Jackie Robinson West

I have appreciated reading your poems of late, Mom and Dan, especially in this busy period when I haven't had much time to comment or post otherwise.  It's always good, I find, to take time to simply read and enjoy a good poem, and I'm glad we have this place.

In that spirit, today I'd like to share a published poem from Mary Schmich, without her permission and hopefully with the Tribune's tolerance given our limited family audience, but in any case with much respect for the Trib’s well placed page 3 columnist in Mike Royko’s old spot.


A Poem to Our Boys of Summer —
Jackie Robinson West

by Mary Schmich


We'll line up on this Wednesday morn

Awaiting the parade

We'll come to give them one last cheer

And thanks for how they played.

.

By "they" I mean the team of boys

Who stirred Chicago's pride

A team with grit and heart and skill

And raised on our South Side.

.

Some players were not 5 feet tall

Each one was still a kid

But now the world has heard their name

And knows just what they did.

.

Their name was Jackie Robinson

(To which they added West)

They showed their namesake — 42 —

They'd give his game their best.

.

For two weeks of our summertime

They gave us all a lift.

Amid the worries of the world

They landed like a gift.

.

In parks and bars and living rooms

We sat and watched them win

(We helped them give a ratings gift

To dear ESPN.)

.

And what a gift to Rahm as well!

Big news that's not a downer!

They even scored a bunch of tweets

From Durbin, Quinn and Rauner.

.


They made the Cubs look Little League

They made the Sox look old

From North to South, we loved these boys

Decked out in blue and gold.

.

Luster, Benton, Radcliff too

Plus Hondras, Noble, King

These little heirs to Robinson

They made the old game sing.

.

Ed Howard, Butler, Jackson, Green

Plus Houston, Bufford, Jones

These 13 boys, they played like men

With all their hearts and bones.

.

They clobbered Lynnwood, Washington,

Then whomped poor Philly — yay!

(Although it was a wee bit sad

To see them beat Mo'Ne.)

.

Nevada stomped them once, and then

They swallowed their distress

They marched back on the field and left

As champs of the U.S.

.

So what if in the final match

They lost the game to Seoul?

They made our fractured city seem,

For just a moment, whole.

.

Some said it was a fairy tale

The way they beat the odds

But this was not a fairy tale

And not the work of gods.

.

The boys of Jackie Robinson

Are in the end just boys

They're kids who learned to win and lose

And focus through the noise.

.

They showed what work and hope can do

With coaches there to guide

With help from friends and family who

Know work is key to pride.

.

They might not change Chicago

And they will not end its woes.

Our troubles and our worries

Carry on, and so it goes.

.

Though 67 years have passed

Since Robinson broke through

And breached the baseball color line

There's still a lot to do.

.

The problems of the city,

Its divisions and its fears

Will still be here tomorrow

When we're finished with the cheers.

.

But when they ride up Aberdeen

And north on Halsted Street

The heirs to Jackie Robinson

Will give us something sweet.

.

For one more day we'll get the chance

To all be one big team

For one more day we'll get the chance

To witness that great dream.

.

Then when the cheers are over and

When all the fanfare's done

There's just this final thing to say:

You sure made summer fun.




mschmich@tribune.com
Copyright © 2014, Chicago Tribune

Designer

DESIGNER

Designer jeans – now that’s a concept.

Wear them in the rugged

The rugged outdoors.

Where the first designer had more fun

Than we can wrap our mortal minds around.

Old question: how can one not believe

Looking at the design, harmonic, extravagant?

Colors blending and clashing, flamboyant.

Scents beyond Chanel, Tabu and Old Spice.

Powder-puff bunny tails, scrawny-necked turkeys

And three graceful wary deer I couldn’t have put together

No, not in a million years – or a day.

A-theist?  No-God.  And this body, this mind

Can say, “it’s happenstance.  Accident of nature?”

Oh give me a home in the psalms, or in Job.

“What is man?”  “Where were you when..?”

Designer, architect, arborist, weaver,

Planner, even, of designer jeans.

Marilyn Jaeger, August 22, 2014, after a country walk

Indian Summer Foretold

Days before Indian Summer drag like Andrei Tarkovsky films,

and, if you’ve seen them, you know they more than drag—they

demand a dreamlike going-there, no turning back: from Ivan’s

non-Childhood to Nostalgia’s smoldering wick.  They troll what

freedom might have spent. They toll some Rublev bells untold.

And, growing somewhat old, I gather more in Indian Summers

than ever hoped before. My children speed their step as August

reaps whatever store—they’re in it more for the shine and rut

that Autumn brings, the září and řijen that beckons fawns to be

young bucks and does. So the story goes: youth re-ruts the old.

The European Athletic Championships run while I think it out:

a race that pits a Russian and Ukrainian seems naturally remiss.

Black Panther punch one and another!—you’re doing it no less

in facebook wars… But these young athletes have much more in

mind than redressing petty politics, opting for some fools’ gold.

Their parents both saw Tarkovsky films, for instance, Sacrifice,

and now, in days before the summer ends, a hope would be that

all can see we’ve come too far for cold war land grabs and dog-

days’ growl for veranda scrawl symposia—we all must ruminate

the line between some entitled sense of being….and being bold.

To my mind, there’s little choice. The world has falsely thrived

on lack of ethical sacrifice. Those who’ve had a lot in life may be

a mewling sort: their meat has safely come from some provide,

and ‘old dogs/new tricks’ may not translate far and wide. To the

point, we purchase souls that are probably far from being sold.

And there the poem can end. Who really cares, after all, where

poems begin and end? Who understands where Indian Summer

days, if they have a feigning chance to (in our immigrant minds)

begin? Tarkovsky—Russian Swede, Italian eye-piece for days in

dancing need—pell-mell rounds up sheep to field a better fold.

And that is where any Indian Summer (in advance) should go—

Leave the predisposed and concentrate, in temperance, to that

which needs a better fold. There’s no source here but the Gospel

Luke: ‘Physician, heal thyself’—the tautology upends itself—so

we’ll fall to autumn leaves that jockey not for soil predisposed,

and rather fall as Luke and others may not have easily foretold.

Much the point of Jesus’ ministry is being in a place where earth

conditions are both at hand and not-to-be-believed: who’d see

a blind man gaining sight with a paste of mud? Or Lazarus rising

arbitrarily? No one would see. And thereby we are humbly told.

And so my Indian Summer, in advance, is adequately foretold.

Filling Up the Jukebox

Good List, Dan, and Good Idea on how to revive S2L2A&A with a theme variation.  I will follow suit with my own favorite turn to artist, another not as great as the Beatles or the Floyd, perhaps, but one whom I can truly listen to agin and agin.  As my kids will tell you.

But first, on Zep.  Check out last month's Mojo Magazine, where a top 50 Led Zep list is presented.  Some of their favorites not on your list: Since I've Been Loving You (#6), Achilles Last Stand (#8), Ramble On (#9), Good Times Bad Times (#14), Heartbreaker (#18) and In my Time of Dying (#19).  And their #20, which I might have raised to top 5: Friends.

My turn to artist is Tom Waits, of course.  I first discovered Tom through a literary reference in an Omni Magazine short story in 1977: God Is An Iron, by Spider Robinson.  That was all I knew of Waits for years, but it was enough to add a note of familiarity when I read favorable reviews of Swordfishtrombone in 1983.  I went out and bought this, loved it, and, prompted again by Robinson's specific quotes, sought out Blue Valentines.  I saw Tom in concert in 1984, and since then I've bought every one of his albums.

The songs to listen to again and again:

$29.00 (Thanks Spider)
Frank's Wild Years (best short story song ever)
Picture in a Frame (from my first list)
Step Right Up (best early Waits)
Johnsburg, Illinois (my favorite croon until Picture came along)
Hold On (Springsteenesque)
House Where Nobody Lived (my 2011 resonant song)
Chocolate Jesus (irreverent, but not really)
Somewhere (I sung this drunk on the streets of Galena one night)
Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis (Tom roleplaying a female hooker will bring a tear to your eye)
Clap Hands (the Rain Dogs kicker)
Get Behind the Mule (the rift line is infectious)
Hell Broke Luce (with a boost from Keith Richards)
Ol' 55 (covered by the Eagles, but Tom's voice makes it cool)
16 Shells from a Thirty Odd Six (from Swordfish, not to be confused with...)
Sweet Little Bullet from a Pretty Blue Gun (from Blue Valentine, the best sweet-blue album out there)
Gin Soaked Boy (again from Swordfish, not to be confused with...)
Jockey Full of Bourbon (from Raindogs, to complete one of the best 1-2 albums you'll ever find)
Swordfishtrombone (just the word, to get you started)
In the Neighborhood (one more from Swordfish, now go out and discover him!)

beyond eclectic predelictions and epochs 'ten years gone'

So I think I figured it out: Led Zeppelin by anyone’s measure will always be the 3^rd best band behind (take your pick) the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, the Who, Aerosmith, Dylan & co, anything having to do with Jeff Beck, The Kinks, Elvis Costello, etc, etc,

And in a delightful family debate whether “All of My Love” belongs in Led Zeppelin’s top 10 or top 20, I’ve come to realize that this band (like the Beatles, like Pink Floyd) is beyond such lists. They combine Chicago blues with various covers that far excel the originals with ample originality—no one stoked the top three on my list but themselves. The echo justifiably is that Pink Floyd and the Beatles recorded NO SUCH covers—they played themselves and no others. Indeed, this is a musicological quandary, on par with the debate that Sophocles without ‘Ur-texts’ exceeds Shakespeare with his ample supply of Ur-Hamlets and such. Of the more-than-ten Led Zeppelin songs I list below, plenty of them are ‘ur’—the Rolling Stones would nod their heads empathetically. But they are great in a Shakespearean way. But certainly ten of these would never have existed except that Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones made them happen indigenously.

Ten Years Gone

Kashmir

The Immigrant Song

When the Levee Breaks

The Rover

Mountain Misty Hop

Over the Hill and Far Away

Going to California

Whole Lotta Love

Four Sticks

The Rain Song

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

Dazed and Confused

All of My Love

No Quarter

Carouselambra

Stairway to Heaven

Black Dog

Battle for Evermore

Dancing Days

That’s the Way

Yes, that’s 21 songs on a STLTA&A list, but would anyone really deny #21? It makes me cry more than probably any of the far better songs above it. There is no genius in Page and Plant—there is genius in the God that made them. And since this band is so prone to covers, I think they’d not disagree. I’d listen to many lists agin and agin, but this focused journey crumbled me in ways no other source did—I’ll keep them 3^rd for sanity’s sake, but gosh they are far more than listenable for such evaluations, and, to anchor the point, “Ten Years Gone” was never more resonant to me than after Josh’s encouragement to tune it in before the turn of this millennium. It remains the absolute best motif/riff/subtle verse/bridge/jazz and jam solo/back to underappreciated riff. Concerts wouldn’t relay this song nearly as successfully as songs down the list, but ‘agin and agin’ implies the advent of record players and luxurious return. Led Zeppelin invites this as well as any musician, and the exercise alone to validate ‘agin and agin’ confirms our need to listen to compositions in their ‘on-offs’, and then again in their lure to be heard, well, again and again…. Led Zeppelin has done that more than just this extraordinary summer.

Eager to hear from others…

Daddy, what's it called

Before this poem begins, which by accident of 'octopus predictions' qualifies for Lost Menagerie, I should contextualize my recent rash of poems. Our first official day of the teaching year 2014-15 began today favorably, if in the sorrow of news: many of our students are from Ukraine and Russia, Kurdistan, Israel, Arab states; a dear colleague Karen Ercolino lost her mother last week after burying her father last spring; Robin Williams featured for several years in English 9 as the 'Dead Poets Society' voice of reason and subversion--and now this man is dead. Technically, my own kids Joey, Ben and Em are happily being Bohemian in the non-connected woods of Krkenose and Romania, so they aren't actually asking the questions of the poem below. But--poetic liberties presiding--I feel they'd parlay in such a spirit. The poem begs more than it's title:

                Daddy, what's it called

Daddy, what’s it called when everyone and no one sees what’s coming?

September Eleventh? Pimples on prom night? Amputation of the Invisible Hand? German dominance in the ‘beautiful game’? The debunking of octopus predictions? ISIS? Irrelevance of social networks? Relevance of walks in woods? The death of Robin Williams?

Say that last again…

The death of—

Don’t you mean ‘Awakenings’?

The film?

The attempt to massage the living dead to a status that matters, drugs or no drugs,…

Drugs or no drugs?

Dead or not dead—you said Robin Williams—

Yes, I did

This isn’t a parlor game, I hope

Google search destroyed that bit of fun

Robin Williams dead

He was bouncing off the walls

And sometimes made me laugh

He quoted poets wide and deep

And sometimes made me cry

His movies rarely satisfied

And one would think that doubt would add some weight into his sink

Shazbot!

Who’s speaking at this point?

You know—don’t dissemble now

Dad?

Don’t worry—I’m not awakening now

What? wake up!

I’m full awake. And well aware of how one lies insensate.

Can’t we get back to pimples on prom night?

Of course we can. That, in fact, is what all soulful clowns redact.

Redact?

A greater term than react. What’s it called when—

no one sees what’s coming?

Yes—what’s that called?

It’s called a need to sometimes have a dad

Skyline Tectonics

Growing up, the Chicago skyline

demanded imagination: my dad arched

his Midwestern back to sell us on Sears—what

my kids would call Willis, stepping out

on the 103^rd in suspended boxes,

seeking reconnaissance of John Hancock,

once the signature of all heavenly architecture,

trumping the Empire State for the claim

until stark Standard Oil marbled

the score: Chicago now towered beyond

its own dreams. Malaysia, meanwhile, Shanghai

and the Burj Khalifa Dubai would coolly

upend the scene: maybe Midwest

Asian dads had due reason to bend their

backs Myrtle-the-Turtle style (blast all the burp)

and maybe Chicago needed a boost to get

back on its track: enter Trump—a

ludicrous way to get politics done, a name

that does nothing good to no one, even Ivana his

erstwhile bride—she’ll do just fine waiting

in line for the bail when the bedrock

breaks. And it will, whether this millennium

or the next. As middle child (here see me Trump)

deflecting the lightning that’s bound to seek

wise old John Hancock & Willis anew,

I’m out of the Loop—these towers don’t do

anything to a Midwestern brother who gallivants

in and tiptoes out, quick-as-white-lightning,

to let the new skyline speak for itself:

Trump has his attention, but notably nature

draws double the bolt to the north and the south:

Willis and Hancock are duly recharged, and

Dad (in his grave) can relax his back.

Chicago has honored its volts,

and skyscrapers all are

blips to our notes.