Walking Song

   1

Lately my life revolves around a dog
Who knows whose leash it is and whose routine
We follow, stretching thin the line between
Our independent wills. I see the dog
As one who needs a master, while the dog
Sees one who needs a friend, and if I’ve been
One caught up on commands the dog has seen
Me listening now and then.
    So man and dog
Since time began have tugged upon this leash
And traveled down the trails of this routine
As if it were the purpose of their walk.
    Man and dog,
Unequally assigned, but side by side
Man walks the dog, dog walks the man, and each
One seems to keep the other satisfied.

    2

I am the man. This is my dog
What would I hear if my dog could talk?
What would I want to say if I were the dog?
What would I think? What would I know?
Where would I run to? How far would I go?
And would I run away if I were the dog?

Let me stretch this leash from here to heaven,
Let me sometimes think I know the way
But let me take the paths that I’ve been given
And learn what I should say.

I am the man. This is my dog.
I try to listen whenever we walk.
But what can there be to say when you’re a dog?

    3

Sometimes I find myself spinning around
And chasing after things that aren’t there,
Entangling the one whose leash I share
And losing sight of where we might be bound.
I think it’s good to have someone around
To take my side, to set the pace, to bear
The distance and to gently lead me where
I know I need to go,
    But I have found
Myself spinning around things I don’t know.
I’m leaping after birds up in the air
And tracking common scents into the ground,
    But I have found
The one whose leash I share at every turn
Keeps telling me the things I ought to know
But giving me the time I need to learn.

    4

God is the man. I am the dog.
I’m not the man I once thought I was.
He seems so far away. I am the dog.
Prayer is the leash. This is my prayer,
Drawing me close to the man up there.
I don’t have words to say. I am the dog.

But I’ll stretch this leash from here to heaven,
And sometimes I’ll think I know the way,
But I’ll take the paths that I’ve been given
And learn what I should say.

God is the man, but I am the one
Who walks with him when the day is done
And with each breaking dawn. I am the dog.

   5

Lately my mind has turned the metaphor
Of man and dog, the leash and the routine
Upon its head. What can these verses mean
If I’m still learning what the walking’s for?
And can there even be a metaphor
Sufficient for the poetry I’ve seen
Along the way, when every step has been
Part of a song I’ve never sung before?
    All the more,
 I will walk, and in my walking sing,
And with my singing cherish the routine
And through routine embrace each metaphor
    all the more
Of God and man, of learning how to pray,
Of never understanding everything
About this life but walking anyway.

    6

And I’ll stretch this leash from here to heaven,
And sometimes I’ll think I know the way,
But I’ll take the paths that I’ve been given.
I’m learning how to pray.

Prayer is the leash. This is my prayer,
Keeping me close to the man up there,
And he’s not so far away. I am the dog.

Back to the Bloog

Dan, I enjoyed your last poem, and wonder if we shouldn’t be submitting our extra-bloogular commentary to the symposium.  I suppose that’s up to each email’s author, though.  As for my own comments, regarding allusions, I wanted to at least add this to the mix: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a great poem in part because of its extensive use of allusions - and yet, by its rhythm and repetition and rich imagery, it is also a great example of a poem that can be appreciated on many levels, even if we don’t “get” all the references.  If anyone is interested, check out http://www.thirtybirdspoetry.com/2011/03/social-creatures.html for my own Prufrock allusions.  Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Anyway, here’s my latest one or two efforts.  I’ve alluded to these in those extra-bloogular exchanges and in recent phone calls with Mom, but these are otherwise allusion free.  Maybe that makes these less “great,” but this is where I’m at.  It is still a walking poem, the whole thing being composed and revised in my head while dogwalking.  Dan, you may be interested in knowing that I also had some acoustic guitar in my head for the second part, and if it were a song, Johnny Cash would have to sing it the way he did in covering Petty’s I Won’t Back Down. There, will that make up for the lack of allusion?

heaven's gravity

In a J. Alfred mind (Prufrock is there—

etherized, we know, sequestering the dare)

I measure out life not with coffee spoons

but by the bloogs blowing by, the three moons

of Na-Nupp, which like Jupiter’s orbs should

have names: Jonathan, Joshua and Anne, good

shepherds of inertia—the shantiest

of all great theorems, and still Newton’s best:

that bodies in motion (or not) remain

always so, spoofing the legerdemain

of less-than-familial forces. We will

remain in such celestial space and still

(like Lear’s storm, still) avail our naked souls

to weather out residual, bedlam shoals

—those we know we should not leap. Yes, we know

too well the law and the prophets, and so

we adumbrate their future relevance

in all we hope to do, in circumstance

beyond our vain control. Christ, where are we

without the course of heaven’s gravity?

[Knitting] On the Road

As we pack for our trip out west, exchanging everyday tedium for road trip periphanalia, our settings slowly recalibrate to vacation mode. Thoughts of dish detergent turn instead to, “How many books should I pack for two days through Kansas?” (Inhale.) In our pantry, practical Crock Pot ingredients are shoved aside for bright boxes brimming with gummi-somethings. Glass cleaner is forgotten and sunscreen takes its place.

(Exhale.)

I pack my clothes along with the bags of general family sundries that someone has to pack: calamine lotion and paper plates. I pack up my toddlers’ clothes (who, left to their own devices, would pack eight pounds of picture books, three swimsuits and a clutch of Legos).

And I pack my knitting projects for the road.

I am only a little embarrassed to admit that I put more energy into the planning and gathering of knitting projects than all other trip components combined. There is a science to picking the perfect knitting-on-road-trip projects. The projects must offer difficult elements to challenge my ablilities (when else do I have the luxury of undivided knitting time anyway?) and lots of straight stockinette to knit blindly as I gaze at the changing scenery. The yarn must be beautiful and the pattern must produce a finished project that will be a worthy vacation souvenir.

As I knit on the road, each tidy stitch falling into place, I feel myself realign.

On the road I can breathe, my lungs fill with renewal and hope and optimism.

Out the window the changing landscape excites my imagination and a fresh person awakens within me. Ideas of new worlds enter my brain, mutating my DNA. (As I pass a creek in Wyoming named Old Woman Creek I know beyond any doubt that this will be the name of the winery I’ll open when I am old, and ready to settle down again.)

On the road I slip out of my old soul, unfettered by past sins and present failings, a snake skin shed. I am freed from the person I am known to be. I am free to improve.

Around the bend I am sweet and charitable.


Over the next hill I am who I want to be.

Cutbank, MT

"Don't take your kids to the Terrace Motel," said
the man at the Plaza, who didn't have room,
and the Super 8 boss who didn't like kids.

Our door at the Terrace was guarded by Duke,
a sleepy old dog that had nothing to prove--
he and Nkeesa, a door further down.

These ne'r-do-well doors of the Terrace Motel
had paintings of Tweety Bird, Ernie and Bert,
Bugs Bunny and Wily and--you name the rest:

the owner one day let his daughter range free
and cheer up the joint for Nkeesa and Duke
and anyone else closing doors on the place.

He told us "Nkeesa is Blackfoot for friend."
We pet her and left our kids sleeping inside,
then ventured to Main Street and down to the 'Den'

where tiny credentials lent drinks on the house--
ours just being strangers and paused passers-by
who wanted to burrow a night in this town.

Some players at pool sidled shots and themselves
and slid, when all done, to the dark to drink more;
my wife and I racked a new table of balls

and lanced through the fun of seventy-five cents
and wondered a little how little kids slept
(obeying the oldest and wisest, we hoped).

Stealthily, somebody put three quarters down
followed soon after by another three coins--
the promise of winners to claim table rule,

indigenous right to itinerant gains.
We learned that "Oki Nikskani" launched each game:
the greeting of Blackfeet that made us new friends,

"quite like the dog attending our kids," but this
was a sign to get back to base, the Terrace
in Cutbank--a beautiful dive to be inn.

House

This is our new house, same as the old house,
Where we once lived before moving away
Into the next house, the house before this house
Ran out of room for a family to stay.
We thought the next house might be the last house
To live out our days in an ambient way
But this is the next house after the last house,
Where we once lived before moving away.

We thought the last house might be the best house,
And it was nice for a year and a day:
It was a new house, a nothing-to-do house,
All we could want for the price we could pay,
And it was a big house, a two story tall house,
A dream house for those who like dreaming that way;
At least it was newer and bigger than this house,
And it was nice for a year and a day,

But we missed our old house, our used-to-be-cold house,
And found our way back to a place we can say:
"A house that is old is a house that’s well settled
A house that is small can be comfortably warm,
And the house that is ours at the end of the day
Is the house we return to, the house we call home."
This is a good house, the house we’ll remember.
We’ve found our way back to a place we can stay.

A Very Full Month

Dear Symposians,

July was a very full month.  It would have been full enough with the wonderful weekend in New Glarus and at the farm (thanks Mom & Dick!), the two night visit from the Prague Lamkens (thanks Dan and Katrina and kids), the extra time Andrew could spend with Joey (thanks Joey!), the Pecatonica fan club at Suessical (thanks everyone).  It also would have been full enough with the introduction of Yoshi to our family (kids, you can say thanks Dad here).  But as good as all that has been, what made this month the fullest is that it was the month we returned to our old digs here at 1192 Griffith, following another full month in June of preparation.  We have painted walls, installed floors, replaced ceiling fans, had a tub painted, paid a plumber to fix our toilet (expensive, but not as much as the extra running water had costs us over the years) moved out junk and moved furniture from one house to the next, and, most recently, put up a new fence around our patio (thanks Yoshi).  But we are moved in now!

So now you know why I have not had much time to add to the Symposia.  Dan, I enjoyed reading Bud Jako Bach - I kind of wished you hadn’t told me the ending before I read it, but it was a compelling read all the same.  And Josh, I am only now realizing that that whole best album discussion was at one point tagged to be a Symposium topic.  Please, do contribute directly, and let Dan’s finally figuring out the system inspire you all.  Bud Jako Dan!

Anyway, being all moved in now, I can finally sit down and write another poem.  It will, of course, be about the house, and, after one rip-off from the Who, it is unavoidably Seussical.