Don’t know why

Hi everyone,

I don’t know why I thought of this poem. It’s not one of my best ones. The event happened 79 years ago, when I was a little boy living in Ajo, Arizona. I don’t usually write about such matters, but my editor for CONNECTING DOTS, WENDY MURRAY, wanted me to write about things close to the bone, incidents that meant something to me. This was one of them.

I’m 7. Darting among the large pillars that support the roof, my friend Rosemary and I make it down the long, covered walkway in front of the town's single block of stores. The bar sits at the far end.

LATE AT NIGHT


Rumors pull kids
down the walk, 
to the place we’re not
supposed to go,
to the bar
where they say
a man got killed last night,

to see a stain
they say is there,
by the door 
where two guys fought.

We go to see,
but not too close.
The air smells damp,
dangerous.
The stain is dark like blood,
but could be dirt.

I wonder why
some men think 
they have to fight,
fall on a sidewalk
late at night.

Dirt or blood,
I've seen enough.
I want to go.


(c) 2003 David L. Harrison, all rights reserved

Who needs a friend like that?

Hi everyone,

This poem appeared in CONNECTING DOTS, published in 2007 by Boyds Mills Press. It was about no one in particular then, but it suits my mood at the moment.

Watching Geese

Geese fly over.
I think of him
honking silly like a goose.
The geese never landed
but we didn’t care.
Who needs
a friend like that?

Who needs a guy
who cracks you up
with jokes you never tell your mom,
and you wonder where
he gets such stupid stuff?

The halls at school
are full of kids,
but no one looks for me.

No one tells me like it is,
borrows shirts that disappear,
knows our house as well as his.

Now he’s gone and won’t be back.				
I’m watching geese, thinking of him.		
Do I miss his funny grin?			
Who needs a friend like that?

Going back to the river

Hi everyone,

Today I plan to add a few more paragraphs to my autobiography, a rather tedious work in progress with no end and no publisher yet in sight. Throughout my career I’ve published poems inspired by my own experiences growing up (we all do that), and on two previous occasions I’ve published collections of poems about various recollections. This one is in prose and includes much more about my life.

THE PURCHASE OF SMALL SECRETS was meant to share the musings of an introspective boy as he explored the world he lived in.

A Chip of Flint

See this?
Too thin
for an arrowhead.

Maybe a chip
from the weapon
being made
by a master craftsman,
flint in one hand
antler tip in the other,
strong wrists
fashioning
a new stone point.

Did he pause
in these woods
silent	alone
or was he surrounded
by chuckling comrades
who winked at secrets
as flint chips fell?

It doesn't matter
the chip was rejected
by the arrowhead.

I accept it
as a gift
from an unknown hand.
~ (c) 1988 David L. Harrison

CONNECTING DOTS invited the reader to connect the dots of my memories to form a clearer picture of how my life was shaped to become who I am.

I’m 15. My collections now fill one room in our house. The years of field trips and chance discoveries are adding up.

THE COLLECTOR

Mothballs?
Yes, that’s what you smell –
over here in my insect case.
They keep the beetles
from eating my bugs.

That musty smell?
You must mean bird wings
pinned to the wall.
Stand back some,
they’re not so bad.

A few little smells don’t bother me.
They’re worth the price
of actually owning a rattlesnake skin,
a crow’s nest,
a red fox hide I tanned myself.

I touch my treasures,
their fragrances perfume my room.
Their stories live again,
their memories sweeter.
~ (c) 2004 David L. Harrison 

So now I'm returning for a third time to the river of my life. I started the project a couple of years ago, imagining it as a play, but I decided that not even close friends and family could willingly sit through such drudgery. In the end I started over and am writing it as a sequence of moments and incidents that seem to me to have contributed to the making of a man who turned out to be a literacy advocate and writer of books and poems for young people. The journey has been long. I promise to make the book shorter. 

I wish you bright paint

Hi everyone,

Another day in National Poetry Month, another poem from the files. This one comes from CONNECTING DOTS, POEMS OF MY JOURNEY, my autobiographical collection published by Boyds Mills Press in 2004. It begins with one of my earliest memories, when I was four and got bitten by a dog, and ends with a poem about my parting wish for others.

The collection was an experiment in a couple of ways. At that time it was a bit unorthodox to place a brief description about each poem at the top of the page, and it was against traditional wisdom to write a book for young readers that spanned the life of the poet from age four to sixty-five. My editor for Connecting Dots, WENDY MURRAY, said then, and I think still believes, it’s the best book I’ve ever done. The cover photo is me at age four, the year I memorized the Gettysburg Address and recited it from memory on a stage at Grace Methodist Church, the place where I would marry SANDRA SUE KENNON eighteen years later.

Here's the final poem in the book, "I Wish You Bright Paint."

I’m 65. I sit here at my desk holding this poem -- the last dot in my picture -- and I wonder who will read it. To you, whoever you are, thank you. I wish you well.


WISHING YOU BRIGHT PAINT

Sometimes I feel --
I don’t know --
squeezed out
like a tube of toothpaste toward the end
rolled up tight against the cap
for a few last brushings.

But if I say the tube is paint
used in pictures of my life,
that makes me feel
I’ve accomplished something,
used the squeezes
to make things happen.
I like that better

So as we go on, you and I,
you to your life, me to mine,
I wish you tubes of bright paint
for all the pictures of your life.
Take off their caps,
squeeze them well,
keep painting.

(c) 2004 David L. Harrison
from CONNECTING DOTS, 2004

Last night’s reading

Hi everyone,

Last night I was one of a group of five poets who read from our work to recognize National Poetry Month. We met at Hold Fast Brewery in Springfield. It was a venue where I hadn’t been before. Here’s a shot of former Springfield Mayor ROBERT STEPHENS reading his work in partnership with Ozark Literacy Council to remind people of the importance of reading. There were many more people there than you see in the picture. We were outside so the wind was a small problem, as was the sun in my eyes when I was at the mike earlier, but not as bad as the time I read at a literature conference while standing atop the third-base dugout in the Springfield Cardinals baseball stadium on a gusty day that sent pages flying into the bleachers. Earlier that day I’d listened to BILLY COLLINS read from the same spot so I knew it could be done.

Last night I read from THE DIRT BOOK (And Now We Know), THE PURCHASE OF SMALL SECRETS (Cow Pie Jewels), BUGS, POEMS ABOUT CREEPING THINGS (A Tick’s Friends), CONNECTING DOTS (Something Happened Over Summer), and finished with the last poem in CONNECTING DOTS (Wishing You Bright Paint.) It’s a personal favorite of mine. Here it is.

WISHING YOU BRIGHT PAINT


Sometimes I feel --
I don’t know –
squeezed out
like a tube of toothpaste toward the end
rolled up tight against the cap
for a few last brushings.

But if I say the tube is paint
used in pictures of my life,
that makes me feel
I’ve accomplished something,
used the squeezes
to make things happen.
I like that better

So as we go on, you and I,
you to your life, me to mine,
I wish you tubes of bright paint
for all the pictures of your life.
Take off their caps,
squeeze them well,
keep painting.


(c) 2004 David L. Harrison, from Connecting Dots, Poems of My Journey