Feeding Us All

London, Early 1900's

—Anonymous Photos

GLIMPSE OF THE BIG CITY
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

If you were a good
And faithful altar boy
For three years, from
Sixth to eighth grade,
In the early sixties,
Mumbled your Latin
Passably, stayed out
Of the sacramental
Wine, and didn’t
Drop anything large,
Mid-altar, at high mass,
Father Crowley
Would reward you
With a train trip
To Chicago from
Kewanee, Illinois,
And a night at the
LaSalle Hotel.

Heady stuff for
God-fearing pre-
Vatican II lads,
Especially when
The good father
Was last seen having
Traded his Roman collar
For a black Ban-Lon,
And heading into
The hotel bar.

But no matter: the
Hotel television had
Six channels.  We had
An unlimited
Room service tab.
Third cheeseburger,
Second chocolate
Malt, and Orion
Samuelson, whom I now
Realize was Garrison
Keillor’s evil uncle
With the morning farm
Report on WGN.

Just after news of
The April porkbellies,
It was Father Crowley
At the door,
Surprisingly chipper,
And back in full black
Cassock.  We marched
To St Patrick’s Cathedral
For early mass.  They
Say the Chicago Bears’
Owner, coach, icon,
George Halas never
Missed the 7am there.
Usually didn’t help, but
You never know.  We
Didn’t see him.

Then off to the inevitable
Chicago museums: Art
Institute.  “Don’t fuckin’
Touch nothin’,” our
Advice from the guard.
The Museum of Science
And Industry:  Impressively
Clean coal mine.  Field
Museum:  Natural History.
Bones.  Lots of them.
Big stuffed Elephant. 
On the Lake Michigan
Side of the Shedd
Aquarium, a bloated, headless
Body had washed up.  A retching
Daily News photographer
Offered Stevie Krumtinger use
Of his Speed-Graphic, and
Five dollars to get the shot.
“Forget it, boys, it’s Chicago,”
Father Crowley counseling.

Corpse was a woman, we
Decided, first naked one
We’d ever seen.  Drowned,
Yes, and headless, but still.

Time for a ride on the EL.
Speeding through the city,
One floor up, seeing things
Obviously unintended.
And I remember the wicker
Seats, the soft silver gray
Leather of the Chicago
Transit Authority
Drivers’ jackets. I didn’t
Know about my friends, but
I knew I’d be back.  Eventually.

  

I dreamed of being in a bleak “haunted” house
   Upon entry I just saw white walls without furniture or furnishings
   Next I went into a room where everywhere was covered with scrap paper
   Paper was taped all over the walls as well as laying around on the floor
   Among the papers there were childishly written words as if they were discarded writing lessons
   Others had drawings and some were like many different adults' written letters, journals, or poetry ideas
   In the middle it had a stairway that went to an upstairs
   I took the stairway to find it led to a rather large white-walled bedroom 
   Then the room with two snow-white double beds turned out to be full of frighting “ghosts”
   The smoke-like ghosts flickered and clacked as if coming out of a loud old movie projector
   I frighteningly ran back down the stairs but slipped and fell
   I fell upon a cloud of wadded scrap paper like I was in a big waste-paper basket

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

_____________________

A few years ago going while going to the house of a friend outside Sacramento close to Thanksgiving Day
   My Dad driving his Buick Century, with Mom along with him, accidentally hit a wild turkey
   The turkey was instantly killed and left a dent in the front fender
   Dad and Mom decided to pick up the bird’s carcass and put it in a sack they had in the trunk
   And then tell a highway patrol cop they found it, so as to report the damage done to the car for insurance purposes
   They would regret that, though, because the officer would not let them keep a “free” turkey to dress and eat
   (I can bet that cop probably enjoyed having that turkey himself on his barbecue grill for Thanksgiving!)

—Michelle Kunert

 

STUDY-YEAR
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

As if you wandered that city by a creed
outworn and long forgotten, as if you walked
through the mud to get there and away
again. One more milestone of a student’s
novel-of-awakening. A beggar with one leg
crutched himself across the market square
where you dickered for field-lettuce and lentils.
The cathedral stood brusque and bare,
no matter its gargoyles—pagan goatlings,
fanciful creatures suckled in stone they seemed,
leering down from their gutterings. A year
can stretch a single winter fog as the spherical
moon passed month by month, never peering
down through cloud. The beggar lifting
his face toward that cathedral. As if
you might wake at night and feel the ache
of something gone; a limb, a year.

_______________________

CITY GREEN
—Taylor Graham

In this vast city, midway on our journey
from where to there, can we find
a patch of weedy grass where our dog might lift
his ritual praises to the earth?
Off freeway, behind gas pumps, a cheap motel,

a strip of unkempt green. And here’s
a traveler on two legs with his own tall dog.
The man recites to us an ode
to his dog unshaven as he is; tells us how
he came here, no wheels, no rent,

no door to welcome his dog, not even
the homeless shelter. Just this strip of ragged
green. All he needs, he carries
on his back and in his hand a clothesline leash
attached to everything that loves him.

OPEN SPACE
—Taylor Graham

He asked her to move to the left
just a smidge, to get
a better angle from his spot
on shore, a sweeter composition—
his beloved on the rock like a castle
above its moat, the river
running bright as tiger teeth,
as fast. She edged
to the left, open space—
then she was clutching toward
forever
a flurry of air above rapids
as land fell away
from whatever his lens saw.

______________________

HEART OF THE FOREST
—Taylor Graham

From asphalt parking through this building-
complex—walls ramps stairs corridors.
My dog stops to sniff, mapping a concrete
landscape as wind from the east
rushes over roofs, shoots passageways, eddies
in alcoves. I follow my dog who charts
scent-trails dispersing, fermenting leaves blown
from ornamentals. Out the other side, more
asphalt. A gap in chainlink fence;
vacant lot. Beyond. If the forest has a door,
it might be this scuff worn in dirt
through underbrush in the shelter of oaks—
a rough path over roots, a window open to sky.

_____________________

FEEDING US ALL
—Taylor Graham



It’s dark as woods out the window, we’re waiting for a storm. I fill the hanging feeder for titmouse to peck, to scatter sunflower, cracked corn, millet seed on the deck for towhee, junco, white-crowned sparrow. Before the first raindrops I pick garden-greens for the hens. For the dogs, I’ll measure out generic kibble and puppy chow for Trek. Something simple for us humans at table.



winds are gathering,

oaks lift their branches, waiting—

rain will feed us all

_____________________



 
ASPEN MEDITATIONS

—Taylor Graham



We came as strangers to the forest, its doors


open if forests have a door. We meant to leave



the morning news behind. A trail beckoned


trekkers on foot through pine and fir and then



the aspen. Listen, its leaf tongues a-quiver,


song for improv winds and warbler-section;



its bark a parchment for Basque shepherds


remembering homes and sweethearts



half a globe away. One aspen tree so many


trees together rooted. Is the border open



yet from Kehl to Strasbourg, sisters spanning


the many-nationed Rhine? The world



a war unto itself on Flanders Field.


Today Brussels hides inside its walls. 



We come to aspen like a promised peace.


So many trees of one tree, roots in earth.   

 


Today's LittleNip:

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

—Louis L'Amour

______________________

—Medusa