The Girl, the Dog, and Poetry

“Cassie, are you ready yet?”

This is not an unusual question when our youngest daughter is home. We are off to my brother’s house to exchange Christmas gifts and we are running a little late. Cassie pops into the kitchen with a smile on her face and, after the usual conversation about remembering things, we head out the driveway. As often happens, I glide up next to our mailbox so Jeanette can grab the mail on our way out.

“You have a package from David.”

My friend David Steingass is a poet and every Christmas he writes a poem to share.  The package is something special.
“He has sent a book of poetry along with his Christmas poem. Shall I read it?”
And Jeanette began to read David’s poem entitled “Girl Walking Her Dog In Vilas Park At Dawn”.  From the opening line -“His legs moved like brown tuning forks” – David’s poem and Jeanette’s reading transformed a mundane afternoon drive into a heart felt conversation about a dog, a girl, and poetry. About the power of words to capture images, as well as the affection of the poet for both dog and girl.  How sweet is that?  He even got the ultimate compliment from Cassie, “That was SO cool.”

Most important, I think David’s poem does what all good poems do – it changes the way we see the world. We will never again drive past the stone bridge in Vilas Park without seeing this “morally sensible” dog choosing his own route or wondering how much the dog’s consciousness depends on the “Girl”.   I love poems.

Thanks, David

Girl Walking Her Dog In Vilas Park At Dawn

By David Steingass

His legs move like brown

tuning forks. His gait’s an automatic
transmission with fluid drive
suspension. All his awareness

the result of extended

dialog. He’s illegal, this dog
in Vilas Park, but only when his feet touch
the ground if he’s running loose

which his moral sensibility would

never allow. And
he’s so cute. Some kind of terrier with fox-
pointy ears, and a scruffy thick wiry coat

spliced with Belgian farm dog genes.

Say a turverin’s, wired to jump
under buses in her place.
Past the zoo’s main gate, over the lagoon’s

stone bridge, his consciousness evolves

as they go. If he can’t respond
yet, his walk makes plain he knows
each day’s route is his to choose.

 From

echolocations – poets map madison

Cowfeather Press
PO Box 620216
Middleton, WI 53562
cowfeatherpress.org

A Child's Eyes

We had everybody home and making Christmas cookies in the kitchen last night. There was laughter and music and even some flying cookie dough, but the final collection is colorful and eclectic. The kitchen is clean and quiet now at dawn.  The sun is just starting to light the eastern horizon. It is December 24^th and I am grateful that my children are snuggled in their beds upstairs.  We will spend the next two days with family and friends recalling and laughing about earlier Christmas celebrations. And we will marvel how the little children in our clan will love the thought that someone they can’t see is bringing them presents. We will also smile when we recall our own childhood recollections. We may also feel a little melancholy.  I think Robert Fulghum said it best, “It’s harder to talk about, but what I really, really, really want for Christmas is just this: I want to be 5 years old again for an hour. I want to laugh a lot and cry a lot. I want to be picked up and rocked to sleep in someone’s arms, and carried up to bed just one more time.”  We know we can’t go back again, but we can still see Christmas through a child’s eyes.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year.

A Poem:

Christmas Sparrow

by Billy Collins

The first thing I heard this morning

 was a rapid flapping sound, soft, insistent—

wings against glass as it turned out

downstairs when I saw the small bird
rioting in the frame of a high window,
trying to hurl itself through
the enigma of glass into the spacious light.

Then a noise in the throat of the cat

who was hunkered on the rug
told me how the bird had gotten inside,
carried in the cold night
through the flap of a basement door,
and later released from the soft grip of teeth.

On a chair, I trapped its pulsations

in a shirt and got it to the door,
so weightless it seemed
to have vanished into the nest of cloth.

But outside, when I uncupped my hands,

it burst into its element,
dipping over the dormant garden
in a spasm of wingbeats
then disappeared over a row of tall hemlocks.

For the rest of the day,

I could feel its wild thrumming
against my palms as I wondered about
the hours it must have spent
pent in the shadows of that room,
hidden in the spiky branches
of our decorated tree, breathing there
among the metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,
its eyes open, like mine as I lie in bed tonight
picturing this rare, lucky sparrow
tucked into a holly bush now,
a light snow tumbling through the windless dark.

 

Wood Stove and Work

The wood burning stove I am sitting next to just roared back to life after resting for the night. It’s a good thing, too. With the outside thermometer reading 9 degrees, our family room can hover in the mid 50s if the fire isn’t burning. I simply add a few chunks of dry wood, open the vents, and – voilá – the hot coals transform into a good fire. I can still smell the faint aroma of wood smoke.  That fragrance always makes me feel – I don’t know – satisfied? And it’s got me thinking about my experiences as a child. I was raised on a small farm outside Mukwonago, WI. Our drafty, old farm house always smelled of wood smoke in the winter because that was all we had to heat the place. We had a wood burner in our large kitchen and a larger wood stove in the basement. When I was little, my mom and dad would be responsible for starting and tending the fire. But as I grew older, I was expected – along with my brothers and sisters – to manage the fire brigade. There were certain routines and expectations to these roles. If I was the first one awake in the morning, my job was to go to the basement to tend the “big” stove. This involve going down a rickety old stairway that led to the typical farmhouse basement. Part cement floor, part dirt floor. Lots of cobwebs. An open drain pipe. The back section was used as the wood room and was often filled to the ceiling with split wood to burn. I remember it being dank and creepy. Once down there, I was to tend the big stove or restart the fire. No starter sticks and such. Chop kindling and get it burning. None of us wanted to do the basement.

The kitchen stove was easier.  Ma always had dry kindling nearby and it was easy to get at. The kitchen always smelled of smoke because that little stove often needed tending.  It was a never ending challenge as a high school kid to keep my clothes from smelling like wood smoke.

 And here is where the wood stove I am sitting near and the wood stoves of my past seem to collide.

I am very accepting of others who tell stories of the “hard” lives they experienced as children. Many of these stories also take place on small farms and they often explain the unending work that was required. Frequently the point of the story is to illustrate how valuable this experience was to making a responsible adult. (These stories often come up in the context of revealing “what’s wrong with today’s kids”.)   While I appreciate the stories, I always believed the menial, grinding work I did as a child did little to help me as an adult. Many days on the farm were filled with drudgery and mind numbing tasks. What is there to celebrate in that? I understand that it was necessary to help my family, but it wasn’t anything to celebrate. It was something we endured. Wouldn’t it have been nice to learn perseverance and determination in the pursuit of a loftier goal? Please don’t misunderstand. I have many fond memories of my childhood, but shoveling manure and endlessly splitting wood are not among them. Maybe we need to recognize that the kind of work we do is more important than the amount and that learning perseverance and dedication can’t be learned in isolation. The motivation and the activity are connected. Bill Gates got to learn about dedication and hard work by spending endless hours fooling around with the computers available to his family. I learned far more about “stick to itness” learning to play the guitar than I ever did hauling hay.

As an adult I have a longer perspective. When I am out months in advance cutting and splitting wood for my current home, I can imagine the moment I am experiencing now, the comforting warmth of this wood stove. The hard work has meaning.  It is necessary to learn about hard work, but maybe we need to be smarter about it.

A poem:

Two Tramps in Mud Time

By Robert Frost

 

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily “Hit them hard!”
I knew pretty well why he dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of beech it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good
That day, giving a loose to my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And fronts the wind to unruffle a plume
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake: and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn’t blue,
But he wouldn’t advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheel rut’s now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don’t forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
These two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You’d think I never had felt before
The weight of an axhead poised aloft,
The grip on earth of outspread feet.
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the woods two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps.)
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax,
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man’s work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right — agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.

This Again?

The US Department of Education just released the scores from the latest round of standardized testing. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests are given to 15 year old students around the world. And once again – if we are to believe our Secretary of Education Arne Duncan – the American school system is “stagnating” and “falling behind”. We are being told - once again - that our schools are outdated and our teachers are lousy. I hope you have learned to smile about all the hysteria because it is getting a bit old. Putting aside the reality that standardized tests are not an accurate measure of a student – or any person for that matter – let’s put the PISA test in perspective. If we do, we can learn some valuable lessons about current school reform and see how it is hurting public schools and the students who go there.

In her book most recent book Reign of Error, education historian and scholar Diane Ravitch carefully explains the history of international testing and shows how we Americans have never been particularly good at it. In the First International Mathematics Study done in the mid 60s, the US was last compared to 11 other countries. In subsequent years, we were never more than average. The current PISA tests began in 2000 and have continued every three years since. According to Ravitch’s analysis, “we are doing about the same now… as we have in the last half century.”

In his 2007 Phi Delta Kappan article “Are International Test Worth Anything?,” Keith Baker says "There is no association between test scores and national success, and, contrary to one of the major beliefs driving US education policy for nearly a half a century, international test scores are nothing to be concerned about."  He concludes that there is no correlation between national productivity and quality of life after a certain basic level of education. Mr. Baker has documented what many teachers know – the success or failure of any individual student - or school - or nation - cannot be reduced to numbers on a chart.

Despite the evidence that standardized tests are not a reliable indicator of student or school success, our current school reform movement based on the Common Core is more dedicated than ever to using standardized tests to define progress. Those advocating the Common Core will TELL you the opposite. They will claim they want active learning and inquiry based study. They will wax poetic about how important it is for students to have a broad spectrum of “authentic learning experiences” in school.  Don’t be fooled. Nothing else matters if the test scores don’t go up. I don’t mean to suggest teachers aren’t working hard to produce authentic experiences. They are working harder than ever. But when your job depends on test scores, you do what you must.

There are many things our schools need to do better to meet the needs of our students and our society. More standardized testing is not among them. Let’s hope our educational leaders have the wisdom to recognize that obsessing over unreliable test data does nothing for our schools or our students.

Believing is Seeing

In her book Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver has a young brother tease his baby sister by hiding her doll beneath a blanket and telling her it’s gone. When Cordie, the little girl, finally realizes that the doll does not disappear, her mother, Dellarobia, realizes that her child has learned the most important lesson in her life; it is possible to believe in things even when we can’t see them. She has discovered the importance of faith. Not faith in just the traditional religious sense, but faith in all the things we can’t see that make life livable for people of all religions and beliefs. Things like love and trust. Compassion and forgiveness. Friendship and commitment.  I am reminded of how my own life floats on the faith I have in those around me and I completely understand why Thanksgiving is such an important day in our community. I hope on this Thanksgiving Day you find the time to thank all the people you know who have made your life more satisfying and full. All the people who have helped you find your way and comforted you when you got lost. All the people who have helped you even when you didn’t know it. If, like me, you are lucky enough to have many of those people around you today, I hope your day is filled with gratitude and fond memories.  I know for certain I can’t smell roasting turkey without seeing images of my Mom scurrying around our farmhouse kitchen. I can’t smell the sweet aroma of a wood fire without seeing my Dad adding logs to our stove.  If you aren’t able to be with those you love, I hope you can find a way to show your own gratitude and remember the lesson learned by Cordie; it is possible to believe in things even when you can’t see them.

Happy Thanksgiving

A poem:

Green Pear Tree in September

By Freya Manfred

On a hill overlooking the Rock River
my father's pear tree shimmers,
in perfect peace,
covered with hundreds of ripe pears
with pert tops, plump bottoms,
and long curved leaves.
Until the green-haloed tree
rose up and sang hello,
I had forgotten...
He planted it twelve years ago,
when he was seventy-three,
so that in September
he could stroll down
with the sound of the crickets
rising and falling around him,
and stand, naked to the waist,
slightly bent, sucking juice
from a ripe pear.

 

Two by Two

Last Saturday morning I went to Madison to retrieve Cassie - daughter number four - for a family birthday celebration. On our ride home, Cassie was talking about – among other things – how little kids often can’t explain how they feel using words and how they need some other way to communicate. Her professors have helped her see how drawing or pantomime can be crucial in making kids feel less afraid. I suggested she might want to read some of the work Howard Gardner has done related to the question of how all of us “come to know”. Gardner suggests that in our quest to make sense of the world, we are at a disadvantage if we rely only on words and numbers, as schools often do. Much of the most important information we need to make a satisfying life will come to us in other ways. As is often the case for me, this idea was driven home a day later when my family saw the concert version of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company on PBS.

Company was really the first of Sondheim’s concept musicals trying to deal with serious themes, in this case the confusing institution of marriage. And as we sat there watching, I think Cassie came to understand something about her parents that she hadn’t known. Jeanette, my lovely wife, and I have recently been grappling with the idea of purchasing a lake cabin in northern Wisconsin. I will admit that I have not been as enthusiastic about it as Jeanette. We have had some serious and “robust” conversations about this purchase. Our children have been present on occasion and sometimes they are confused by our energetic conversations.  But then, almost on cue, Harry in Company, after being asked if he was ever sorry he got married, sings Sorry/Grateful. The song eloquently and beautifully reveals how complicated, confusing, and breathtaking marriage can be. And when at the end of the show, reluctant Robert gives in and sings: “Somebody, need me too much, know me too well, pull me up short, put me through hell, give me support, make me alive” and I reach over and take Jeanette’s hand, I think I see Cassie smiling.

Theatre, art, music, and dance can help us understand our lives in ways no other discipline can. I know. I just saw it work.

PS: We are buying the cabin:)

Prayer for a Marriage

By Steve Scafidi

When we are old one night and the moon
arcs over the house like an antique
China saucer and the teacup sun

follows somewhere far behind
I hope the stars deepen to a shine
so bright you could read by it

if you liked and the sadness
we will have known go away
for awhile – in this hour or two

before sleep – and that we kiss
standing in the kitchen not fighting
gravity so much as embodying

its sweet force, and I hope we kiss
like we do today knowing so much
good is said in this primitive tongue

from the wild first surprising ones
to the lower dizzy ten thousand
infinitely slower ones—and I hope

while we stand there in the kitchen
making tea and kissing, the whistle
of the teapot wakes the neighbors.

Just Say Yes

It didn’t take long for the Just Say No contingent of the Parkview School District to show up to oppose the current school improvement plan. These are the guys who can’t say anything but “No” when it comes to supporting the education of the Parkview children. In a recent attack highlighted in the Gazette, the Just Say No guy argued that the Parkview District doesn’t deserve the “Meets Expectations” certification it got from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. As a result, according to this critic, the district should give up any thoughts of a building referendum because “consolidation with a nearby district is inevitable.” (I can only imagine what he would recommend if the District wasn’t meeting expectations. Yikes!) There is neither time nor space here to discuss the DPI’s Accountability System, but I suspect our critic did not thoroughly read the 72 page appendix needed to explain the scoring. While the Parkview District has clearly acknowledged it has work to do, we should feel good the District is on the right track. And as a parent whose three children were all prepared by the Parkview Schools to succeed in college and beyond, I know it is our turn to provide the resources necessary for the next generation of students.

The Just Say No individuals want you to believe the school district is in crisis. Don’t believe it. Our public schools and their teachers do a remarkable job providing education for ALL children. Unfortunately, our recent economic crisis has created more students affected by poverty and more challenges in the classroom. Our schools need MORE resources, not less. When our Governor tells you we have a budget surplus, remember it is because he took millions from the schools and the teachers who work there. The Parkview School District is once again trying to upgrade buildings to better meet the needs of our kids. These are investments in our children and their future. We have a civic and moral responsibility to provide a public education for ALL children. Let us start here; let us start now. When the Just Say No guys claim American education is in decline, tell them they are wrong. This year – as in the past – US scholars received more Nobel Prize awards than any other country. People from all over the world come here to study in our schools. Our only danger now - and it is a real danger- is that we will stop providing adequate resources for our PUBLIC schools and permit some children to prosper and others to fall through the cracks. Please support the dedicated educators of the Parkview District and the referendum to improve our schools.

 

 

Homestead

There is an abandoned homestead a few miles outside of Westhope, North Dakota that seems achingly melancholy this October morning. The old house sags in the dim light and seems to be looking for a place to lie down. I actually find myself humming Jimmy Webb's old song If These Old Walls Could Speak. "If these old walls, if these old walls could speak. What a tale they'd have to tell." Of course, I do not know if this old house is filled with fond memories. I'm not even sure "fond" memories is the right word.   As a kid who grew up on a small farm in Wisconsin, I have some idea of what it means to live a life on the land. Was this a place where an ambitious young family tried to make their mark on the North Dakota plains? Did the parents find the hard work of the farm life rewarding enough to have children? Did the kids learn to work the land, but later discover that their dreams were elsewhere? The old house and collapsing barn stand mute in the morning sun. The fierce loneliness of the place settles on me this morning. It must have been very hard to live here, especially so far from everyone else. The sun slowly illuminates the endless blue sky that surrounds us. The vast space is awe inspiring, but stark. Perhaps the fond memories here are more simple. A voice in the dark. A touch on the arm. A warm fire on a cold night.  I am left feeling enormous respect for those who came here to live. Courage reveals itself in lots of different ways.

Ted Kooser sees a different, sadder story.

Abandoned Farmhouse
by Ted Kooser

He was a big man, says the size of his shoes

on a pile of broken dishes by the house;

a tall man too, says the length of the bed

in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,

says the Bible with a broken back

on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;

but not a man for farming, say the fields

cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.

A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall

papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves

covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,

says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.

Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves

and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.

And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.

It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.

Something went wrong, says the empty house

in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields

say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars

in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.

And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard

like branches after a storm--a rubber cow,

a rusty tractor with a broken plow,

a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.

Go in Peace

My friend Bob Morgan died last week. He decided he didn't want medical treatment, so he went home with his family and moved on. Just what I'd expect from him. The last time I talked to him - a week before he died - we laughed about another time he was in the hospital and I smuggled a pre-mixed brandy manhatten in for him. He drank most of it before a nurse came in and scolded us both. Sometimes a friend has to do what a friend has to do. Bob was a good one. You will hear many talk  about all the things Bob achieved in his life - his Marine service, his basketball scoring records, his championship teams, his Hall of Fame Awards, his wonderful family. I just want to tell you about my friend.

When I started working at Parker High School in 1973, Bob was a very successful coach and teacher. I was just a rookie and worried that I would soon be exposed for what I didn't know.  But  - for whatever reason - he made me feel welcome and, although I didn't know it then, he would be part of many memorable moments in my life. There is not space here to explain them all, but permit me to share a few images I have of Bob.

The Parker staff would often have parties at Camp Rotamer which included the usual softball game. I still have the perfect picture in my mind of Bob playing first base with a Beam and coke in one hand and a cigarette in the other. When a teammate threw him the ball, he ducked complaining that he almost spilled his drink. That was classic Bob.

We were playing in an Old Timers softball game in Eagleton, WI. (Don't even ask how I got roped into this!) This tournament had interesting rules which permitted each team to have a keg of beer on the bench. Bob was playing shortstop and late in the game - long after the keg was empty- Bob got a ground ball and when he tried to throw a runner out at home, he threw the ball at least 20 feet over the catcher's head. His response, " I'm better at first base."

Once, heading home from a yearly fishing trip we took with several others, I looked in my wallet and realized I had spent every dollar. Bob looked in his wallet and saw the same. Without hesitation, he reached into his pocket and came out with 37 cents in change and said,"I got money, you got money."

Playing basketball during Parker's yearly Homecoming Olympics, George Farrell - looking for direction from the state championship coach - asked Bob as we came down on offense, "Where should I go?" Bob looked up from his dribble and pointed to the other end of the court and said, "Go down there."

I could fill pages with these images, but I hope you get the picture. Bob was as generous and humble as any man I've ever known. He loved his family deeply, especially his partner in life "Nanc". When we were together, life was more fun. I know I will miss him.
Rest in peace old friend, rest in peace.

Thinking and Doing

When my daughter Maggie tried to start her car yesterday, she discovered that she had left her lights on and the battery was dead. (She drives an old car that doesn't automatically save her from doing dumb things.) To my surprise, she got my battery charger and proceeded to connect it. She must have been listening during one of the simple lessons on auto maintenance I had subjected her to early on. I have frequently worried that I have not done enough to help my children understand how to solve the numerous household maintenance issues we all confront. Can they trouble shoot why the lawnmower doesn't start? Or their car? Can they make simple electrical repairs? Plumbing? Patch an inner tube on a bike tire? I know all of these problems can be solved by hiring someone to do them or simply by discarding "broken" things and buying new. But there is something gratifying about knowing you can solve your own problems. Maybe I feel this way because I was raised on a small farm by a father who NEVER bought anything new. We "repaired" everything and Pa expected his kids to know how to troubleshoot and fix. I still remember standing next to my Dad as he worked on cars and tractors, lawn mowers and milk machines. I'd be charged with fetching tools and holding the light. (It was not unusual to get a rap on the side of the head if I shined the light in his eyes too often!) As my brothers and I grew older, we were expected to solve these problems on our own to help run our farm. (We also used these skills to enhance our personal lives as well. I can't tell you how important it was to get that "59 Ford purring so you could cruise around town.)  It wasn't until later that I realized my Dad was running a "mentoring" program for his sons. His "problem solving workshops" helped all of us learn by doing. We also came to understand how satisfying it was to confront a problem and find a solution. (I still vividly remember when I solved an ignition problem on an old car my Mom needed to drive and she told me I was "acting like a man". I was 12 years old.)

I would come to understand that what he was doing explained why I liked classes in school that asked me to do real world stuff. In choir, I sang. In band, I played my trombone. In phy. ed, we exercised. In after school plays, we performed. In sports, we played football.  In the process, I continued to learn new skills, especially when I trusted my teacher. In his book Shop Class as Soulcraft, Mathew Crawford argues that separating thinking from doing is misguided. The value of making things has been diminished by the notion that "knowledge work" is more important, especially in school. The challenge for teachers is to connect the thinking and doing in the classroom, especially when the main "doing" on a state test is filling in a dot.

A Poem:

Advice

Someone dancing inside us
   has learned only a few steps:
the "Do-Your-Work" in 4/4 time,
    the "What-Do-You-Expect" Waltz.
He hasn't noticed yet the woman
    standing away from the lamp.
the one with black eyes
    who knows the rumba.
and strange steps in jumpy rhythms
    from the mountains of Bulgaria.
If they dance together,
    something unexpected will happen;
if they don't, the next world
    will be a lot like this one.

Bill Holm

Say Grace

Ever hear of Sam Baker? He's an Austin based song writer. He sings - in a loose sense of the word - and strums his guitar with his left-hand. He plays that way because in 1986 on a train trip through Peru a bomb blew up in the luggage rack over the four seats he shared with a German couple and their son. The German family died along with one little girl sitting behind them. Sam Baker didn't die. Although he was horribly injured and his left hand was mangled, he survived. He learned to play the guitar left-handed and proceeded to write some of the most moving songs I have ever heard. I was listening to his music when I heard that Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet and Nobel Laureate, had died in Dublin. I have several of his poems in my binder. (You should know that I have a binder stuffed with the "good" poems I have discovered in my decades of reading. The binder has given way to the computer file, but I still collect the poems I enjoy.) As I listened to Baker's new release Say Grace, I heard this humble poet/songwriter giving voice to the struggles and the joys of the people in his life. Like John Prine and Todd Snyder, he sings about the simple things we all share. Listen to his songs "Ditches" or "Say Grace". You will be moved.

Seamus Heaney did the same thing for me. In his poem "Digging", the poet recalls with pride a childhood memory of his grandfather digging sod - "My grandfather cut more turf in a day than any other man on Toner's Bog." The poem reveals, however, that we all must find our own way to the "good turf" - through our own digging. The poet does it with a pen. My own father dug for the good turf through his backbreaking work on the farm and at the factory. I found my spade in the classroom. Heaney's poem suggests that each of us will make sense of our world - or not - THROUGH the work  we do, whatever it is. I will miss Seamus Heaney's voice in my world. And I wish you luck in your dig for the good turf.

In his song "Go in Peace" Baker sings,

"Let us go into the darkness,
Not afraid, not alone.
Let us hope by some good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home."

A poem:

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
the squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window a clean, rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flower beds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm to potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving the cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man in Toner's Bog.
Once I carried him mild in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulders, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Seamus Heaney

Coming and Going

There is a cardinal on the deck this morning trying to figure out his mirror image in the window. From the early morning shadows, I can watch him from just a few feet away. He is magnificently red and he is indeed perplexed by this stranger in the window. He flies in, studies the intruder, and then bangs against the glass to secure his territory. He does this over and over until the light makes the image harder to see and he heads off on other business. Tomorrow – if the last week is any predictor – he will be back again banging his head against the window. I think I can relate to his predicament, if not his determination. It is a new experience for me – quite pleasant, I might add – not heading off to Parker on this first day of school and – like the cardinal – I, too, am trying to figure out the new guy in the mirror. 

These are interesting times for those of us concerned about education in Wisconsin. As this new school year begins, I hope we can find ways to keep our promises to the young people we serve and to remind everyone that an enlightened education is a key ingredient in a democratic society and a purposeful life. This retirement gig is giving me lots of time to reflect on the work educators are asked to do and I hope I can offer some insights from my forty years in the profession. We shall see.

I also am a lover of poetry because it sometimes reveals things we can’t explain. When I was a kid, the lonely moan of a train in the distance made me think of adventure and excitement. It still does.

Rails  by Scott Owens

Every child should have one, a pair, really,
a matched set, set apart just the right width
so that one foot pressed against each one
leaves you stretched out about as far
as you can go, unable to move, feeling
almost trapped, almost actually in danger.

And every child should walk them as if
that's what they were intended for,
leading out of town, around the curve,
along the river, revealing the backsides
of people's homes, clotheslines and refuse,
the yards you weren't supposed to see.

And every child should learn to balance
atop the railhead without the constant
unsightly tipping from side to side,
should be able to step exactly the distance
between the ties consistently, almost
marching without kicking up ballast.

And every child should have a bridge
they go under to hide and look
at dirty magazines and smoke cigarettes
and place coins on the rails to flatten
and see if this could be the one
to cause the train to leap the tracks.

And every child should know the lonely
distant sound of late night travel
when bad dreams have kept them awake
wondering where they come from, what
they bring or take, and where when it's all
done they might return and call home.