A Lamb’s Tale

The white house with its storm porch, cottonwood
Tree, clanking radiators, with a hinge
Of hedge hanging on the edges, a fringe
Of eternity in a neighborhood
With no fences. That was the house where I’d
Spent my first twelve years. A wornout mother,
A splendor of sisters, a big brother,
Left to me when my coughing father died.

Stained glass on the upstairs landing caught my
Young eye and dust motes drifted in the still
Air where I played games that no one will
Ever remember or even want to try.

Winters were full of arctic ice and snow.
Summer was hot and mosquito-ridden,
But I found a secret that was hidden
In plain sight, and nobody told me no.
The wily world of words carried me through
July, frigid Januarys. I turned
Pages that transformed all that froze or burned
Into the dream that now encloses you.

In two shakes of a lamb’s tail I found how
To travel to the place where I am now.

After the Matinee

I wish those kids would stop that yelling.
If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.
Out in the garage, cap pistol tongues
Of flame lick at the Pontiac. Now Mother
Hears the hoot and holler and she’s telling
Them to go outside. It’s Hi Ho Silver in
The soft summer evening on leather lungs
Out by the cottonwood. And if you spin
Around and stare hard in the branches, you
Can spot Zorro, Robin Hood, Captain Blood.
On ragged ropes the pirates swarm and spill
Red gore for loot and beauty and a flood
Of flames sweeps up the rigging, derring-do
Never equaled in the summers since.
It makes you wonder. Is Roy Rogers still
King of the Cowboys? Is Gene Autry Prince?

July

Sousaphone bells, brass blossoms in the shade
Of tall cottonwoods in Williston, North
Dakota. The High School Band marched and played
The Thunderer the week before the Fourth.

Then morning staggered into mid-day heat
And solstice sun set the leaves aquiver.
I pushed a backward mower down the street,
Mowed and raked for cash. The shiny shiver
Of my sweat would change to things to eat:
Payday, Nesbitt’s orange pop, Almond Joy,
Relief from tunafish and cream of wheat.
The war was won and a 9-year-old boy
Helped end the wartime sugar rationing.

And as the reel spun in the growing green,
Blade to blade, it spewed quarters fashioning
Enchanted hours before the silver screen.
Horse operas, Frankenstein and mysteries,
Abbot and Costello, Time Marches On,
Fantasy matinees, faux histories,
Reel to reel over an endless lawn.

A green eternity in simpler times,
Films with happy endings, poems with rhymes.

What We Ate

White plates filled with hot boiled macaroni,
Hunt’s tomato sauce or Velveeta cheese,
Canned whole kernel corn, green beans, sweet green peas.

Our sandwiches were thick sliced bologna,
Egg salad, tuna and celery, jelly
And peanut butter but no submarines.

Simmered great northern or red kidney beans,
Seasoned with ham or maybe pork belly.
Chicken, fried, roasted or ala king, slow
Cooked corned beef and cabbage. When summer heat
Faded in fall, a Friday evening treat,
Bowls of buttered popcorn by the radio.

Breakfast on summer mornings was toast, dry
Cereal and milk, in winter oatmeal
Or cream of wheat, brown sugared, with real
Cream. Sundays Mom used bacon grease to fry
Eggs served with that bacon on buttered toast.
That same day would bring mashed potatoes,
Gravy, stuffing, in summer, tomatoes,
Boiled corn, arrayed around a big beef roast.

Desserts at every evening meal, home canned
Fruit, an orange or apple from the yellow
Crates in the basement and of course Jello.
We’d never heard of any other brand.

Peach pies in summer, apple pies in fall,
Birthday frosted layer cakes, crockery jars
Full of doughnuts and oatmeal raisin bars.
So many sweets I can’t think of them all.

We ate as if we meant to stay alive,
No herbs or spices, we were not gourmets.
Just hungry North Dakotans in those days
After the war in 1945.

Isolationism

1947, a swimming pool,
A sullen sultry afternoon. We small
Swimmers in this small Dakota town were
Lonely swimmers. Everyone else was at
Work. Then sudden wind scudded the dirt. Way
Out on the grey prairie a thunderhead
Blossomed and bloomed in blue Dakota skies.
Did we leave? We laughed and dove deep. Chlorine
And cold water took us in. It was cool
To defy the lifeguard, to defy all
Lifeguards, to not get out yet. We were sure
That we would live forever, sure now that
War was over, Hitler gone. So we lay
Under the thunder that unsettled dead
Grown-up bones, lightning that frightened old eyes.
What finally happened? What did it mean?
We learned the sky collapses, water stops
Water. Breathless we hovered in our cool
American in-between watching drops
Of skywater drown in our still earth pool.

Anonymous

10 years old, 1948, small town.
I was a young Republican. And so
On pieces of school paper I wrote down
“Truman, phooey! We want Dewey!” A row
Of ignorance that rhymed, folded and dropped
Along a well-used path. A bit later
Someone at the corner store where we shopped
Said, “I found this” and read it. Creator
Blushed and said nothing. But I was so proud
To hear my puerile words read by a high
School sophomore kid in public and aloud.

70 scribbled years have drifted by,
But somehow it’s still a thrill that he
Read my words without knowing it was me.

The Captive

Here’s a box elder where I tormented
A kitten, who could neither leave nor stay.
I torment myself in the same way.
What is past is past. What is repented
Stays in the midnight mind. Here’s a store. There
I stole the money to buy a plastic
Flower that squirted water when my spastic
Hand squeezed a secret bulb. My heart knows where
Hurt lies, seeks it out, squeezes, and I know
It’s the same secret bulb everyone knows,
The hidden hurt we secretly suppose
Wants squeezing. It’s the thing we must let go,
As I now release these words, written
To release me from the captive kitten.

Redemption

Milner and I rode our bikes out to Twin
Lakes. We wobbled on the concrete hem,
Ditch and dusty wheatfield and our bike tires
Soft and squishy in the heat, Dakota
Heat. Studebakers passed us, Chevrolets,
Dodges, doing thirty-five. Those days
We looked for empty Grain Belt beer and soda
Bottles, jammed them upside-down between the wires
Of our bike baskets and we carried them
To town to be redeemed, to be turned in.
Heat off the highway made oncoming cars
Shimmer like ships above our handlebars.

A Summer Day

It seems to me I always had enough
To do. Get up, eat shredded wheat and out
The door, grab my blue bike and ride about
A block to Jerry’s house, undo my cuff
From the greasy bike chain, head to the zoo.
Look at the hawk who had no room to fly,
The den where a badger was said to lie,
And the frogs and the fish and turtles too
In their dank tank. Behind the flower shop
Deepen the hole in the vacant lot, find
Empty beer bottles someone left behind
And cash them in to buy an ice-cold pop.
Then eat lunch and a baseball game beset
With the kind of arguing you get when
You only have five players. It was then
That the summer sun reached zenith. So wet
With sweat we biked to the swimming pool, dove
Deep into water warmed by August heat
And when the grown-ups came at four, we beat
It, went back home to chores. The kitchen stove
Was cold. Sandwiches and milk that hot day.
Then in the long-drawn evening, kick-the-can
And bikes again and finally the fan
In the bedroom stirring still air away,
Sheer sheets shrouding a drowsy boy, at last
At rest and sleeping deeply in my past.

The Iceman

Those hot afternoons when still air smelled like
Dry dust and the limp cottonwood leaves drooped
And heat lay so heavy it could be scooped
In a cupped hand when you rode your new bike,
And there was no sense in drinking water,
It just made you thirsty. In my hometown
The iceman in his prewar truck came down
The dirt alley. Everything was hotter
Then it was before outside his damp wood
Truckbed where blocks of solid cold were stacked
To be pincered out with his steel tongs, cracked
And slivered with his sharp pick. And I could
Stand in July and put my head inside
January. The iceman wore leather
Gloves, smelled like glaciers. He brought his weather
With him and would share it. Little chips I’d
Carry in my mouth until they’d splinter,
Melting into memories of winter.

A Summer Day

It seems to me I always had enough
To do. Get up, eat shredded wheat and out
The door, grab my blue bike and ride about
A block to Jerry’s house, undo my cuff
From the greasy bike chain, head to the zoo.
Look at the hawk who had no room to fly,
The den where a badger was said to lie,
And the frogs and the fish and turtles too
In their dank tank. Behind the flower shop
Deepen the hole in the vacant lot, find
Empty beer bottles someone left behind
And cash them in to buy an ice-cold pop.
Then eat lunch and a baseball game beset
With the kind of arguing you get when
You only have five players. It was then
That the summer sun reached zenith. So wet
With sweat we biked to the swimming pool, dove
Deep into water warmed by August heat
And when the grown-ups came at four, we beat
It, went back home to chores. The kitchen stove
Was cold. Sandwiches and milk that hot day.
Then in the long-drawn evening, kick-the-can
And bikes again and finally the fan
In the bedroom stirring still air away,
Sheer sheets shrouding a drowsy boy, at last
At rest and sleeping deeply in my past.

In the Garage

In the garage we cleaned every other
Weekend there were two bays, empty since Dad
Died and the Chevy was sold, where I had
Capgun fights Friday nights with my brother,
Bare cement spaces memory has filled.
My sister Shirley worked at a railhead
That shipped workhorses to Belgium. She said
That if the mares had foals, the foals were killed.
That spring Shirley’s boyfriend put an almost
Weaned colt in the garage, threw down a bale
Of timothy. He found and filled a pail
With water and tied a tether to a post.

I sat in my wooden desk with the groove
That held pencils, the inkwell. I must wait
On iron legs tethered to rails, aimed straight
At the teacher who wouldn’t let you move
Till three. My hands still, my mind cantered, ran
Ahead to the garage where the foal clattered
On concrete, whickered, snorted. That mattered!
School rules, the scarred dull desks didn’t. I can
Still feel the soft whiskers, the satin hide,
See the dark sparkle in his bulging eye.
He wound up in a pasture, bullied by
Older horses, caught a disease and died.

In the garage time has stopped and I can see
The foal tethered to the way things used to be.

Skate Key

The flat slat of the key kisses square lip
Of the plug on the skate side, driving steels
Into the seam slit above the shoe sole.
The rollerskate embraces, comes to grip
With shod foot and this sure foot drives the wheels
That move a giddy eight-year-old to roll
Down the concrete sidewalk with its cast cracks.
Don’t step on them. They’ll break your mamas’ backs.
Skating over them brought no one harm.

How quickly we lose childhood chant and charm,
Its prohibitions and mythologies
Dissolved by speed and wheels and steel skate keys.

Meadowlarks

They were what you heard on the prairie first
Thing in the morning when you rode shank’s mare
Through the rough stubble where sun rays burst,
A hint of heat to come. With our heads bare
We whistled Gary Owen and rode out
To seek our rendezvous with Sitting Bull.
We built a fire of dry corn stalks about
Noon, roasted muddy unhusked ears full
Of blackened kernels. How we had waited
For this sweetness. Later I rode my bike
To Harmon Park, swam in chlorinated
Water, dove deep into what I would like
To call a happy life. One that would make
It easy to remember the quick call
Of meadowlarks that let a boy’s heart break
A summertime adventure into fall.
I must thank this autumn now for giving
Meaning to a lifetime full of living.

The Circus

Late in the afternoon I saw the trains,
Golden ampersands on ripe red siding,
Dwarves, giraffes and bearded ladies riding
Into our Dakota town. The Great Plains
Hungered for such spectacles, for scribbled
Gray elephant legs, somber bears, for curt
Circus curtsies, yawning tigers, the spurt
Of stagnant water wooden wagons dribbled
Over dusty stubble. And a hollered,
Give us a hand, get in free! I lent
Both, pulled a rope to raise a tattered tent
Over imminence, helped shaggy collared
Horses haul aloft a canvas big top,
Cleaving clear sky and prairie. I could see
Tomorrow rise to tower over me
And knew I never wanted that to stop.
So I must watch the clowns drink their warm beer,
Listen to the royal lion when he pissed,
Spy as a spangled virgin flyer kissed
Her sweaty lover on his sweaty ear.
And finally go back home where my dumb
Mom put cold washcloths on my hot headache.
It was already too late. I lay awake,
Knowing this would be the town I came from.

The Closet

What's in the closet, in that private space
That many of us feared when we were small
As grownup footsteps went back down the hall?
It was something that we didn't want to face.
During the day the clustered clothes on hooks,
The floor a maze of clutter, toys and games,
Were part of life. They all had their names,
Their sunlit lives, their sane familiar looks.

When darkness came, the hall door cracked a hair,
Laying a line of light out on the floor.
I stared in terror at the closet door
Imagining what might be waiting there.

Far from that little lariat of light,
My neck atremble in the noose of night.

Ice Skating

Plows pushed snowfalls to ridges
Strung along straight streets. We walked
The paths along the tops, ledge
And battlement. Mornings found
Good neighbors running water
Into vacant lots. Skating,
We wore jeans and overalls,
Flannel shirts, little itches,
Mittened, mackinawed, wool socked
Inside shoe skates. Off the edge,
On the ice, we slid unbound,
Unbalanced, teeter-totter,
Windmill arms, celebrating
Winter’s frozen waterfalls.

Changing steel blades, ice and snow
Into skirl and vertigo.

Fire Escape

Every winter, without fail, some dumb kid
Would lick the bottom frozen rung.
Every winter, without fail, when he did,
The fire escape would trap his tongue.
Like iron lightning down a red-brick sky,
This little ladder took the cold
Out of the heavens, hung it where that guy
Could touch it with his tongue. We told
Miss Prune. She’d come, all grim, a steaming pan
Of water in her hands. We’d cheer
When he came loose. Behind us as we ran
She’d march him inside by his ear.
Winter days were dull when I was young.
The tongue’s red meat was shocking as it lolled
Out on the iron darkness. Every year.

Aurora Borealis

We saw, on our way home from Harmon Park,
A spectral spray that arced across night sky,
Lurid lines of light that lit the arctic dark
To consecrate the cold. And I knew why
My muffled heart beat stronger in my chest
As I stood, skates slung over my shoulder,
With my friends, all of us with lungs possessed
By still air that couldn’t get much colder.

So now why should I be at all surprised
To find the rest of my life dividing
Into ice and fire and my hypnotized
Heart drowning in a gulf of guilt, hiding
Fear and desire. Like a Dakota night
Filled with frigid fields and surreal light.

Ice Breaking

Then rivers spoke in spring and the big Muddy
Ground out groans and chips and blocks. I’d lie in bed
In town and listen. Then the winter snowfield
Sagged and shivered and the geese repeated
Stanzas memorized before the slurry
And the slush had names. Now when I study
My old lists, old words, old wounds, I hear instead
The ranting of the river as it reeled
Inside itself and winter ways retreated
With the breakup of the ice on the Missouri.