Here’s a story about six young people from not so long ago who lived in a town called Freeport and dealt with physical abuse in various ways. Paul Henry was 12 years-old, a dreamy, quick-footed kid from a large family of all sisters and no father. He was walking home one evening in October from a friend’s house. It was dark already, the trees bare, the streets shiny black from
The boy in the browning field Does not see the scattering Of crabgrass, sunflowers, or tumbleweed. He does not smell the lavender or the dull decay of a coyote kill. He does not remember the rusty beer cans He kicked off the dirt path To arrive here at this intersection. He stoops Watching a black beetle Carry a green blade Across the expanse. He does not hear the hiss and
The body lay in the creek amid the swirling and sloshing of broken sticks and plastic bottles that had accumulated between two large rocks. There was no blood, no sign of foul play – just the body of an older white or Hispanic male in a brown jacket, underdressed for the mid-March weather. He lay face down, caressed by the swirling eddies of the mountain snow-melt currents. Crouching down into
At this late stage If the shoe fits Buy it. For comfort is harder to find And a little jig Can jar the memory To green fields and pop flies And star flecks of first love. Maybe even buy a second pair (the first you might yet outwear) So you won’t lose pace And become trampled In the long procession To that promised playground. But maybe not. Double vision is
See how they walk To and from their breaking homes In this twilit town Where naked oaks Sketch the streets And a swirling of crows Settles in clumps On the high limbs Above the old folks home, Cataracts in its vacant eyes. One girl, collar to the cold Hurries home Under sudden streetlights Ushered now by these shadows That follow, switch forward, fall back… Past, present, future. One, two, three
. . . the man was a walking treasure gallery. This wasn’t the work of a cheap carnival tattoo man with three colors and whiskey on his breath. This was the accomplishment of a living genius, vibrant, clear, and beautiful. – Ray Bradbury …the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. – Walt Whitman Imagine that a reputable institute of higher education, let’s call it Edgewood College, is
