Time is a Toy: The Selected Poems of Michael Benedikt

Don Hall & Jane Kenyon of “Eagles Pond Farm,”...

168 don hall & jane kenyon of “eagles pond farm,” in new hampshire, invite a n.y.c. boy, resettled for a time in boston, to a country party; &, following an appropriate if brief “re-orientation session,” everybody goes out to hear some poetry at “the blazing star grange” in danbury, n.h., at kate fowler’s 100th (!) birthday party, july 16, 1978 One of the primary problems for the composer in an industrial society like that of America is to achieve integration to find justification for the life of art in the life about him. —Aaron Copland It wasn’t my land, it was your land, up they-ah. So, for me, it was a bit like theatre (At first), not only to have Boston there as point of departure, but also to find myself still farther away—way up North here—in the middle of New Hampshire. Twice-a-tourist, at Ms. Kate Fowler’s 100th (!) Birthday Party. It was held (Stranger still), in one of the “Grange”-places “The Blazing Star” that they had Built, farmer-folk, almost a full century ago, so as to hold meetings against various Eastern-urban railroad barons Who wanted to go running express-trains through their cow-pastures & their barns Or who (worse yet!) envisioned railroadyards & coalyards where there grew grainfields. Doubtless, I thought, Old Kate, Don’t forget, what that was like (perhaps even as she made her entrance there—all faces turned towards her from afar—that sunlight-bright 169 Door, so many yards off in “The Star”; Yes, turned toward Kate, suddenly present among us at last here, calm in shining new wheelchair, in pretty white party-dress, her smiling, tiny, pretty face beaming keenly from above its nice clear collar; then looking thoughtful withal, as Kate moved forth toward her audience beside one staunch grange wall—) &, As Kate went by us, gesturing to & greeting nearby “Grange” neighbors bending down as if quasi-curtseying, to whisper things to her, in passing as it were. I Scann’d (in the background), various common dec’rative plaques along the grange-walls, some of them (as Don had said), with various names of the Halls’ Relatives engraved thereupon;—& yea, in the midst of that plaque-plethora, beside me, Don, & Jane pointed out some more. &, Looking & waiting, located temporarily here midst all this well-situated history, this trav’ler had to remind himself, somewhat as if for stability: So, here it is, somewhere forward of the last quarter of the Twentieth Century &, Here I was, in this midst of it, sitting firmly there as could be; &, finally, slowly arrived up front before all her folks, there was a very old patient lady, quietly awaiting her centennial ceremony; —Oh, calm pois’d Kate, evincing at odd moments some slight fidgetdisconcertment , but fundamentally seeming not at all surprised to have turned up here today, situated there in her fabulously shiny & perhaps for all I knew new chrome-model tubular-structure wheelchair; & There was that sudden applause & also a surprise-message being recited slowly now by the flowery-flannel’d snappy-shirted M.C.-of-the-affair: A personal homespun message (via telegram) from her U.S. president, Carter & Wife Rosalind; & this living, personal moment in a region’s history was thrilling everybody & (even stranger still), twice-a-stranger here, me; & yet rightly, it seemed, somehow quite rightly; 170 & Suddenly beside me & beside themselves those dear sweeties Don & Jane was largely weeping in the seats (they had sat down on either side Of me; & this was trav’ler-kindly, & made me feel kind of like family); & There was Jane shedding some lovely large globs & there was Don most tenderly misting (For this was happening almost exactly on the literal land that they live on, as those plaques I could not help but keep accord, kept reminding-meinsisting ); & Next thing we all knew there was a suddenly azzif-from-nowhere young lady singer down on one knee crouching beside Kate then uttering also her own tender All beside that wheelchair Almost as if before some present-day secular U.S. of A. altar, the young lady singer now bent over herself—but still steadying Kate Fowler’s tired hand with gestures of her own hand & exchanging gaze-for-gaze & adding her own memento to the day with her own birthday-keeping, & time & history-honoring song-message— Singing what was described as a “Kate Old Favorite,” nothing less than “God Be With You, ’Till We Meet Again”—a tune from by-gone days yet full...