Where She Wrote

Where She Wrote

 Where she wrote her "i" she would write it small.
Where she spoke her mind she would apologize.

Bob Komives

::

She said, "You scolded me for grammar.
    i was eight years old.
    A good man's daughter,
    i listened too well.
    i heard you speaking rules of where i belong,
    till what i had heard became my heart."

She wrote beautiful words as Shakespeare's daughter,
painted beautiful landscapes as nobody taught her.
Then she beat us up our mountainside
where we loved her so much
we beat her back down.

She said, "i thought you deeply loved me.
    i was age sixteen.
    A good man's student,
    i listened too well.
    i heard you whisper me my extra credit
    for what i learned of life in your bed."
   
She painted beautiful peaks as John Muir's daughter,
played beautiful guitar as nobody taught her.
Then she beat us up our river run
where we loved her so much
we beat her back down.

She wrote, "Please write, and please forgive me.
    i was twenty-four.
    A good man's lover,
    i tried not to hear,
    yet i knew our trade before you came and left;
    a sweet good-bye gets me your address."

She played beautiful chords as nobody taught her,
wrote beautiful songs as Shakespeare's daughter.
Then she beat us up our ladder steps
where we loved her so much
we beat her back down.

She sang, "Mister, I beg your pardon,
    but at thirty-two,
    a skeptical woman,
        i will run away
    if you try too hard to bring me happiness.
    For i trust my sadness more than you."

She left us her words and water-color landscapes,
and those beautiful songs that no one taught her.
But at forty years
--an old man's daughter--
she beat us to where our sadness starts
when she beat us up this barren hill
where we love her so much
we carry her down--
where we love her so much
we listen within
    to hear
    what she wrote
    on our hearts.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 1999 :: Where She Wrote :: ,9902

Looks Forward and Backward

Looks Forward and Backward

Bob Komives

::

He walked,
crossed a bridge (rebuilt since falling to the flood)
turned down-creek
...............to that house of that friend who left today,
carried loaded boxes from basement to truck,
and worked till all were gone.
Again, he walked,
crossed a bridge (replaced since floating away)
and turned down-creek
...............to this house of this friend who will stay.
Now, he talks,
sips bowl of soup and cup of coffee,
looks forward to his way back,
looks backward to his way here,
speaks of each way as a good way,
and calls this day, a good day.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 1999
Looks Forward and Backward :: ,9901

Away To Zimbabwe

Away to Zimbabwe : 1998
( abreviated )

Bob Komives

::

Why am I here tonight?
I must tell you truth.
I love to send people away--
especially this way--
to Zimbabwe.

Till now,
I had the misfortune to not truly know Jay Em,
but now I have the good fortune to meet her
and help you send her away--
to Zimbabwe.

We are here to give her a lift--
each in our way--
to Zimbabwe.

And my way goes by way of ignorance,
because I have never been there--
not even half way--
to Zimbabwe.

Yet I have traveled far
and found some of the depth in my ignorance.
Where this, perhaps, was said by me:

o o o

When I went to you, I went to help.
By the time I left
you had.

[ from: By The Time I Left ]

o o o

Is this why we want to send Jay away?
To take bits of we who stay?
To Zimbabwe
where more than eleven million people
who don't know us
have already worked and played this day.
Forty--four of every hundred are under age fifteen,
so, we wish they played a lot today;
it was Sunday;
and they are rising (as we sit)
to start the tasks of life--
of Monday--
in Zimbabwe.

And so we go as volunteers,
leaving loved ones,
leaving good ones,
meeting new ones,
meeting good ones
who will never know how good they are,
till we each feel like a taut and lonely string
that wants to pull distant attachments
to a place of ideal opportunity
where short, but common threads
would pull together,
forever,
for better.
Now, this, perhaps, is what troubled me:

o o o

We went southward from north winter
into tropic damp,
leaving and befriending
those that never meet.

[ from: Those That Never Meet ]

o o o

Can we meet the Bantu majority?
And the many minority?
We can speak the English
because it is official--
in language and in history.
For size, think Montana,
but thirty latitudinal degrees closer to the equator,
more like Chiapas,
or like a shorter Bolivia--
with high plateau, mountain, and lowland,
seven percent arable land,
worked by seventy percent of the people
who live in towns that Jay will walk into
never knowing what she will be taught
before she walks her way out.
This, perhaps, was taught to me:

o o o

Yes, these are pretty flowers.
Does not every village have such flowers?
Yes, this is my bench.
Does not every village have such benches?
...
Can there be village without benches?
Why have flowers but no bench to sit on?
Why have neighbors but no benches
for them to wander by?

[ from: Benches ]

o o o

Jay will wander by a land so far away
that of every thousand people she sees
most will have a bench,
but only twelve will have television,
one hundred twenty, a radio,
and seventeen may have a copy of today's newspaper.
Yet, eight hundred and fifty have learned to read.
So, we send Jay away--
to Zimbabwe--
to work with media there.
While here, perhaps, this happens to us:

o o o

According to a poll
released last week
by State University
and Press Mystique:
sex without love is at worst third best,
(The Journal Press Daily reported.)
and love without sex is at best third worst.
(The Press Daily Journal retorted.)

[ Press Released ]

o o o

More important,
in Zimbabwe
there are fifteen million chickens,
five million cattle,
three million goats,
half a million sheep--
and eleven million people
who die on average by age thirty-nine.
There are twenty-two thousand hospital beds,
but one million relatives, friends, and passers by
with cells infected by
Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

Just as important,
some four hundred years after the birth of Christ
the Bantu moved in
on top of strangers from the Iron Age,
and fourteen hundred years later
a Britsh man moved in--
on top.
His name was Cecil Rhodes.
Between making millions
in the diamond mines of South Africa
and giving millions
to his Rhodes Scholarships,
he got a charter
to make his own white-on-black Rhodesia.
And it stayed that way
till I was walking the roads of Guatemala,
my classmates were fighting in Vietnam
and on the streets back home,
and people in the southeast of Africa
were raising hell with a man named Ian Smith
who wanted to keep it Rhodes' way.
But the world got a conscience
and squeezed from the outside,
and people stayed upset,
swelled up on the inside,
and, in 1980, voted their way--
into Zimbabwe.

You may remember the drought of '92.
Or, if you are like me,
you just now looked it up--
under "Z"
for Zimbabwe--
where we find there is much to do
and most of us won't do it.
Or, I will go to Honduras
to help those whom I know better.
So, we help send some of the best of our people away
to wherever she can help,
to where she will learn what she already knows,
that no matter how much she gives there
she will never repay what she will there be given,
and we will never contribute enough
to pay for what she will bring back,
if she does come back here
before she goes back out,
and then comes back home,
and then goes back out,
and then comes back home again,
again.
And on this matter of going and coming,
this is, perhaps, advice from me:

o o o

You help family and friend
if you come back with a better label--
for yourself, a better label.
Coming back or going back,
what we call you
is what we believe of you
in the little time we have to think of you.

[ from: Thoughts On Coming Back and Going Back ]

o o o

Why am I here tonight?
Jay Em, I must tell you truth.
We send you away,
and then we wait
for the part of us
and the all of you
that you bring back--
your way--
from Zimbabwe.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 1998 :: Away to Zimbabwe :: ,9820

Snow Tunnels

Snow Tunnels

Bob Komives

::

Outside,
for hours
and days
I would tunnel in snow,
carve out a frozen world
of passage way,
shelter,
castle,
fort,
and igloo.

I would shovel snow into a large pile in the back yard, or make use of a pile my father had made as he shoveled out the alley behind our garage. I had friends, but this was my time to play alone. Seldom would those I did invite show necessary enthusiasm and endurance.

Inside,
for lunch,
stiff wool mittens or jersey gloves
to the radiator
where melting balls of snow
turn today's mittens
to limp and wet
and yesterday's
to warm and dry
to wear back out
after bowl of soup
for afternoon tunneling.

A coal shovel was the tool no bigger than I, but big enough to make my work productive. I would do finer work with bare hand or coffee can, but my work was never fine enough.

I never made the perfect tunnel,
nor perfect igloo,
nor finished castle.
Yet,
for so long as cold and snow and mittens held,
I went out most days to try.

Some days I overworked my quota of dry clothes and mittens. Some days there was too little snow, or the Minnesota cold was too bitter. I did not object when my mother bade me stay in.

Perfection came imagined
during inside days
on bed or living-room rug.
I could play with toy figures
across snowfields visible only to me.
I could make believe my way
to architectural perfection:
snow walls carved thin
to let sun in
to glimmer
like cathedral window.

Outside imagination is different from inside imagination. Snow and cold are quite real. They were my immediate environment for a few months each year. My clumsy skills at tunneling were real but improving. I only need imagine that the world outside my snow tunnel was free of back doors leading to warm kitchens, hot bowls of soup and motherly protection.

During outside daydream time,
alone in a snow tunnel,
I would imagine my life
if real life included the tunnel.
How fun it would be
to be an expert among people who live in snow.

When I grew big enough to be in fourth grade I found out about children who actually lived in the snow. They were Netsook and Klaya of Baffin Island, north of Canada and west of Greenland. I read about them in Visits In Other Lands, my 4th grade geography book at Saint Columba School. Yes, I had always remembered them, but, yes, I had forgotten the name of their book until my sister found a copy in an antique store during a visit to our home in Colorado. It had been her introduction to the world also, but she gave the book to me, sensing that I would treasure it and even read it again. This time around, I read the Foreword To The Teacher and discovered that these were imaginary children. The brother and sister in each chapter were created by the authors to give us an idea of different environments that challenge peoples of the earth and shape their cultures. In fourth grade I did not know these lofty goals, I only wished I could learn and use what these children knew to do.

However,
I lived among people who look out
to snow, rain, fog, and darkness
from warm, bright kitchens.

In the world of my people, I often became bored with my figures and their perfect snow structures, or found myself satisfied with plans for tomorrow's tunnel. During such days I would spend hours under kitchen furniture.

Inside our kitchen
I became an expert in chairs.
Four wooden, high-back chairs
became cockpit, wings and fuselage.
I would build airplanes
and fly the sky.

My mother seemed content to work around my obstruction. Now, I realize that as long as I was under foot in my airplane she need not worry about what trouble I was making. Back then, I just knew she was patient and kind. Mostly, I did not notice her.

Kitchens require concentrated imagination.
Chairs look nothing like airplanes.
Linoleum floor is neither cloud nor sky.
Nor should there be radio,
hissing pots,
telephone rings,
nor sky-walking,
loud talking
visitor giants.

I am sure I spent more time in my kitchen airplane than in my backyard snow tunnels. The airplane was as good for a rainy day in summer as for a winter day that was too mild or too bitter.

I know I loved my kitchen-chair airplane.
I know I gave piloting more time than tunneling,
yet, I remember snow tunneling better
and miss it more.

When my daughters were four and six years old we lived in a house with a picnic table out back. This was an unusually snowy winter for the island of Martha's Vineyard. As the table became a mound of snow I saw an opportunity. My daughters could experience some of what I had experienced. I wanted to play again.

For my children,
I shoveled snow
on top of snow
on top of table,
a marvelous mound
for a marvelous igloo.
I tunneled part way in
before putting them and friends to tunneling.
I was out of scale
and a damper to fun.
From inside the house,
at a window,
I could watch,
catch a glimpse now and then
of their tunneling and their play.
It was my day for joy and envy.

That day came before our move west, and before rediscovery of Netsook and Klaya. In Colorado I discovered the joy of summer in the back country. For a long while I thought I would also enjoy snow camping. It would be fulfillment of my childhood fantasy. Away from back doors and warm kitchens, I could live for a few days each winter in and around a snow cave a snow tunnel I would make out of necessity in a real world of snow. I held to that fantasy of winter perfection until a friend reminded me that the winter night is fifteen hours of darkness. For Netsook and Klaya a winter day would be all night. Would they if they had a choice choose to spend even fifteen hours, night after night, in their igloo? That is not for me to know, but question alone was enough to make up my mind. I would learn how to make a snow cave for a real emergency, not fulfillment of fantasy.

Today,
a winter day,
inside
among fantasy of youth
and practicality of adulthood,
I look out into cold and snow
wishing dining room chairs to be large enough
to be
for me
a good airplane.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 2002 :: Snow Tunnels :: 0212

I Live Where Strangers Smile.

I Live Where Strangers Smile.

Bob Komives

::

I live where strangers smile--
where we acquire kinship-by-encounter
on common paths with crossing points--
where the names we seem to have forgotten
are those we have yet to learn.
Rather than meet
up-and-down
ear-by-ear
by elevator,
we meet
face-to-face
on ramp and stair.
Our doorholding
gets traded among old and young--
so we need not know which we are.
Our thank you
(if warranted)
gets given.
Our information
(if needed)
gets exchanged.
Our frivolous word or friendly observation
(if it might fit)
might get fitted.
I live in a place with public smiles for private eyes
on common paths with crossing points.
If you know such place,
perhaps you too know me.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 1998
I Live Where Strangers Smile :: ,9819