all good again

 

A poem-a-day is waiting every morning, I've told this before, in my email. Nearly always I glance at, sometimes I skip and move on, mostly I read all of it before scrolling on through email. A bit more often than now and then, I stop and read and, taken with something, scroll down to read about the poet and more of the poet's work. 

Just so this morning, "My Local Dead" by Mark Wunderlich, then about Mark, then a couple more of his, "Difficult Body, and "The God of Nothingness". What attracted me was his surname, because Wunderlich Medium is a typeface I use, my font for anything I'm going to print and read, especially aloud, like sermon notes and a manuscript, because it comes out nearly bold, not at all faint, easy on my eyes.

Anyway, a college professor of literature (Bennington College, Vermont) as many of these poets turn out to be, with books of poetry to sell, Mark's poetry betrays a soul in distress, a life of much pain, I hear no laughter at all, a sense of dread, and after further exploration I decided against ordering his newest book even though today's poem is intriguing. 

Now living in the Hudson River Valley, NY, he's from a small town in Wisconsin, has taught widely, an impressive list of colleges. 

Now and then, as this morning, the day's poem leads me a ways down a path and then wandering off someplace that wasn't on my POD. 

Mark Wunderlich My Local Dead

This was the time of year we would go into the frozen forest— leaves stripped, only a few birds ticking in the bare trees, fields shorn, corn trash a dull gold. Sometimes snow would fall, and I can recall the exact sound of its muffling, quieting whiteness crackling down.  Of our hunting party, only two of us are alive— grandparents long dead, father and nephew dead, their bones all on the ridge top with the others. The town is shabbier now, middle classes disappeared, leaving the ancient, the angry and the slow. My cousin is returning home—to a place he reviled— having run out his luck in the West. His plan  is to move into the garage on the old homestead, which of course is no plan at all. I sometimes hear the call to return, come back to the shady valley with its reliable breeze,  the crumbling brindle bluffs, a brandy old fashioned made with 7UP waiting for me on the sticky bar of the Golden Frog,  recognition registering with those I meet when they see my father looking back from inside my aging face. That place don’t fade—the one that made me—bone isotopes belie  the soil’s iron and chalk, my talk inflected (sorry sounds like sore). What’s more is that I want to go, but won’t.   I’ll stay here, 2000 miles away, amidst an older Eastern decay. It turns out I have some local dead here as well:  Fifth Great-Grandfather Christian Servoss—colonial Dutchman from the Palatine, who died in some wintertime foolishness  crossing the frozen Mohawk. His two boys watched him  and his horses drown in that not-very-impressive watercourse.  One of those boys made it to Iowa, and disappeared, but not before he reproduced, becoming Fourth Great-Grandfather to yours truly, and so on. My remaining colonial dead  lie in the dirt near Palatine Bridge, their names effaced  from marble by acid rain. I wish I didn’t care about them, but I do. It matters to have this ghost clan near—this family I never knew.

I moved on. Nuclear power plant disasters, a highly beneficial visit to my hearing clinic, and when I returned, the not unusual sense of entitlement to some sort of celebratory reward - - fresh pot of hot, black coffee and a slice of pecan coffee cake. Sundays after church the reward is a martini, or may be a glass of red wine, unless we are going out for Sunday dinner or (as yesterday) have a loved one coming here.

My plan for noon dinner today was anchored in what a friend told me at church yesterday, that oysters on the half shell at Hunt's last week were enormous. That didn't work out, so reset for tomorrow. Then a phone call scheduling a routine HVAC maintenance visit "before noon", so the oysters may move to Wednesday, we'll see.

After dinner today, some typing, a nap, then a reviving of this morning's interest in poetry that speaks to one's life. At this age, with so many roads not taken and pretty much thankful for it, this is still and apparently always my One.

At which of innumerable diverging roads in life might I have taken the other one? It doesn't matter, does it.

The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The ospreys returned, the fairgrounds folks did something to eject the geese, and the resident ospreys have their home back.

The weather is lovely, we need to have supper out on 7H porch and watch the water traffic coming home, and our own resident ospreys.

RSF&PTL

T

ad lib. Anyone who takes issue with Will Smith for slapping Rock is alphabet nuts. Making cruel fun of the man's wife? Make fun of my wife, you better hope I'm not carrying.