Given and Taken

 

 

Quandary, if obvious and necessary,
is not quandary but matter of fact.

Ponder:
how breeze be more vast than its meadow,
yet meadow be much more than its wind;
how river be greater than valley,
and valley greater than water within;
how mystery multiplies within and around us
if in science we explore each nook and space.
And roommate, classmate, teammate,  friend:
how our embrace holds far more than meaning,
yet meaning holds all we embrace.

I plan to scribble this week:
both a picture and a poem.

Read this week:
something neglected
and sitting around.

Study this week:
language and science,
new and forgotten.

I plan:
to prune and weed—a little,
coddle a fresh egg and some older scribbles,
cobble a little table,
do a little healthful exercise.

This week will likely:
surprise me
at unplanned time
with something and someone new,
take me over sad-but-noble miles 
to new ashes of old friend.

Give me a moment or two
for these thoughts and thoughts of you.


At a loss for words it remains our privilege to use them.
To both describe good fortune and mourn good friends
To remember that a rainbow
needs both warm sun on our back 
and weeping cloud over head.

We were in so many ways green,
strangers, somewhat strange,
thrown—by good choice—together.
To survive and to thrive.
800—give and take.
800  individuals.
We picked up a longer than long long rope,
pulled together—and won.
pulled together—as one.

Onto this green place from disparate places.
We spoke surprisingly different dialects
of what we thought was the “King's English”.
We shared personal stories as we shared a new life.

Did I ever tell you about the postal clerk,
a nameless hero.
Seven blocks from my home,
seven minutes after closing,
he heard the panic in my phone call,
took a nickle from his pocket,
found my envelope,
gave it the stamp and postmark
that put me here with you sixty years ago—
puts me here with you today. 

Did I ever thank you
for your having the flu during fall final exams
and then a beer on our train to Chicago?
Because of you,
an angry-attractive stranger attacked me in the aisle:
“I want you to move your drunken friend off my seat!”
A few years later that stranger became my wife.

And which of you 
did we roust out of bed on a snowy morning, 
because the bond we had formed in our classroom 
made us less than whole without you?

At a loss for words it remains our privilege to use them.
By our shared choice and individual fates
We are here
to remind ourselves 
and to tell the world:
Remember us as 800—give and take.

Fort Collins © 2025 :: Bob Komives :: Given and Taken  :: 2503

 

 

 

Personal Note: I had the honor to present this at the Memorial Service of the 60th Reunion of the class of 1965 of Dartmouth College, in Rollins Chapel, on June 18th, 2025. "Given and Taken" weaves my thoughts and feelings of that day with three poems I had written earlier: "Quandary ... ";  "Scribbles ..."; "Inspired ...".