm exasperated: Life finds innumerable ways to explain to us the grief we've unknowingly caused others, no? But I digress.
The day we went to our soon-to-be-new house, I was nervous, but excited. There was a basement stairway, with grapevines growing upon the railing. (With real grapes! That you could eat!) There were, of course, the rail lines, with their regular schedule of house-shaking freights. There were dirt bike trails and their attending dirt bikes -- soon to become the nemesis of my father. There were the string of backyards that would become a convenient baseball diamond/football field/battlefield/graveyard. And there were paintings, left by the previous owners, of naked ladies in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Wow! (These were seen once, and never again.)
So we bought our house on Prince Drive in South Holland. We settled in, we made a life, we grew up. It was a good place to grow up -- the right balance of comfort and toughness that a kid needs to learn his way. There were the crazy kids, and the good kids, and the bad kids, just like every other neighborhood. In the summers, we would spend too much time with each other, get bored, get into fist-fights, storm off, and realize that we were the only game in town, and learn to negotiate peace. My poor father -- forever pining for a return to his pure rural roots -- found ample space for a large garden; my mother, a daughter of Chicago, found herself on familiar ground. It was as close to a perfect compromise as the family would ever find.
I don't know what you can say about a home, except that you know what makes it a home while it is yours, and whatever that is can never be truly expressed to anyone else. Thinking back, I have glimpses: Of hot summer afternoons spent swigging cold Coca-Cola from glass bottles beneath the mock-orange tree in the backyard while the freight trains rocketed by; of snow-days and blizzards spent too-long in the backyard making snow forts until runny noses chased us indoors to hot chocolate and Spiderman cartoons. It was a good house, a good home.
My parents stayed as long as they could. Things were getting to a place where I was uncomfortable letting Liz and the kids travel there on their own. It's just one of those things. The church was gone; most of our friends and family were gone. My best friend and I were robbed at gunpoint two blocks away one Christmas: "Throw your wallets on the ground, and there better be money there or you're both fuckin' dead!" There you go. Welcome home. It was time. Dad had to give up a glorious yard, hard-fought-for and hard-won; Mom had to give up the home she'd tweaked to her tastes over three decades. And, for me, on that last day -- as the moving vans closed their doors, and I backed out of that driveway for the last time -- I couldn't resist one last circuit around the old sights. The thing is, I realized fairly quickly that I'd become a relic; a stranger among my old haunts.
My parents are blessed to have a wonderful home in a wonderful neighborhood, not more than 10 minutes from where I live. Our kids are silly with excitement, apparently because they have a new house to explore, but clearly because their beloved grandma and grandpa are now only 10 minutes away instead of 45 minutes. My father has lost a wonderful backyard, but gained an entire neighborhood that is safe to walk around in, day or night. It's taken me a long time to get that life is nothing more than a series of chapters that conclude and subsequently serve as the prologue to the next, and that this isn't a bad thing, or even a sad thing, just a true thing.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Burning Like the Midnight Sun Gold Ring in the Mud Mix
Well folks ... this is probably it for the "BLTMS" remixes for me. This was particular fun.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Mr. Chandler "Drive into the Wilderness" Mix
My second remix from "Burning Like the Midnight Sun." This was more or less a response to my good friend Jeffrey Kotthoff, who suggested most remixes were too "safe."
Burning Like the Midnight Sun "Forever Rising" Mix
The Choir has provided mix stems from their latest album, "Burning Like the Midnight Sun" so that those so inclined can take a turn at remixing the tracks. This is my first effort, basically just a more ambient take on the original.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
RIP Michael Been
Michael Been, lead singer/songwriter for the semi-obscure post-punk band "The Call" died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 60. He was to music what Flannery O'Connor was to literature. He was someone who described his musical and spiritual journey as the "slow wearing away of ignorance." He understood the realities of grace — both wonderful and terrible — better than most. I count myself very fortunate to have discovered his talent in my formative years. Tribute poems are seldom good, and I seldom have written them, but here's one — for what it's worth. RIP Michael Been.
God arranges to have certain people
Born in Oklahoma, where Union Pacific
Lines are straight as the skyline
Save for the earth’s curve,
And twisters noose downward from cliff-clouds
To lasso thin towns and two-lanes.
Your voice is still heavy as blacktop —
Grace and mercy washed against
The cinder block basement-wall of law.
In back country like this —
Jungled up in the scrub next to the tracks,
Sharpened against the edge of hot panhandle nights —
The ache for a glimpse of treeline or riverbank
Leaks
Into every voice you might carry to the world.
In ways like this
God arranges to grant to the earth
The meek,
Those who know well to whom we die,
To whom we’re to be reconciled.
They lead us through the desert,
Some urgently singing at each fork in the path;
The mocking governments, the mocking mainline,
The mocking fringe, the mocking world
Held fast — dumb — by the throat
While the poor in spirit snake by.
It’s a violent grace —
A dam-breaking,
House-swallowing,
Brother-drowning grace.
It presses even the preacher
Until the preacher cries out
“Hell’s been raised!”
And there in the ending of all moments
There is mercy in Hell.
God arranges to have certain people
Born in Oklahoma, where Union Pacific
Lines are straight as the skyline
Save for the earth’s curve,
And twisters noose downward from cliff-clouds
To lasso thin towns and two-lanes.
Your voice is still heavy as blacktop —
Grace and mercy washed against
The cinder block basement-wall of law.
In back country like this —
Jungled up in the scrub next to the tracks,
Sharpened against the edge of hot panhandle nights —
The ache for a glimpse of treeline or riverbank
Leaks
Into every voice you might carry to the world.
In ways like this
God arranges to grant to the earth
The meek,
Those who know well to whom we die,
To whom we’re to be reconciled.
They lead us through the desert,
Some urgently singing at each fork in the path;
The mocking governments, the mocking mainline,
The mocking fringe, the mocking world
Held fast — dumb — by the throat
While the poor in spirit snake by.
It’s a violent grace —
A dam-breaking,
House-swallowing,
Brother-drowning grace.
It presses even the preacher
Until the preacher cries out
“Hell’s been raised!”
And there in the ending of all moments
There is mercy in Hell.
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