(NSP Meditations features regular contributions from Correspondents. If you are interested in becoming one, contact Matt Love through the NSP web site for more details.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Introduction<\/p>\n
What follows is the consequence of a dying poet confronting his genesis.<\/p>\n
First Part<\/p>\n
Narrator:<\/p>\n
Doodled idle note in study-hall margins, this<\/p>\n
Callow student turned his words for her to see,<\/p>\n
Student:<\/p>\n
\u201cKaren,<\/p>\n
Blossoms, Love they are called,<\/p>\n
Think it\u2019s spring all year round,<\/p>\n
When \u2018twixt you and I are planted.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Narrator:<\/p>\n
Given time,<\/p>\n
He might succeed making himself understood.<\/p>\n
Shortly thereafter, blithely blathering<\/p>\n
Archaic drippings from last term\u2019s World Lit. influence,<\/p>\n
He wrote,<\/p>\n
Student:<\/p>\n
\u201cWere but every blade of grass a quill pen,<\/p>\n
Were every pond and ocean ink,<\/p>\n
All those drops of ink<\/p>\n
Could never,<\/p>\n
Even on the biggest paper cloud,<\/p>\n
Write nearly the love letter<\/p>\n
You deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Narrator:<\/p>\n
In the student lounge he assumed staged pomposity,<\/p>\n
Striding broadly, limp wrists flipping melodramatically,<\/p>\n
He proclaimed for all present to hear,<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Student:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat flame is this that leaps<\/p>\n
Between our eyes?<\/p>\n
What spark that electrifies<\/p>\n
The space between our lips?<\/p>\n
Love, one of us plays the positive,<\/p>\n
The other plays the negative,<\/p>\n
In the polarities of our love\u2019s electricity.<\/p>\n
Between us flows the current of<\/p>\n
Fidelity and devotion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Narrator:<\/p>\n
Imposing drama into his words,<\/p>\n
Calculating her reaction, he continued,<\/p>\n
Student:<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart is a vessel.<\/p>\n
\u2018Tis Love that this vessel holds<\/p>\n
Within its thought carv\u2019ed walls.<\/p>\n
I search your eyes to refill its emptiness<\/p>\n
With love that bubbles from<\/p>\n
Fountains that lie within them.<\/p>\n
Only then, I drink of happiness<\/p>\n
We share.\u201d<\/p>\n
Narrator:<\/p>\n
One time over coffee,<\/p>\n
Under protest-music\u2019s folksy complaint,<\/p>\n
He wrote with poesy sotto voce phrase,<\/p>\n
Student:<\/p>\n
\u201cWouldst you love me, long from now,<\/p>\n
As you do love me even now?\u201d<\/p>\n
Narrator: (Sings)<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (\u201cHey now, what\u2019s that sound?<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Everybody look what\u2019s goin\u2019 down.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There\u2019s a man with a gun over there,<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tellin\u2019 me that I got to beware\u2026\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n Student:<\/p>\n \u201cAh!\u201d<\/p>\n Narrator: (Sings)<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (\u201cYou tell me over an\u2019 over again, my friend,<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How you believe we\u2019re on the eve of destruction\u2026\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n Student:<\/p>\n \u201cIf you and I will love ’til the end of time,<\/p>\n Then, one day, we will rewind Love\u2019s clock<\/p>\n To relive our happiness again.\u201d<\/p>\n Narrator: (Sings)<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (\u201cWill you still need me? <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Will you still feed me\u2026?\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n Raped by poetry, her lifetime<\/p>\n Catholic fears gently manipulated.<\/p>\n The Beatles words guided him home.<\/p>\n Second Part<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n In calligraphy class, taking ever so much care,<\/p>\n He wrote,<\/p>\n Student:<\/p>\n \u201cNestling in your flesh, I am secure.<\/p>\n I have found, at last, a nest.<\/p>\n Here I live nursed on succulent love<\/p>\n From the breast of Venus,<\/p>\n Goddess that inhabits your heart.<\/p>\n Take my strength and take my love.<\/p>\n The one is not puny.<\/p>\n The other is not slattern.<\/p>\n All for you,<\/p>\n \u2018Tis all I have.\u201d<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n After erasing a less than average grade,<\/p>\n He gave her the card.<\/p>\n Third Part<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n Later he penned his thought\u2019s embryonic feelings<\/p>\n Prior to the birth of prenatal developing change.<\/p>\n Student:<\/p>\n \u201cSo far, my heart has found but one home,<\/p>\n Within you, my love.<\/p>\n Within you is every shelter.<\/p>\n Under your steady gaze lies the light<\/p>\n Empowering me to bury my dark thoughts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have found in you<\/p>\n One being I wish to share with,<\/p>\n My food, my life, my grief, my elation.<\/p>\n I know this to be true.<\/p>\n It is rekindled every night,<\/p>\n \u2018Twixt you and me,<\/p>\n In a gaze, a gentle touch, our quiet dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n He signed it after adding,<\/p>\n Student:<\/p>\n \u201cYours truly\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Fourth Part<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n The parsonage and the shotgun wedding behind,<\/p>\n The stifling above-the-caf\u00e9 apartment closing in,<\/p>\n Daily and tuition debt clutching;<\/p>\n One day he attempted this offering of comfort<\/p>\n Around a mouth full of food,<\/p>\n Student:<\/p>\n \u201cA valley covered by a blanket of fog<\/p>\n Is frightening, no matter how friendly the fog<\/p>\n Was trying to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n Morning sickness bewildered him.<\/p>\n Retching he understood.<\/p>\n His friends drank him under the table,<\/p>\n Slurring their praises to sons to come,<\/p>\n Manhood unable to hit the urinal.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally yielding to mentored guidance,<\/p>\n From Creative Writing class he learned to craft<\/p>\n Artful, introspective, hopeful words.<\/p>\n Contrasting his own childhood, he wrote,<\/p>\n Student:<\/p>\n \u201cWhen my child learns to sing,<\/p>\n He\u2019ll learn to sing from Pan, the woods god<\/p>\n And not so mythical writer of brook-song,<\/p>\n Tree-song, and forest animal-song;<\/p>\n The lyrics and melodies of Nature\u2019s musicals.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhen my child learns to talk;<\/p>\n He\u2019ll learn to talk from the world,<\/p>\n Having first learned to hear because<\/p>\n He couldn\u2019t talk, and the world is<\/p>\n Just loud enough to drown out<\/p>\n His father\u2019s admonishing and<\/p>\n Narrow-minded advice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhen my child learns to see:<\/p>\n He\u2019ll learn to see from his elders.<\/p>\n Only they can tell my child<\/p>\n What a hell the world can\u2019t be,<\/p>\n While his father woos the dollar<\/p>\n Fights the creditors, and<\/p>\n Curses the world with alacrity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhen my child learns to love;<\/p>\n He\u2019ll learn to love from his mother.<\/p>\n Only she can tell him what it is<\/p>\n To anticipate, carry, give birth to, and care for<\/p>\n A strange, but beautiful, new human being;<\/p>\n Spending her life watching him grow,<\/p>\n Only to later lose him to a world<\/p>\n She will have grown to fear.<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n He then, contrary to his own upbringing,<\/p>\n Finished with the following verse.<\/p>\n Student:<\/p>\n \u201cWhen my child, at last, becomes a man;<\/p>\n I shall burst with pride.<\/p>\n I will have taught him to dream.<\/p>\n It will have to be such an enormous plate<\/p>\n To hold the food needed to become a man.<\/p>\n But, take your time, my son,<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t wise to eat too fast.\u201d<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n But then came her post-partum guilt, as well as<\/p>\n Her desperate need, wish, or counsel to escape<\/p>\n Eating the consequences of playing grown-up games,<\/p>\n Finally, his abuse, the choke-hold of self-disassembly,<\/p>\n Led to bitter dissolution, and she made a getaway<\/p>\n From the lies he had enjoyed telling himself.<\/p>\n Fifth Part<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n Some place among Silverton\u2019s unmarked graves,<\/p>\n There is concealed a recorded but weed-covered,<\/p>\n Neglected umbilical strangled child in his tiny box.<\/p>\n Still-born still waiting to be born decades later.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Writing became the rough draft of his conscience,<\/p>\n Protected phrases wherein he\u2019d follow heart and whim,<\/p>\n Privately plumb truths he wasn\u2019t prepared to speak of,<\/p>\n Craft answers to questionable fantasies he created.<\/p>\n On paper he learned to think before speaking.<\/p>\n Words flowed, a nutritious blood transporting<\/p>\n Guidance and spirit, mentor and mother,<\/p>\n Reality shoring up his maturing sense of theatricality,<\/p>\n At last he wrote emotion,<\/p>\n Student:<\/p>\n \u201cLeave me, O Devil of Turbulent<\/p>\n Temper Uncontrolled;<\/p>\n Bastard of Hades,<\/p>\n Sever my bonds!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cO, God, let me sit<\/p>\n In a little brook, and<\/p>\n Let me listen to<\/p>\n One of Your babbling concertos<\/p>\n In Peace Sharp Major.\u201d<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n As petitions go,<\/p>\n This plea was both needed and honest.<\/p>\n Student:<\/p>\n It was never answered?<\/p>\n Narrator:<\/p>\n It has not yet been answered.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n EARL E. MOHR was born in the Glendale Sanitarium, Glendale, California in 1943. Stolen by his father in 1953 from his Choctaw\/Chickasaw\/Irish-American mother, taken from Calabasas, California to Silverton, Oregon, the ten year-old would learn being an Oregonian meant getting an education, rather than simply buying a driver\u2019s license.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n (NSP Meditations features regular contributions from Correspondents. If you are interested in becoming one, contact Matt Love through the NSP web site for more details.) Introduction What follows is the consequence of a dying poet confronting his genesis. 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