A New Poem

Scythe

Air doubles over where I swing
through afternoon's seam.
I'm lost in the body's rhythm
of joint and muscle, clattering
rake of bones—my heart
tapping out meter, weight
and aim at measured swaths.
I begin on wild roses, tentacled
to stone walls; blossoms, pink
and white, divided with a swipe,
interrogate the air with scent
of dollar perfumes. Thistles,
smartweed, Queen Anne's lace—
all tipped to rest like wind-blown
vases on a grave. What music
the blade and stem release,
a sonorous ring—not apology
or warning, in a key indifferent
to the end? If I miss, clip
a stone or stump, rack the edge
rough, I'll whet it clean
along its quarter-moon curve.
My strokes start slow, slide
away off the blade, but soon
scratch faster—a few sparks
flying. I resume my work at
the boundaries of the field
driving steel through rye—insects
leaping before monster swaths,
diving back into wreckage.
All afternoon I swing—anxious
tick, grateful tock—until
I shave the final tuft of hay, drop
the heavy scythe and rest.

In Praise of the Beat Generation

I was talking to a woman the other day I met at a temp job in Freeport, Maine, who was telling me—with pride—about her son, a second year student at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. It's not everyday you meet the mother of a poetry student. Usually, it's the mother of an engineering or poly-sci student. So I was extremely proud for her. She said he is a bookworm, "all he wants to do is read poetry." 'Atta boy, I thought. Apparently, she said, he was thrilled because he recently got to meet Gary Snyder.

It's increasingly hard these days to pursue the arts in high school because of the pressure to achieve academic excellence and be accepted to a "good" school. Of course, easier said than done. I know too it's hard to make a living in the world with an arts degree. But, nonetheless, a smart business should know the value of bringing right-brained thinkers into their organization for balance, a unique perspective and a different take on solving problems. But I digress. The point I want to make is to praise the Beat Generation poets—some of whom helped found Naropa.

I discovered poetry and literature through the passionate fire of the Beat writers, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, etc. I was in high school, too, and not a very enthusiastic student, when a good friend of mine turned me on to "On The Road." To say it changed my life would be an understatement. Let's say the trajectory was set. The arrow pulled back in the bow. Perhaps the most influential book for me was Kerouac's Dharma Bums. I say that because at the same time in my life I'd learned meditation and was soaking up much about Eastern philosophy. And Gary Snyder, who the character Japhy Ryder is based on, was into Zen and Japanese culture. I definitely found more to like about Japhy than Dean Moriarity.

I could write ad infinitum about the Beats. They were a huge influence in my initial discovery and interest in poetry and the literary arts. They also inspired me as a young man to take some risks and seek adventure outside of the isolated world I grew up in. At one point I got away from the Beats and fell into reading more contemporary and traditionally academic poetry—all good in its own right—and even found myself looking down at the Beats. Their work was not as polished, certainly, or refined as the academic writers. But that opinion has come and gone. I am at the point now of fully appreciating their work and contribution to American literature.