Listen closely...18 month old Keagan says "Go ASU!"

Tempus Edax Rerum- Time, Devourer of all Things

Yes... it has been awhile since I 'blogged', but my feeble mind and my hunt-n-peck fingers have been very busy over the last several months with an intensive writing course, the loss of a career, then getting my career back, etc, etc, so no need to worry about my seemingly vegetative state, I have been just plain busy. A ROLLER COASTER--the only description adequate for 2009 so far.


But I did have a moment and I wanted to share a poem by Carl Sandburg I recently re-discovered this spring semester--first reading it some 16 years ago. Back then there were eight of us juniors and seniors that would sneak up into a small forgotten room in the high school library where we had determined to hold weekly Dead Poet Society meetings. We barely fit in that little dusty room at the top of a very steep and narrow stair way above the library’s periodical and magazine section. Too small for a classroom, this oubliette might have been the office of the old Snowflake Academy's headmaster at one time. Being called to the office would be like a call to the gallows by having to pass through this poorly lit, narrow staircase. Once reaching the top of the steep stairs, beneath one's feet were solid wood plank floors and countless etchings left by the scrawling wear of each generation's passing. To the right, shelves holding National Geographic magazines from the early 1900's advertising Model T Fords and showing the latest horse harnesses that would be used to dig the Panama Canal. To the right, in a corner one could find parts from old typewriters and the funnel to a phonograph. Stacked like a chord of wood ready for the burning, there was a set of maps no longer correct since the reboundrification of Europe after both World Wars.

Sadly, we were soon discovered (after whispering troll-like through the floorboard vents into the room below and freaking out some freshmen girls) so we began meeting out by the old F Bar stockyard where a solid bridge of quarried sandstone blocks had been constructed across a ravine. We built a campfire pit at the base of the bridge, brought a few small benches, and would wax and wane from philosophic to comedic until very late at night. This is where I first heard the lyrics to Pearl Jam's song "Jeremy" as one of the boys drove his truck on the old tracks over head, threw open the doors, and cranked up the volume. This is where I committed in front of everyone to ask a particularly cute girl from St. Johns (we’ll call her Talisha) to a New Years dance…and the place I vocalized my pissed offness after the dance in overhearing three girls in my own grade tell Talisha that she should have said ‘no’ because I was shy and wasn’t popular. This is where I first experienced a truly terrifying ghost story--the kind that makes you feel as if the very haunting-hour of night is upon you, and that one more word would cause graveyards to gasp at what we dared whisper that moonless night. In the Dead Poet Society, nothing was off limits for discussion. We often spoke of matters personal, political, ethical, or social--things most teenage girls find tedious and that most teenage boys find counterproductive in their constant pursuits of finding a Willing Betty to fog up windshields with.

I needed these outings. I now know that most of the townspeople regarded me as a "sober child", so it probably would not surprise many that I was easily bored of conversations about putting a larger V8 in the Ford Falcon, which cheerleader was seen getting out of Joe Athlete's car at 3 a.m., or why Hobie shirts were out and No Fear shirts were in. I didn't give a crap about what all the cool kids were in to, yet cared too much about what they thought of me.

Luckily, I was not alone. Our group of eight consisted of nerds and jocks, introverts and extroverts, some of whom could sit on "The Wall" as part of the 'in crowd' and some of which could not. Despite our diversity, we were equals when we met to discuss our unique and individual views on things. I miss those days from time to time. Why? I miss the added perceptions to life. I can only liken it to playing baseball. With only one eye, you lose depth perception; it is harder to judge the distance and speed of approach of a ball. Imagine how much easier it is to catch or hit a ball when you are using both eyes, having two vantage points to judge distance and speed. The analogy is this, what a benefit having eight distinct vantage points when life hurls one of her curve-balls at you. Around that campfire, I learned that every man, simple or complex, has his own story...his own unique perspective rooted in his experience, interests, education, and world view. Even a person's failures have inestimable value and become his triumph when he is able to caution another from a poor path he had already erringly traveled down.

When I re-read the following poem again after so many years, I wanted to be at that campfire again. I feel that I have a strong grasp on Sandburg’s general message, but that I am missing something sublime that one of my fellow Dead Poet's had mentioned. Something that I once was told but can not remember it now. Maybe it is just my being so keenly aware of how, like in the poem, Tomorrow will soon be Yesterday...that all previous great empires with their powerful men and gifted women are nothing but lore and ruins now. If I were at the campfire now, I can imagine one friend saying, "Sandburg seems to believe this is the eventual fate of America, that rats and crows will make their homes in the ruins of our cities like they did in Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome." Another Dead Poet would express, "I think it is a cautionary warning to every organization, be it a religion, a political group, even a small family--celebrating your greatness rather than pursuing greater greatness is the beginning of its own end. You know, "Pride proceedeth the fall?'" But what would the others say?

I might say, "American's have forgotten that every freedom is based on certain responsibilities...if we are irresponsible with our freedom of speech, freedom of press, or irresponsible with free enterprise and free trade--they mutate (with the help of both political parties) into counterfeit forms and false versions of freedom that actually oppress individuals. Then the government feels the need to regulate our freedom. Is Sandburg saying eternal principles such as Justice, Ethics, Ingenuity, Compassion, Fairness, and Humility, the true structures in a free society, lie in ruins around us, and that WE are the rats, lizards, and crows, that have taken shelter in a broken system that use to be the American Dream?”

A deep thought, and that is when Talisha says, “Hey… those girls were right...he is a dork.”

So friends, family, and Dead Poet's, what do you think of the poem?




Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind
By Carl Sandburg


1. THE WOMAN named To-morrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.


2 The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.


3 It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women to warble:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.

And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened …
and the only listeners left now …
are … the rats … and the lizards.

And there are black crows
crying, “Caw, caw,”
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,”
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now
are … the rats … and the lizards.


4 The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.

And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.