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    , darklya pastoral elegy

    Mr. Jacques

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    , darkly

    by Mr. Jacques

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    Mr. Jaques, 2010

    First Edition

    This copy is number ____/1800

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    I dedicate this poem to her family and to those who

    loved her.

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    ...If only I could nudge you from this sleep,

    My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.

    Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:

    I, with no rights in this matter,Neither father nor lover.

    -Roethke, Elegy for Jane

    12 For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then

    face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I

    know even as also I am known.

    -I Corinthians 13:12

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    , darkly

    Part One: Prayer to Katrina Pyrrha,

    Friday Morning, June 10th, 2005, 9:00 a.m.

    Hello Katrina, Mr. Jacques here.

    Its been three weeks since Ive seen you, my dear.Three weeks, tomorrow, since you roared acrossThe Deluel Theater stage, and did accost

    The wives in scenes from Taming of the Shrew.

    You nailed the part of Kate. Longwood High SchoolsTheatric program, Shakespeare Troupe, spelled all.

    The Mid-state High School Shakespeare Festival

    Longwood, Deluel, and Hinderland Valley They laughed so when you, down upon one knee:

    My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

    Your velvety green gown. You, such a tease.Your veiled cone hat, such innocence;

    Your snarl, domination, so intense;

    Skin white, your pony tail black; frame thinYet muscular; Kates mix of strength and sin

    You symbolized with glasses, super-nerd,

    Contrasted with those SHOUTED LINES we heard

    What a performance! Just three weeks ago . . .And now, is this green lawn your stage?

    I knowYouve done a lot with just a bit before

    A six-foot square of grass, though, seems small. Nor

    Is it yours alone. Youll always shareThis theater green with Alec Anders, fair-

    Haired, tall, magician, blonde Petruchio-

    Like character who shook schools status quoWith just a smile. Both Seniors, both eighteen.

    Both took the hardest classes. Both were seenOn every eld and every stage Longwood

    Did offer . . .You both took your nal drive

    On Monday, May the Twenty-third, aliveThrough seven p.m., when Accident mated you

    For all of time. And now, these quiet few,Your audience; Cemetery Hill,Your silent auditorium . . . so still . . .

    . . . No, Katrina, no, it cannot be . . .

    Why, it was just a month ago, at three

    I walked to Longwoods auditorium

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    , darkly

    Part Two: Letter to Ed Bourne

    Summer and Fall, 2005

    A. The Window, Cracked

    Last spring, a window to the Kingdom Dear(The Kingdom Christ, in Thomas, says is here)

    Did burst, admitting two.

    By God, twas bade?Impossible.

    Then: why?

    The more Ive madeConnections tween their deaths and some events

    From just before, the more Im on the fence.

    Did ambiguities foreshadow? Signs Just half-deciphrable, Green-Flash-like shines Appeared? Or has my reason from grief ed?

    Am I imposing order when, instead,I should just grieve the shards left here? Ignore

    The little gleams that glistened just before?

    When did this cruelest light rst glimmer through

    The glass? I trace it back to talks with you.

    I asked if you would read a manuscriptI wrote, a book about a girl who slipped

    Away into the Afterlife. Her ghost

    Was found by a young boy, who then did boastAbout his friend . . . You read the book; we talked.

    You said your parents, too, had ghosts that walked

    Their home at night. Once, just beyond Moms feetThe eyes of pale men and hers did meet . . .

    And then you told a story that your Dad

    Told you: some Reeses Mini-Cups he hadEnsconced in a glass kitchen candy tray

    Just disappeared. To where? He couldnt say.

    Weeks passed, and then your fathers eyes were drawnTo cushions on the couch. Your father moved

    The seat cushion, and saw a glint. It provedTo be but one of all the Reeses, allAligned against the couchs rear. He saw

    The line of candies, asked your mom, but she

    Did not do it why would she? It couldnt beThe two of them. But no one else lived in

    The house. Your fathers friend said, with a grin

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    (He, too, had lived with ghosts around), Thats just

    The way they do.Then, Ed, you stood there, hushed . . .

    Both English teachers at Longwood, we said

    Wed have to talk some more in days ahead.

    Just after we conversed, Two Thousand Five

    Began. A student teacher brought aliveMy classroom; in the librarys great calm

    I read. My book? What Dreams May Come.

    One qualm,Although, stopped me from reading Matheson:

    Our Afterlife discussions left me none

    Too hopeful. Skepticism in me turnsInto depression quick . . . and so, one learns

    To just avoid some things.

    And so I choseA book I doubted would evoke the woes

    That Dreams might cause what could be more devoid

    Of supernatural concerns than thatWhich only commented? So down I sat

    With Nabokovs Pale Fire: The Magic OfArtistic Discovry. Although I loveV. Nabokov, Ive never understood

    Him. Literary criticism would

    Illuminate. I turned to Brian Boyd.But that which I had wanted to avoid

    Turned out to be Boyds thesis.

    On I read.Boyd shows that Nabokov believed the dead

    Communicate with this world, here, by sign

    And symbol. Nabokovs ornate design:Dark mirror; spirit-laden butteries;

    Of Four Quartets, and toilets; of disguise;

    Above it all, an end to random thingsAnd atheism. Pale Fire sings

    Of levels of design surpassing all

    Our comprehension. Death is not a wall;

    It is a window to a life, perhaps,Against which this worlds re pales. Traps,

    Conundrums theological requireAn improved map, and genius. Yeats Gyre?

    To Homers Voyage let our minds aspire(if one reads through N.s self-reexive haze . . . ) . . .

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    But why should anguish last beyond our breath?

    So, its the best of life Death of us rids?

    . . . and did this same thing happen to these kids? . . .

    Despite this crack, the window of What DreamsMay Come shines optimistically, and seems

    To jive with all Ive heard and read aboutThe Afterlife.

    I lent you it. Your shout:

    My God! It starts so frightening! Then: YouRead B?

    Its next, I said. About death, too?

    Yep.Oh.

    So then I read The Story of B

    By Daniel Quinn. Again the litanyI found in Nabokov and Matheson:

    We dont go anywhere when we are done

    On Earth. We are the Earth. We do not die.We transmigrate back here, not to the sky.

    The truth about the soul, believed by thoseWho lived ten thousand years ago, Quinn knows,Is true today, and proved by every blade

    Of grass, by eagle, fox, and deer in glade.

    From them were borrowed, and soon well be returnedTo them, yes, every last atom. Though turned

    To dust, to insect, animal, or sod,

    Were always here, held in the hand of God.Our ancestors turned human, Quinn opines,

    When they became interpreters of signs.

    And then in March the window cracked some more:

    This theme which had found me in books before

    Did now begin to speak. My reverse searchContinued at the Unitarin Church.

    The Worship Associate stood before the mike.

    His robust, deep, melodious voice rang like

    A tenor saxophone; the metal caneHe leaned on clicked. He spoke straight-forward. Plain.

    Incongruous Wally Jorghay! Irishman,At six foot tall, with barrel chest, one can

    Mistake him for a Mountain Man, with hisRed annel shirt and jeans, but his visage

    Still trembles from the touch of Illness. Twice

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    , darkly 13

    Hes died, and twice hes been revived. Precise

    Descriptions of the Afterlife he sharedWith us: A Goddess Mother held and cared

    For him. The light. The friends and family.

    Serene and blissful immortality.

    Take it from one who knows. Ive always beenRight here. Ill die. My soulll rejoin my kin

    Right here, somewhere around this place. No careOf death, now. Im not going anywhere.

    A few weeks later: Afterlife again.

    The Worship sociate, Wilbur Doyle, whenBefore the congregation, spoke not from

    Experience like Wally did. The sum

    Of decades spent on Afterlife researchSupported Doyles claims. He stood in church

    The opposite of Jorghay: older, slight,

    His voice a trembly whisper, though, still quiteInsistent in his tone. He sermoned all

    With his Out of this World We Cannot Fall.

    The gist: when death parts soul from skinOur essence stays right here, and will begin

    An other life existence on this earth.Well gain new perspectives, powers birth;Lose mortal coil. So, Will said, life evolved.

    As proof, Will told a story which involved

    Cokeville, Wyoming, Nineteen Eighty-Six:Another madman with a bomb, who picks

    A school, corrals the children, makes demands;

    A spirit of a relative, passed, standsNext to each child before the blast occurs;

    And after, angels guide them, each assuresSafe passage out; one hundred thirty-ve

    Kids live; except the bomber, all survive.

    Because of evidence, I now believe

    We, spirits all, survive death. Death, relieveUs of our bodies, but you cannot take

    Our souls, he spoke. Our brain? It does not make

    Our consciousness. No, rather its the brain

    Thats made by consciousness. This PlaneOf Material Existence requires

    It, so that souls may sing from earthly choirs.I spoke to you in May about these men.

    How odd the timing seemed. You wondered, then,

    Had theyread B?

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    Who thought, just weeks from June,

    The theoryd become practice quite so soon.

    B: Through the Window

    A week before the accident, you taughtThe AP Lit class for a week. You brought

    Techniques for better speechmaking, spiredBy F. M. Alexander, and required

    Each student in the class to speak for three

    Timed minutes. Topic? While the kids were freeTo choose, they had to speak on just one word.

    Among the class sat Alec Anders, heard

    To be spectacular, although you twoHad never met. So Alecs speech came due:

    He stood before the class exuding sheer

    Charisma. Smile. Then he uttered Fear.He feared death. His own. Reason being, his lack

    Of faith in God. He wanted proof. That track

    Of footprints in the sand hed see beforeHe would believe, and hed seen none. Ignore

    Religion? No: hed read, hed thought, hed tried.He felt that when we died, we just, well, died.Right after class, you gave him B, and said

    Go read it. It will soothe your pangs of dread.

    So Alec jumped into The Story of B

    As he did everything, with both feet. Three

    Days later, two-thirds done, he said Youre right,

    And Ill be done with Story of B tonight.That night, at seven p.m., their souls pass,

    Their essence wrung through press of shattered glass

    Just then, you looked at your computer, clickedThe purchase button. Once again, you picked

    The Story of B, so Alecd keep the book

    Youd lent him.Morning came to a school shook:

    The pre-dawn phone chain. The blank red eyes

    Of teachers incredulous, students cries

    Of loss. The empty chairs.Addressing those

    Attending AP Lit, you bravely choseTo speak truth: Alec faced his fear last night . . .

    Then later, just past noon, I saw you right

    Inside the librarys glass doors. You leftThe library, and said, just as you stepped

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    , darkly 15

    Toward me, You know? The time was seven-o-three

    For book and crash. Connection? There must be.Yes, Ed, yes, there certnly has to be,

    Yes, Ed, yes, there certnly has to be.

    p.s.: Thats how I felt that Tuesday afternoonAnd so I felt for many weeks. But soon

    Routines warm rays, eclipsed no more, did reign.The quick, Ed, live.

    I looked into the pane,

    Found only dirt; my broken heart, still sore,So sore, began to scab; the grass did bore

    Its roots into the ground, and mend. Resume.

    Belief, have I, in dubito ergo sum.And yet theres that which I will never doubt.The re screen, for instance: standing out

    Before the stage, November practice, nightA year ago, the Shakespeare Troupe in ight

    Around the auditorium, I spied

    A brown thing, wide, just as the stage is wide,Descending slowly down from curtain top

    Towards the stage. It made no noise. The dropWas steady ease, like batter, choclate cake,The folds, when pouring bowl to pan, does make?

    Thats how it looked as it cascaded down.

    Proscenium arch now closed!I looked around:

    The kids all stopped and stood, like me, agog.

    One touched it: burlap.Panic, then, did jog

    My mind: could I get to the kids back stage?

    OK, were they?I yelled.

    They yelled OKs

    Back.Whew!

    Then I recalled that we had doors

    That led backstage. Duh.

    Gazing at the coarseDivider, soundproof, someone interjects:

    Its called a re curtain. It protects

    The audience in case of re.

    You pull

    A ring backstage, another says, voice shrill,Excited.

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    Polly did it, yelled a kid.

    And why?You know just wondered what it did.

    . . . I know . . .

    The next day Ruthy laughed when she

    Received toy re truck. All laughed with glee.Katrinas present.

    . . . When the students madeA DVD memorial, Ruthy playedWith this same re truck as she spoke of

    Katrina memories, and fun, and love . . .

    The stories, books, church testimonials,

    Coincidence, the re screen: like quills,Ed, shards of anti-glass still in me stick.

    Sharp fragments. Piece together some, and quick,

    A web; go reconstruct the window dearComplete: it clears, then disappears from here.

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    , darkly 1

    Part Three: Notes to SelfFall, Winter, Summer 2005-2006

    1.

    Where have you gone, Katrina? Where, my dear?

    For months Ive looked and listened for you here.

    What have I found?One moth, about the size

    Of a small hummingbird (I thought its guiseAlluded to the buttery in Pale

    Fire): sitting in my car on the paved trail

    Close to your grave, I rolled the window down.

    In ew a moth, large, gray. It uttered round

    My windshield. My mind amazed, my hand

    Kept doing what, before the moth, Id planned,

    Which was to roll the window up. For justA moment, there in the car, our lives touched.

    One dream, December Twenty-fourth: while I

    Speak with a girl, she soon begins to cry

    I am in my school room; its Shakespeare Club

    Katrina isnt dead, Her hands, white, rubher eyes. Katrina Im Katrina. God!

    Again, confused!

    I look again. Thats odd . . .

    Shes not Katrina . . . Recognize her? . . . No . . .

    Then I awoke on Christmas Day.

    And so

    Thats it, besides the many tingle times

    When I believe youre near.I wrote these rhymes

    In part to nd you, feeling so bereft

    Youre gone a year, though never quite have left.

    2.

    And where was I at seven p.m.? I wish

    I knew. We ate. Perhaps I washed a dishOr watched TV. No signs or symbols there.

    Yet, off to see the funeral of the pair

    I jumped into the car, I turned the key:The battery was dead. I couldnt seeThe reason why. Itd been ne.

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    That night

    When I returned to jump the car, despiteMy numrous tries, it wouldnt hold a charge

    And would need towed. This incident loomed large

    For me symbolically. What did it mean?

    Im superstitious? Skeptic? In between?

    3.

    I visit Bingham Colleges Library

    Elysium: PS. For bribery,I dont use blood from goats, but ink, to call

    Them from their leather-bound (phew!) musty thrall.

    You there! John Milton! Poet, father ofThe English Elegy. I feel the love

    You bore for Edward King, your salty tears,

    Theyve buoyed your poem a couple hundred years,But what did you get out of writing it?

    Fame? Immortality? Thats great. Did quit

    The constant roar of loss? Did calm the wavesOf anger? Lighthouse-like, did it the graves

    Most recent conquest help you nd? The shade(and Kinbote), William Parker, said you madeyour peace with Kings death was that true?

    To morrow to fresh Woods and Pastures new.

    Next? Percy Shelley, always passion-seized,You loved Keats. As tuberculosis eased

    Him down into his watry grave, it must

    Have devastated you, who did entrustPerception of ones life to feelings so,

    Did Adonais soothe your hurt (White, though

    Not as verbose as Parker, also writesAbout your deeds and not your heart)? Requites

    The poem your wound? Did it, as this one, fail,

    And leave you only with the urge to sail . . .I bow to you more deeply than the rest,

    Alfred Lord Tennyson. You loved him best,

    Your subject, Arthur Henry Hallam. Friend,

    To marry Emily did he intendAnd be your brother-in-law then sixteen years

    Of mourning. In Memoriam. Your tearsDid not stop there. You mourned his death until

    Your own. Ulysses-like, you chronicle

    Your odyssey of hurt and healing whileOutlasting long depressions did this trial

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    , darkly 1

    Give you perspective? Was it worth the pain?

    Was it your choice to see or go insane?Ricks, Lounsbury, they hint, but do not say . . .

    It must have helped to keep the Dark at bay . . .

    You lost and gained most, and asked no fee

    Of In Memoriam except to be.Walt Whitman, you, now. Heart as big and wide

    As all America, our Shelley, guideTranscendent and unbridled did that scent

    (I smell them now) ameliorate your rent

    soul? Lilacs, Lincoln, lilacs, love, a door,Let Lincoln pass, lack, lies, adore, no more . . .

    My God! Your nation sliced, then Genius slain,

    How did you not go mad and die from pain?The book on you by Loving does not say.

    Your anguish, how you coped, with you doth lay.

    You, John Peale Bishop, Princeton man, the friendOf one whom much too early reached his end,

    You had the writers urge, gonnections rife,

    But not the muse. But, still, your words have life,Resuscitated by Fitzgeralds breath

    Did it assuage your sorrow oer his deathTo see The Hours there in print amongThe other elegies? How were you stung,

    His Tom dInvillers, his Boswell? White

    Reports the light of facts, not Psyches night.Now, Roethke, who in Pennsylvania taught

    In Elegy for Jane your students caught

    In snapshots, various birds, the lens. UnlikeFitzgerald, Lincoln, Ill know Roethkes pike,

    Jane Bannick, only through your poem, as I

    Suppose that some will know Katrina byThese plaintive feet exclusively. You taught

    Jane for one course, Seager writes; you brought

    Your elegy to her damp grave: soothed you,Did this? And mollify the scent of rue?

    With books stacked high on table, spirit churns!

    I think of Keats, and of his Grecian urns . . .

    4.

    why why why why why

    why why why why

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    5.

    The Afterlife: The Evidence and We

    Dont Die: dismissed by logic easily.

    The Roman Catholic view: dont mess with it.

    The Afterlifes a door though which may tAn evil spirit. Pray, and leave it shut.

    And Protestants: the Afterlife is butA detail when compared with ARE YOU SAVED?

    The Unitarians (if they craved

    To know the Afterlife), are more concernedWith living here and now, and havent learned

    About the kingdom where were all to go.

    Yet, millions just like me today, with noEquivocation as to whats to come:

    Death leads us back to where we just came from.

    Reincarnation? Doubtless tenet inReligions East (like Westerners and Sin).

    They raise their kids, and laugh, and shed a tear,

    And so they live, today, not far from here.

    6.

    Your high school Shakespeare: preparation, mere.

    Thats what I thought. Turned out your whole career

    Was acted out in Longwood. Funny howThen, lost, can teach about the Here and Now.

    7.

    My life: I was supposedto marry twice,

    Was meantto move to Deluel, and thriceHave kids, because they would not not be born

    I proudly don the life that fate adorns.

    County Cumberland, my Harney Peak!Years past, my life and that which I did seek

    Seemed only to diverge. But that was crap.

    Ive found that which I sought, and sense the map.

    Your talents and your ingenuity,They thrived at our small school. Your antic glee,

    Admired, imitated, envied . . . youAccomplished more than most will ever do.

    Welcome to the Hotel Pennsylvania.Cant understand? Perhaps twill entertain ya.

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    , darkly 21

    My life? Katrinas life? Both meaningless.

    Inconsequential. Done. More or less.

    * * *

    THE KNOT-GOD

    Behold (or dont) the Knot-God, here and thereAnd everywhere, and, true, at times, nowhere . . .

    Enigma, to be sure! Lets celebrate

    The God of Contradictions, small and great!

    8. Knot-God, Side A: The Comfort of Christ

    The kingdom of God will not come if you watch for it. 21Nor

    will anyone be able to say It is here or It is there. For the

    kingdom of God is within you.- Luke 17:20

    They asked him: When is the Kingdom coming? He replied: It isnot coming in an easily observable manner. People will not be

    saying Look, its over here or Look, its over there. Rather,the Kingdom of the Father is already spread out on the earth,and people arent aware of it.

    - Thomas, saying 113

    31 The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which is smaller

    than any other seed; 32 but when it is sown, it grows up and

    becomes the largest of shrubs, and puts forth large branches,so that the birds of the sky are able to make nests in its shade.

    - Mark 4:31

    44 The kingdom of God is like a treasure buried in a eld,

    which a man found and buried again; then in his joy he goesand sells everything he has and buys that eld.

    - Matthew 13:44

    The Kingdom of the Father is like a woman who was carrying

    a jar full of grain. As she walked along a handle of her jarbroke off and grain trickled out, but she didnt notice. When

    she arrived in her house, she put the jar down and found itempty.

    - Thomas, saying 97

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    9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of

    God.- Matthew 5:9

    People think, perhaps, that I have come to throw peace

    upon the world. They dont know that I have come to throwdisagreement upon the world, and re, and sword, and

    struggle.- Thomas, saying 16a

    9. Knot-God, Side A: The Comfort of Literature

    Karamazov! Kolya cried, is it really true what religion says,

    that we shall all rise up from the dead and come to life andsee one another again, and everyone, even Ilyushechka?

    Without question we shall rise, without question we shall see

    one another and joyfully tell one another everything that hashappened, half-laughing, half in ecstacy, Alyosha replied.

    - Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

    . . . To die,--to sleep;--

    To sleep! perchance to dream:--ay, theres the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shufed off this mortal coil,

    Must give us pause . . .

    . . . the dread of something after death,--The undiscoverd country, from whose bourn

    No traveller returns,--puzzles the will . . .

    - Shakespeare, Hamlet

    10. Knot-God, Side C: The Comfort in Finding the Knot

    Meaning of Life

    . . . Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you arefacing a contradiction, check your premises. You will nd that

    one of them is wrong. Contradictions. When you encounterdifculties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but

    bend them with gentleness and time. Contradictions. Do I

    contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I amlarge, I contain multitudes. Contradictions. Foolish consistencyis the hobgoblin of small minds. Contradictions. Forgive me,

    Kitty, they dont call me a bundle of contradictions for nothing!

    Contradictions. To accept an unorthodoxy is always to inheritunresolved contradictions. The true test of a rst-rate mind is the ability to

    hold two contradictory ideas at the same time and still function.Contradictions . . .

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    , darkly 23

    I do not say that God is wrong. And Im

    No Nietzsche, not a Russell. How sublimeIt is, here on the edge of town, to know

    This problems mine!

    The Kingdom will not show

    Itself, no matter how or where or whenI look, and if it were revealed, then

    I wouldnt recognize it (meaning, couldBe, of my Christmas dream); or seeing would

    But shatter into contradictions self-

    Negating, leaving me before the GulfA blind man . . .

    Or Id see myself . . .

    . . . have, sinceI started this (they also serve who stand and wince) . . .

    . . . that it is all simple nonsense no one can tell who or what,but in spite of all these uncertainties and double-dealings, it

    hurts you just the same, and the less you know, the more it hurts.

    - F. M. Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

    * * *

    11.

    Her essence gone? Obliterated fromThe Earth? And from the Universe?

    Then comeThis dark t once again! Intent and act,

    Through history, by Eliots shadow sacked

    No meaning, just a Vonnugutan joke

    A couple broken windows mostly smoke

    (((and yet, this bag of mostly water, who writes

    upon this yellow pad to capture plights

    neutrino-like, as dust in wind, he knows

    that each impression he records explodes

    more brightly in improbability

    than any star or world or galaxy)))

    12.

    At night, when I recall to pray for you,

    Its these philosophers whom I review:Soren Kierkegaard (prayer changes one who prays),

    And Blaise Paschal (potential good outweighs

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    The dour futility of addressing

    A God of Knot), George Anderson (those throughThe windows of this world will benet

    From prayers, though he says not how) . . . my eyebrows knit,And, lying in doubts dark, I nally say

    Dear God, please help Katrina on her way.

    13.

    Life! I love thee!

    Life! I hate thee!Life! I am thee!

    Life! I am thee not!

    14.

    This is / is not my Notes from Underground.It is / is not your letter of recommendation.

    How much more of this can you take?

    15.

    A year of metered mourning: therapy.And for Katrina, OK elegy.

    Yet, what did I accomplish, with this said?

    Im still confused. Katrina still is dead.

    16.

    Ed Bourne, and Wally Jorghay, Willy Doyle:

    In summer I did not see them (oft on

    Nice summer Sundays, I skip church, stay home,Remodel, paint, or read, or write a poem).

    September, I saw none at church. I feared

    The windows andthe men had disappeared.

    And then, as autumn reddened, they returned.

    Ed Bourne no longer worked with me, but turned

    Up at the church, as he had said he would.The new school pays much better, kids as good . . .

    And as we talked, I saw Will Doyle thereAcross the Social Hall from us.

    So where

    You been? I said, and introduced Ed Bourne.Out picking apples

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    (Will had long deplored

    The yoke of full-time work, and chose insteadTo work at seasonal jobs. Of course, this led

    To apple harvesting in orchards west

    Of here in Adams County). Will addressed

    The Story of B (suggested by Ed throughMe): Will had loved it, liked Quinns point of view

    On Animism, permanence of soul,Recorded history as not the whole

    But just a part of human life on earth

    (Will knows what living Giving Life is worth) We switched to things wed lately heard and said,

    Things that concern the quick and not the dead.

    Then in November Wally Jorghay spokeAt Sundays Joys / Concerns. Some of us folk

    There heard him say his health remained

    The same, but his eldest son, now trainedTo ght, would leave soon for Iraq. This weighed

    On him. Ive not seen Jorghay since, have stayed

    A stranger unto him: weve never met.I know him not; his words Ill not forget.

    We are changed, all, Katrina. None are whomWe were a year ago. We must assume

    This, since being equals growth (George Andersonet al. say we still grow when our lives done).I dont believe that anybody feels

    The same way, too, as time our hours steals.

    17.

    You dont belong upon that too still hill O gurrrrl! Epitome of change! What will

    Change there? Your grave: a still-life, pink and white;

    Your spirit: rock tunes wailed by stars at night.

    And yet, when I stood up there in the fall

    I heard schools marching band, its drums, a call

    By someone with a megaphone. The sameTime it occurred to me youd hear the game,

    The Longwood football scrimmages, and track,The Shakespeare Troupes post-practice yackity-yack,

    A song from this years musical, a thump

    When cars in parking lots wont take a jump . . .

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    I guess that everyone must be somewhere.

    So Ill be here, for now. And youll be there . . .

    18.

    This poems bout Katrina Pyrrha, dear,By one whos, yet, for now, still standing here.

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    References

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    Boyd, Brian. Nabokovs Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic

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    Dickinson, Emily. They Say That Time assuages --americanpoems.com. American Poems AP. 2000-09 Web.

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    Dostoyevsky, F. M. The Brothers Karamazov: a New Translation.David McDuff, tr. London: Penguin Books, 1993.

    Dostoyevsky, F. M. Notes from Underground. Robert G. Durgy,

    ed. Serge Shishkoff, Tr. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Library,1969.

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    1809 to 1850]. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1915.Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. Berkeley:

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    Matheson, Richard. What Dreams May Come. New York: Tor

    Books, 1978.Milton, John. Lycidas. The Oxford Book of English Verse:

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    1996.

    Quinn, Daniel. The Story of B. New York: Bantam, 1997.Ricks, Christopher. Tennyson. 2nded. Berkeley: Univ. of

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    Roethke, Theodore. Elegy for Jane. Selected Poems of T.Roethke. Gawow.com. Ga Moon, Ga Stars, Ga WOW! n.d.Web. 26 Dec. 2009.

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    White, Robert L. John Peale Bishop. New York: TwaynePublishers, Inc., 1966.

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    *

    Attribution of quotes, in order, page 22:

    Ayn Rand

    Saint Francis de SalesWalt Whitman

    Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Anne FrankGeorge Orwell

    F. Scott Fitzgerald

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    . . . Time is a Test of Trouble

    But not a remedy If such it prove, it prove too

    There was no Malady

    -- Emily Dickinson

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    Jacques tale is riveting. Readers will

    be spiraled into a world of pain and deepcontemplation. And then - the need to grasp

    for any type of hope for a secure future, one

    free from the shadow of loss.- Rosalind Byron