Fred Wolven

I EXPECT TO DIE, A NEW POEM

          ‘We’re all travelers in this world;
           from earth to death we travel
           only between the eternities.’

An Australian pine grows up
year after year
until nearly out of a child’s sight.

The gray fox crosses and recrosses
my yard month after month
until I move out of his territory.

Tiny ants trudge, crawling across cement,
cutting my pathway in half
day after day
until a torrential summer rain
washes them away.

A small, delicate butterfly,
pale yellow in the morning’s sun,
flutters from bush to bush
pausing to rest only momentarily.
I, on the other hand, sometimes,
being human, move
even when not awake
and puzzle over minute matters
being unable to unravel the significance
of light, the value of evil, the stress in living,
and then I expect to die.



REREADING ROETHKE, I WALK OUT INTO THE YARD

Rereading memorable lines about
his meadow mouse, his geranium, his song-bearing birds,
I walk out into the yard, stand under
the bottlebrush tree and listen hard for Roethke’s wind.

Mother and her mother before her
held and played this violin,
but one day I just set it down carefully
and haven’t picked it back up since.

Listening to Brahms, nearing the edge
of sleep, I long to nod off and not stir before
dawn’s light, to rest, to restore energy, to dream
until daylight slips in between the blind’s slats.

When I was younger I fancied being a mountaintop lookout,
watchful for nature’s summer lightning strike fires,
mindful that solitude was a pleasant thing, solstice being
something that might yield a natural understanding, a satori

Standing transfixed by the twisting, turning, twirling
carousel of dancing and prancing horses,
unable to lift even one foot, one leg, I yearn for those river
evenings when dangling earthworms with Grandpa using bamboo poles.

Meandering down the halls lined with assorted watercolors,
chalked wildflower-filled fields, and pencil etched portraits,
I step off on an angle toward the glassed exit doors,
humming lines of a childhood nursery ditty.

When others speak of hiking up the mountain to the lodge,
I can’t help wonder about wildflowers, about wild berries,
darting, chirping birds, and small four-legged critters
underfoot—all surviving in harmony, somehow, with us.

Ah, moonlight coming in the window is filtered by leaves,
softened by light breezes whispering around the house from the east,
and spreading out over the far wall providing a faint illumination.
Perhaps, as elders believe, the life of a tree is the life of me.
Again and again, the more I read, the greater my understanding
of the power of the wheel, the circle, and slowly as I sift my
holistic thoughts, stretching for edges, trying to touch the spirit
of my totem, I begin to sense an impact of medicine in my veins

FINALLY, A CHILD I’M BECOMING
Now, walking out into the garden
in the early morning hours
I use the sunlight growing full,
and in looking closely at each petal,
each bush, each hedge, I see
the child I was years ago
is returning, and in my way of seeing
I know I can and still do laugh,
I walk and still I do stumble,
I grow and embrace love, and
yes, I still do tumble.

But, at the very least now,
as I age slowly, so it feels,
I’m finding my heart opening,
my mind twisting and twitching,
and it is true, finally,
I’m just starting to learn,
in my sometimes unlearning,
where I can go without worrying,
without anxiety about where I’ve been.
Once more I am crossing open fields
and pause long enough to notice
the small things under my feet,
and listen to the sounds surrounding me,
and in this reaching
I begin to touch my very roots.


Copyright © 2006 Fred Wolven

Cover Design: Joseph McNair