A poem is a pebble

Let’s be blunt about it. Poetry is as common as stone. More blunt: a poem is like a pebble I pick up on a gravelly shore. I put it in my pocket and carry it away. Maybe I’ll remember the way the sky was reflected in the river – or maybe I’ll remember something else – when I pull it out again.

Words are the grains of sand on the edge of the water. This is to say that they are not all alike. Apparent similarity is simply one attribute we notice. The grains of sand are mostly just very small from our perspective.

Do not be carried away by the metaphor. It is there only to carry you along.

Words are like the grains of sand in their ubiquity; they are only countless given our limited time frame and patience.

But a poem, let’s say, is more like a pebble, a small rock, in the sense that it is substantial enough to fit into our perspective and our time frame.

Do not be carried away by the metaphor. The metaphor is there to carry you.

The rock I pick up has distinguished itself, in my eye - perhaps in my eye alone. Some characteristic, some trait, managed to catch my eye.

Forget, for now, why that would be so. I will try to not lose my place, so you must try to maintain focus on this gravelly surface which is made up of concepts masquerading as solids.

Not to be carried away by the metaphor, but still, you must let words carry the meaning.

In all this rubble, my point is that a poem is a collection of words – it is a human-crafted thing – that is distinguishable from other collections of words that in some way initially the caught the poet’s eye and has perhaps been later caught by a reader (or hearer). It should however be noted that all sorts of poems will catch my eyes – they might even be rubies or sapphires, let us say - but those are not what this writing is all about.

This collection of words is about the poetry that exists in the space of our ordinary perspective in the time in which we are alive. These are stones with everyday distinguishing features that can serve as reminders of a place where we were, at a moment in time when we were alive and aware of some meaning in that particular time and place. That is, we might note the moment when we were aware of our existence and it meant something to us.

This goes back and forth. At times we are subject and at times we are object. At times it is about the reality of things and at times it is about the reality of our selves. And so this is has become tangled and takes us somewhat farther away from what I am trying to say. But see it, touch it, and then leave it lying on the beach.

Let’s bring this into my own experience, for example. When I collect my thoughts and compose them into a poem, I am providing for myself a piece of something, a record of who I was and where I was and when I was.

It becomes something I can put into my pocket. And later I can take it out and look at it again and remember, or at least try to remember.

How do we live unique, meaningful lives within an ubiquitous reality? If I say that poetry is a particular nuance of the more general idea of meaning, then a poem is a pebble. It solidifies the poetry around us. The poem is particular. It is a thing and things are what we can hold on to.

When I walk to the river, that is to the Kaw, by the route I usually take or perhaps more circuitously, reality seems from my perspective to be ubiquitous: colors, textures, sounds and faces - and sand and water and light and wind. And in my mind I would like to make reality seem more discrete, to make portions of the blur that I see all around me somewhat distinctive and to ascribe meaning that will allow me to preserve the sensation of being alive in that place and at that time.

Perhaps, as they say, this is all too abstract for words, but words are what I have chosen to use.

Some of the words I have put together on other pages convey things that are harder, more edged, but this particular collection of words reminds me more of the edge of the sandy shore where the water is just below the level of my feet, and what is solid and fluid meet at a surface that holds my weight yet shifts with every step.

All you can do is let the metaphors carry you.

Of course, my intent is to walk in reality, but meaning is registered in memory.

A poem is a pebble.

Counting Geese

The geese fly over

from the sandbar

to the shallow pool

at the base of the Bowersock hydroelectric plant.

The massive concrete and steel structure

rests idle,

due to the drought.

First, four fly across,

then another four,

that makes eight;

then after a short interval,

the remaining five –

thirteen.

Do geese drifting

on low water

count?

For all that,

can I fly?

I suppose there is room

on the river

for the fourteen of us.

But how many of their kind

would it take to screw in

the one more light bulb

that would blow the circuits

on their species forever?

How many of my kind?

Does anyone count

anymore?

Something must be going on, but I can hardly hear you now

“Easy,” he laughed, with a bit of a stumble into his cell phone. “I’ve got one more meeting until 5 o’clock and then I’m free.”

The young man paused outside the back door at Central Middle School in a T-shirt, long polyester athletic shorts over black leggings, and lime green shoes. Maybe a Phys. Ed teacher.

Shortly thereafter, with every bit of late afternoon winter sun still clinging to the mostly white trunk and branches of my casual friend Bill’s large sycamore tree, I walked through the alley toward South Park.

I easily had been imagining along the way that Mr. Lime Shoes had been talking to a young woman, impatient to see his face, his encouraging voice just not quite enough for her.

As I approached the gazebo, I saw a small group of students – four girls and a couple of boys – who had likely been just hanging out there on the deck, catching what remained of the sunlight.

To my puzzlement, an older African-American man, still young to my eyes, about Mr. Lime Shoes age, slight of frame, appeared to be lecturing them. The kids listened attentively. He was dressed casually, although that did not preclude him from being a teacher, but the skateboard he leaned against the railing suggested otherwise.

He wore an earring which flashed in the low-angled sun and a baseball cap. He used his arms with some vigor as he talked.

By this time, I was sitting on a metal bench across from the winter-silent Roosevelt Fountain and I could only hear bits of talking sounds over the more general hum of the passing cars on Mass Street.

One of the girls raised her hand as if she were in class. The man in the cap acknowledged her, and then shortly, she and two girl friends descended the steps of the gazebo.

The first girl, wearing a pink jacket, was talking into her cell phone – as I recall the phone had a kind of lime green sleeve around it, as if that means anything. The girls - young women, perhaps I should say, it’s hard for me to know anymore - approached the bench where I was taking notes about apparently anything.

No one but me seemed to notice.

Two of the girls walked on, and the one with the phone went back, up the steps of the gazebo, and rejoined the other listening kids.

After several minutes more, the man with the cap picked up his skateboard and left, halting partway down the sidewalk, as he was heading away from me, and then he, too, stopped and was talking to someone on his cell phone.

Now I don’t have a cell phone, and as you can see, I followed almost none of the actual conversations I observed. From where I sit, a nondescript older man, I can hear the swings squeaking from the playground on the other side of Mass.

Maybe I’ll wander over there and see what all that racket is all about.

Winter of our discontent

Where the capillaries rise

up into the skies

to scrape at the low grazing clouds.

In ordinary times, the moisture would draw

through the capillaries and veins down below.

But in a time of drought

rules of weather and life are broken.

The bare oaks and maples and sycamores, too,

will take a drink where they can get it.

It’s a gray on gray day,

a wintery day, but dry,

only if one flake would start,

perhaps others would join in.

But in between heaven and earth

the gulls beat their wings

in a stream of feathers

to bed in the diminishing lake.

The drifting of leaves is all over,

although blankets tucked into winter whitened hosta remain.

We could happily live with some white on white

and then let blue skies break through again.

Dense fog would be tempting,

frost would wet our whistle,

but a blizzard is what we’re all needing.

The gray branches are speaking,

their desperate scratching pleading,

hoping against hope for water.

But though they’ve been here before

and some have made it through -

some have not.

Will this finally become the true winter of our discontent?

So far the drought remains unbroken.

Passing through South Park at Sundown

The bare black branches do not keep pace as I walk along the street. The closer to me, the faster.  The nearer the horizon, they appear about to turn and watch what I am seeing. Through this irregular moving fireplace screen, a spherical fire, hardly moving to my naked eye, reflects on the undersides of dull gray clouds, glowing as sweet as fresh squeezed orange juice. But I cannot pause, I have carrots and potatoes to cut for a stew, and this man cannot live by astonishment alone.

The bare black branches

do not keep pace

as I walk along the street.

The closer to me,

the faster. 

The nearer the horizon,

they slow and appear about to turn

and watch what I am seeing.

Through this irregular moving fireplace screen,

a spherical fire, hardly moving to my naked eye,

reflects on the undersides of dull gray clouds,

glowing as sweet as fresh squeezed orange juice.

But I cannot pause, I have carrots and potatoes to cut for a stew,

and this man cannot live by astonishment alone.

The bare black branches do not keep pace as I walk ...

Sitting on a bench

It's a matter of complete simplicity...

 

It a matter of complete simplicity.

You walk.

You sit.

People walk by.

Sometimes you merely look

with your eyes open.

You see,

or you don’t see.

And yet,

you sit there.

The earth spins.

Other lives walk through their paces.

It’s a matter of complete simplicity

or not.

Click on any photo

for a full - sized  slideshow.

Inside Bowersock North

The Bowersock north unit, on an idle Saturday morning, January 26, 2013.

The Kaw has been flowing recently at a rate of about 700 cubic feet per second. Average flow is about ten times that, although much higher rates and lower rates are normal. Normals are changing, but check back in fifty years for specific information. For power generation at Bowersock, 5,400 cfs would be ideal.

Because the river belongs to everyone, Bowersock can only take water as the Kaw gives it. That is, it operates some combination of the seven turbine/generators at the South unit, and the four much larger turbine/generators at the new North unit so that the flow of water downstream is not diminished. Lawrence drinks from this river. So do people downstream. It will likely be some time before the North unit sees river levels that will allow it to generate the power it was designed to produce.

The power plant is also designed to let high water pass through and around the plant so as not to exacerbate flooding. Where people are walking on the open level below the generator floor, will likely be underwater one day, and then, too, the plant would be idle.

Click on photos to see them full-sized 

Bowersock welcomes visitors. For more information: http://www.bowersockpower.com/
For US Geological River Data: USGS Kaw River at Lawrence
Blogpost on Construction of Bowersock North: Photos on Walk to the River


We are not a people only taking a bison at a time from the prairie for our needs. The Kaw is not the river it once was.

Wild is not an option, although you don't have to look far beneath the surface of the area I walk around on to see wildness - and the evidences of deep power and mysteries beyond our relatively simple ability to harness falling water and to wire a magneto. We have achieved mastery over some things, but not everything. The Bowersock dam and power plants represent a cleaner, more responsible way of doing things. Certainly, in the long run, it is a better way than the coal-burning plant upstream.

But we still must learn to generate more respect for ourselves and our planet. We still can't fool Mother Nature.

As I walk, I am trying to find my rightful place - looking for the places where I belong. I think that Bowersock is a pretty good fit, for now, and likely, long after I am gone.