(no subject)
An Interlude in April
Tread softly, as if breeze blown,
The earth's too fragile for walking.
Greet the hour with vaguest whisper,
Fingertips will bruise the sky.
Silence all but the earth's low murmuring,
And fast alone in the soundless forests.
Tomorrow unleash resounding hosannas,
And clasp the sunrise with eager hands.
Ravish woodlands and devour mountains,
And make creation endless lava.
Today, sit enthroned in silence
Where blades of grass subdue the seas.
The loneliest creature on any earth is not the astronaut or the man on the moon when only one man is on the moon. It's the small boy walking to his girl's house on his very first formal date. The boy is fastened in the most pitiless of all no-man's lands: He's too young to drive a car and too big to be escorted by his mother.
The street he has to walk along may be just a sliver of pavement, and every householder may be inside watching TV. But the boy feels that every windowpane is plastered with mocking spies. The whole world has deserted its work and pleasure to watch his infamy, to howl derisively at his patent uncertainty. He thinks of himself as Samson, shorn of his locks, brought out to be ridiculed by moronic friends. And the street he walks along, that little sliver of concrete and houses, becomes longer than the Mississippi and as loaded with treacherous sandbars.
The boy spent several meticulous aeons at his toilet, but now he is wetter than the biggest wave off Hatteras. Sweat stings his face and befogs his vision. It funs down his aching legs until it squashes around in his shoes. The gift his mother wrapped so delicately is now a garbled mass of smirches and tatters. The tighter he grips the bedraggled gift, the shorter and harder his breathing becomes. If it gets any worse, he'll have to call for an iron lung.
Finally, he walks on the girl's porch as if the planks are loaded with land mines. He barely touches the buzzer but the reply is louder than an air-raid warning siren. And once inside the house he knows how Daniel felt when he was released from the lion's den. He has slain hunger, fire, and pestilence, and he has cheated death.
But before the summer ends this kid will come calling on his lady-love with the supreme confidence of a lyrical locomotive given all the green lights in creation. His feet will chew up the pavement as if it is taffy, and he will wear an evening star in his button-hole.
That's the way it goes and that is as it should be. For, first, tenderest love begins as a timorous violet. Yet, within a few days, it is the honeysuckle, sweeping the countryside with compassionate tenacity and permeating the heavens with its myrrh.
--Thad Stem, Jr. Penny Whistles and Wild Plums 1962
Tread softly, as if breeze blown,
The earth's too fragile for walking.
Greet the hour with vaguest whisper,
Fingertips will bruise the sky.
Silence all but the earth's low murmuring,
And fast alone in the soundless forests.
Tomorrow unleash resounding hosannas,
And clasp the sunrise with eager hands.
Ravish woodlands and devour mountains,
And make creation endless lava.
Today, sit enthroned in silence
Where blades of grass subdue the seas.
The loneliest creature on any earth is not the astronaut or the man on the moon when only one man is on the moon. It's the small boy walking to his girl's house on his very first formal date. The boy is fastened in the most pitiless of all no-man's lands: He's too young to drive a car and too big to be escorted by his mother.
The street he has to walk along may be just a sliver of pavement, and every householder may be inside watching TV. But the boy feels that every windowpane is plastered with mocking spies. The whole world has deserted its work and pleasure to watch his infamy, to howl derisively at his patent uncertainty. He thinks of himself as Samson, shorn of his locks, brought out to be ridiculed by moronic friends. And the street he walks along, that little sliver of concrete and houses, becomes longer than the Mississippi and as loaded with treacherous sandbars.
The boy spent several meticulous aeons at his toilet, but now he is wetter than the biggest wave off Hatteras. Sweat stings his face and befogs his vision. It funs down his aching legs until it squashes around in his shoes. The gift his mother wrapped so delicately is now a garbled mass of smirches and tatters. The tighter he grips the bedraggled gift, the shorter and harder his breathing becomes. If it gets any worse, he'll have to call for an iron lung.
Finally, he walks on the girl's porch as if the planks are loaded with land mines. He barely touches the buzzer but the reply is louder than an air-raid warning siren. And once inside the house he knows how Daniel felt when he was released from the lion's den. He has slain hunger, fire, and pestilence, and he has cheated death.
But before the summer ends this kid will come calling on his lady-love with the supreme confidence of a lyrical locomotive given all the green lights in creation. His feet will chew up the pavement as if it is taffy, and he will wear an evening star in his button-hole.
That's the way it goes and that is as it should be. For, first, tenderest love begins as a timorous violet. Yet, within a few days, it is the honeysuckle, sweeping the countryside with compassionate tenacity and permeating the heavens with its myrrh.
--Thad Stem, Jr. Penny Whistles and Wild Plums 1962