by
Charles D. "Chuck" Floro
Knapp Hall - 1959
Foundation School - 1960-1962
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by Charles D. "Chuck" Floro Knapp Hall - 1959 Foundation School - 1960-1962
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(C) 1982-2000 By Charles D. Floro All Rights Reserved | ||
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e-mail: earthskyweb@cs.com
website: www.earthskyweb.com
postal mail: P.O. Box 70, Wilmot, SD 57279
Telephone: (605) 938-4452
Fax: (605) 938-4676 | ||
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Caution: Poetry can be a dangerous matter uneasy the lines, can
undo a hidden lifetime | |||||||
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Poems selected from Scattering of dust: some favorite readings Above the Wind The Bridge Mountain Experience and unpublished manuscripts | |||||||
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Berea: memories and more Page 1 | |||||||
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"Thoughts on the Occasion of a Knapp Hall Reunion October 2000"
Since leaving Berea Foundation School in my junior year -- it was 1962 -- for the Mariana Islands, I have not returned except for a couple of days' visiting in 1965 and 1969. And I only attended Knapp Hall in the eighth grade. Yet I can still close my eyes and easily recall so very much . . .
Dividing up the boys and girls for games on the playground, the sunny open areas and those overhung by formidable windowed tiers of Knapp Hall
Entrance doorway, stairway to our classrooms, where we learned and whispered and passed notes but sometimes were caught from behind by the stealthy "hand," fingers digging into shoulders-- no one ever in those clutches could forget that lesson Ouch! | ||
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Oh, who could ever forget (as seventh and eighth graders) the day the girls were taken into one classroom, the boys another . . . they to hear about feminine hygiene and manners, we to hear about manners and the risks of wearing too-tight jeans to school!
I was a new kid the only year spent at Knapp Hall, but how close we became and remained so, and joined with others in Foundation School
How those years, school, Scouts, Civil Air Patrol, hiking the hills, are so a part of who I am in the songs and other gatherings and gleanings who now lives and works on a Dakota Oyate reservation doing newspapers and now websites
Wishing all my classmates, Berea friends, well on the occasion of our reunion
Photo/July 2000 | ||
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Berea: memories and more Page 3 | ||
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Our Knapp Hall Eighth Grade Class | |||||
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Our Junior Class Officers -- the last year I lived at Berea | ||||||
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Stylized memories of Porter Moore's taken from the Chimes | |||||
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How memories, especially of faraway childhood dissolve into something else a reordering, restructuring of what was, of how we have become who we are today
ghosts of those persons we once were are semi-opaque versions of visions who we were, who we might have become yet
in semi-dark twilight of earth in this form clarity comes shining down
as harvest moon our hearts have ever
beaten steady to the same gentle rhythm of stars circling beyond our skies | ||||||
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Written following a conversation with Bruce Robertson in September 2000 | ||||||
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Berea: memories and more Page 7 | ||||||
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Falling into Jackson Street memory finding hidden in backyard oak familiar corn cob pipe, cherry blend, fresh as for our Scouting hikes across the bluegrass
thirty-six miles in two days once to Keeneland track along rows of straight white boards demarcation for thoroughbred lines
isn't usually the walking but the resting recalled, lighting up that pipe swapping little sins (we were not yet worn down in this world) imagining perhaps being asleep in some other place and dreaming you guys and these summer breezes blowing down through miles of green woods | ||
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Was it ever real, any of it, even then? And where are we now, if not gone down onto solo pillows?
We will walk a lonesome road into the sky someday each by ourselves
as the savior did
wonder if in the hereafter we can be children again or live that awkward, perfect in-between when we were friends. | ||
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Berea: memories and more Page 9 | ||
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"The path"
finding it again from places we promised never to go long ago behind the walls rose and wood, granite hills chalice of moon, scent of sandalwood discourse in dappled woods gypsy moths gathered around the light sure-footed for the ever to come
And here and now down in the valleys where the pale light comes slow dripping again, eyes wide to the shine, to the way we always knew
***** | ||
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Doubtful that this blasphemous journal excerpt comes out of our (shared) Foundation School Latin class experience (Per deos immortales!), but who knows?
Telling time off pissing off the gods
***** Quid deos immortales cognovisti? And the reflections in our eyes are we blind to the life of the pond or centers of civilization northside Chicago Old Town or Haight-Ashbury in the '60s
When we spread our wings angels of the redwood grove flying high above the wind | ||
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what we cherished was the all to which poets yearn toward which science leans
perhaps it was on sand bar shores their spawn first filled the pail an ocean away from Appalachia where we hiked the cliffs and yelled "Per deos immortales!"
here, inside the hush, their songs emanate radiate through dancing limbs and shout out of eyes
***** going to the easel spitting out poetry in acrylics symbols for words to be misunderstood
the canvas alone is pure
***** | ||
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not, i think therefore am but, i dream therefore am and if i dream the dance the dancer i become
*****
"Errand"
Vortex crass pathway barely touching, crossing thin fleeting flimsiest excuse for pawn of lust
Gabriel was sent upon an errand never has returned years ago
Looking out ramshackle window debris strewn streets bodies piled high by henchmen rogues crematorium loads | ||
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Has not returned still waiting for a sign
The motorcycle engine revs shadow rider under leather comes for setting matters straight to pull the bullets out of guns
(For Dr. Roscoe "Rusty" Giffin)
***** | ||
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"Tiptoe"
She walks on tiptoe border line Juliet in glowing eyes. No disguise could ever hide candle glaring through the night sung in round before first light.
She walks the tiptoe border line around and round tempting wine but never does she enter in no way inside to cheer her friend; though I dreamed I saw her smile.
If she never calls again old doors come crashing down to splinters gone for sure. No matter where the wind swirls flow; though I believe I saw her smile.
Three main acts of tragedy fill the corners of the stage where reckless arms collided once; now are only leaves that rustle in a hot and restless wind. | ||||
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Berea: memories and more Page 15 | ||||
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*****
"Tethered Climber" (Epilogue)
Up so high the cottonwood sings her trunk the melody branches harmony wings
Back down on earth things are different there distinct lay of land of seasons, wounded chorus
Belay the line below the climb tied off to someone else's hands a gypsy's perhaps, see the tattoo wonder whether or not to trust lifeline tied off stretched taut
Climber of inward heights hanging on by subtle thread to source and root and mother of us all through one not known but hope is true tied off with knotted cord | ||
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must not release until the episode has ended and sky attained then will face whose hands have held the line
(for Bruce and "Spider")
*****
Shadows pummel side of silver speeding train Rushing seasons past to metronome of railroad track No peace inside this ride Broken schemes The weather's been too long too bad Eyes are dull, are sad
Seated warm in a station house Somewhere along this line Refreshed, a fellow journer Ponders the joy Reward for insight — Weather for both having been the same | ||
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*****
He came awake singing in an alien language Words shimmering, expanding into galaxies Splayed across the bedroom wall Then imploding, contracting into tight spheres Before one final explosion sent them, broken stars, Out into space.
Where had he been in this dream This storm of sweet fury? Crawling from comfortable covers To greet another day: "Where, where am I?"
***** | ||||
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I recall, years ago, a song Once we sang together I've forgotten the words But remember the melody Will remember the melody Beyond the horizons Beyond the old words That lost their meaning anyway | ||||
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Symbols without substance Ghost forms holding vast emptiness But the tune carries the mathematics Of stars crossing, coursing Toward pulsars, centers of universes | |||||
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***** | |||||
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shout down a fear, a thousand more may come around
embrace the fear, a child, and grow upon its food
until you reach the ledge face a mirrored world
come to know you are the bright one immanuel | |||||
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***** | |||||
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Berea: memories and more Page 19 | |||||
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"Discovering joy and sadness"
Joy and sadness as one: joy is lover rushing to meet beloved in dance beyond secluded stream; sadness is lover returning taste of encounter a memory on the lips and tongue
Or twin planets orbiting, dancing about this dream of you and I
Heart rising, heart falling heart filled, heart empty is the same, our drum, beating cadence to stars crossing overhead
***** | ||||
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"An American mom"
American mom loving child, loving pet | ||||
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woman, mid thirties angry, shopping slams cat litter, cat food, juice for her child -- a little five-or-six year old gal with wild flying hair just like the mom's, pretty _ into the trunk
the girl hides crawling into back seat mom who loves the child, the pet so much buying them all this shit slams trunk lid after slamming in shit for her loved ones
slides into front seat slams the fucking door takes off quick from crowded parking lot at shopping mall | |||
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***** | |||
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Berea: memories and more Page 21 | |||
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"The Visit"
I came down the coastal cemetery to see our headstones they were still there
Knelt down, pulled a few weeds alongside perennials were growing too, budding about to turn to flowers
Mamas and the Pappas were singin' California Dreamin' everywhere blasting upward from the earth, out of bushes out of trees
Paid my respects with due respect considering the season
Shadow crossed these sacred grounds, looked up squinting into sky at flights coming and going out over the ocean | ||
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Until it all turned crimson, I blinked and everything was gone again
Back in Toledo or is this Kansas? I struggle to know where ever I am
Only wanted to write to let you know I had been there visiting our resting places
(Any other hippies among my Berea classmates?)
*****
years the poetry failed
or was it the other way around
a failing to listen | ||
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***** | |||||
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"Self"
Are you the you who wrote down these words, or the you who is reading them
and what's the difference
and afterwards again who are you now | |||||
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"I've never had any friends like the ones I had when I was 12. Hell, does anybody?"
(Stephen King, excerpt from The Body.) | |||||
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"We Knew"
In those days we kicked up clouds of dust from the twisting string of road and ran behind wide red barns to hide from really big dust clouds the wind blew down our necks from far hills.
We were younger then but knew what it was all about -- the sky and fields and all the folks.
People were machines that worked the fields and the dung which made the beans grow tall and more than that -- they were the angels who lived in the sky when autumn was done. | ||||
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"The Woods"
. . . spindly lookin' trees as if you could breathe too loud and knock `em down like paper matchsticks but there are so many . . .
a man could get lost inside them.
(Written on a Greyhound bus on the way to Berea, first visit back in 1965.) | ||||
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"Leaf to Petal"
Leaf to petal, petal to leaf watch as the day wears on unfolding
closing and coming back together.
Nature owns a ryhthm never pausing even at passionate words, or at the shame in our eyes.
No, she does not work like people do. | ||||
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"Woman of the Dulcimer"
Appalachian roads unchanged for a hundred years: the rains fallng from bluegray skies are the same ones that fell upon the mountains when we were children.
Destiny is piecemeal bone and severed flesh northward into fog of steel cities; or hanging upon deserted mountain paths; the life we knew is gone.
These bluegray rains are ours, but we are gone -- some into day, others into night.
Sing again woman of the dulcimer. Dance one more round. Call back the daisy wraps wild rose buttons. | ||
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The sky folds backward below the edge of the Cumberlands every evening; it's just that we are no longer there to watch.
Sing again woman of the dulcimer. Dance one more round. Call back the daisy wraps wild rose buttons.
*****
"Uncle Kyle's Cabin"
Up the dusty, scarce-used trail then ford the creek along raspberry fields
At the gate feeding wild pones apples
plucked from valley limbs | ||
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Down the wood fence line fire's on inside logcabin doors welcome mat
trailing blue smoke into blue hills
North Carolina seems so far away
Some summer old Kyle will lead us again
up the dusty trail along raspberry fields
(Written about a summer vacation at Maggie Valley and staying in a cabin owned by Ernestine Upchurch's Uncle Kyle.) | ||
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"Friends"
Lonely rivers that never cross ivy grown apart never twined Separates wake in middle of the night hearing the call but no way to act upon it at all too shy for love too lonely for words their hearts won't mend
Broken, friends forever never consummating love they're too shy to ever admit feelings never spoken of carried to burying ground. | ||||
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"Winter's Pedestrian Watchers"
The sky performs ritual of snow kicking it down in trough and basin pedestrians run, trying to kick it back to where it comes from.
Frost draws childlike circles on windowpane we sit on windowledge wishing to be down in the snow playing like we were cherry-faced donut and cocoa kids red mittens and earmuffs.
The morning's coming on, splashing in trough and basin, waiting for us to come on down from windowledge to play like kids.
When it's fully day and stars melt down like snow which melts to gutter drains, let's walk just walk | ||
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kicking what's left of snow from streets back to wherever it comes from, and gazing between steps into each other's eyes. ***** | |||
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"Walking Past a Vacant House"
Idiot society chews `em up, spits `em out broken, scattered like dust in the wind, no not dust chunks
of gravel and granite discharged and propelled by forces not their own to destinations never intended in beginning ending up living lives not ever imagined in a million years under the veil before the altar swearing to God and everybody promises now unkept. | |||
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"Berea"
Ode to vincit qui patitur school, Protestant
alma mater, mother of Jesus, where are you? Saw yellow
banded-wing blackbirds mating (which one on top?) side of road, then
from the sky out of nowhere
seemed too cold, no fire couldn't tell (but don't people always get it confused) above, up high silver
mirage flashed an instant like walking the
Appalachian trail used to do | ||
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the amphitheater Pilot Knob it was
God beside me again
Jesus, it was so good for awhile
anyway
***** | |||
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"A Land Never Seen Before"
I walk upon a land I've never seen before: step lightly! for someone lives here someone is loved.
Sturdy fenceposts -- a strong arm dug them where they stand. And rows of sweet corn -- who planted the seed in God's sight to grow?
I walk upon a land I've never seen before. | |||
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"Back to the Cumberland Hills"
I'm goin' back to my home in the hills, I'm goin' back to the ones I love. I'm goin' back to the Cumberland hills high above Kentucky, high above Kentucky.
And I'm leavin' the smoke of the city. I'm leavin' her lights behind. And I'm leavin' a broken heart in that city of broken dreams.
I'm goin' back to my home in the hills, I'm goin' back to the ones I love. I'm goin' back to the Cumberland hills high above Kentucky, high above Kentucky.
***** | |||
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"Travelin' Song"
I'm travelin' down a lonesome road. I've been by this way before. I'll come by again. Love is like an eagle flyin' in the wind. And I'll be by this way again, my friend. | |||
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"Heartache's All I Get for Lovin' You"
I keep lookin' for a magic key to open up your heart. Are there words and rhymes to sing to show how much I care? And if they ever reach your ears would you like to sing along? No, heartache's all I get for lovin' you.
Like a thirstin' plant waits for the rain I've waited for your arms to wind around and hold me tight as in my dreams they've done. But every time we get together you vanish in the wind. And heartache's all I get for lovin' you.
Next time I really do believe you'll fall in love with me. We'll travel down Kentucky trails to see the wildflowers bloom then climb up Pilot Knob to see forever in the sky. No, heartache's all I get for lovin' you. (Another shattered dream . . . all she wrote!) | ||
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"Smoky Mountain Memory"
The good times are gone. Good songs all sung. Nashville man took my girl away with a line. He'd put her voice on records, her name in neon signs. She'll never sing these love songs with me again.
She's my Smoky Mountain memory. My Smoky Mountain memory. In the Smoky Mountain rain I see her face again. In the Smoky Mountain rain I hear her voice again.
Although she is gone now to be a star maybe she'll see those bright lights go dark. Then she will come back into my arms and sing these mountain songs with me again. | ||||
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"Blue Ridge Mountain Rain"
In the Blue Ridge Mountain rain I see her long dark hair flowin' down. In the Blue Ridge Mountain rain I hear her sweet words of love one more time.
In the Blue Ridge Mountain rain I learned the lessons of love in her arms. But the Blue Ridge Mountains stole my dream, and I've been away a long time.
One night in the rain on a piny hill road she left this old world behind and a lover who'll never recover his heart he left behind in those hills.
In the Blue Ridge Mountain rain I see her long dark hair flowin' down. In the Blue Ridge Mountain rain I hear her sweet words of love one more time.
***** | ||
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Berea: memories and more Page 39 | ||
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"I See Forever in Your Eyes"
Our time together seems short yet somehow I see forever in your eyes. God has called us to be love for one another all our days. And though our time together seems so short I will always see forever in your eyes.
God's love is greater than the world's. It asks nothing for itself. It's patient, kind, and understanding, hates evil and loves the truth. His love will never fail us.
Once I thought love was a game, win or lose, play to a draw. To take away the gifts of someone else's heart. But love can never be love unless it's given away. | ||
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Our time together seems short yet somehow I see forever in your eyes. God has called us to be love for one another all our days. And though our time together seems so short I will always see forever in your eyes.
*****
"Where Have You Been"
Where have you been and where are you goin', my friend
Have you been to London, have you seen the world Have you loved and cried your tears Have you seen the sunshine and walked in the rain . . . Or has life passed you by
Where have you been and where are you goin', my friend | ||
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"Lines to Helen"
Don't ask, "What ocean crossed? what deck lamp lit in the ocean night?"
I was so far that I knew no bounds; I was so far that I knew no growth; I was so far that I knew no God; I was so far that I knew no love, nor fire, nor feeling, nor touch, nor sentiment; outside the circle of conclusions and bounds, beyond even freedom, I was an unsacred thing
fallen into the bright which lured me to California and compelled me, a fool, into a nebulous hole -- my own folly, no one else's.
There must be a million ships that sail this world around -- I look toward the sea and watch them come and go. Sometimes I recognize faces at the railings and recall passages made together. | ||
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I belong to the land now. So, sail on, ships. I turn my face toward the land of birth.
What happens when a man reaches the sun? His wings melt in the flame and he falls back to the dust of earth to breathe again.
(From a letter to Helen Hovey, who understood tragedy and joy.)
*****
Lord, help all who seek; all who seek rain into the roots.
I go from poem to poem like a blind man sometimes, like a fool sometimes. "Life drifts between a fool and a blind man until the end." Yet I seek release from foolishness and blindness. | ||
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I repeat the prayer: Lord, help all who seek; all who seek rain into the roots.
*****
"Another Song"
Another verse, another verse, another song. I came from boxcar fantasies and a woman's willow-branch arms I never found waving for me.
The mountain is so still with a hush of meaning while I go over old journeys in my mind.
Such a song this morning. In the hush where birds' mouths wait -- it is there . . . another verse, another verse, another song. Come lie awake all the days of life and listen . . . another verse, another verse, another song. | ||
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"A new year's song"
The nighttime rider sang the song was pure but I do not believe I can do her justice by telling you of it the words were in an unknown language can say only the rhythm, rhyme and musical chords made me picture a birth when blankets of an old century are turned down a final night the infant cries out
I waited on a far hillside for her to come riding a pony the moon was round and brilliant calling down for children to come outside and dance
As hoofbeats, faint but steady, came from the east, a man's face constructed from smoke above firestones in the west even though my eyes were closed I saw him there laughing speaking in that same language | ||
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Looking down to his outstretched hands he cradled burning coals sparkling, I saw in them, deep inside, stars circling, galaxies again his laugh then he disappeared
The rider came on her gentle horse singing and I would share the song with you if I could
Please look out tonight and the next and next wait on hillsides of sleep she will come and sing into your soul the song you will know by the harmony that comes from out your own mouth without conscious thought at all
Dec. 1999 | ||
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"Veiled Under Work"
dreaming the jobs day upon day layering life into little pastries
where are the mechanics of grand viewing above the engines and towers and smoke
what tools
would you use pliers and wire to write down history of the ages or lasso and chaps for solving equations tracking stars across space | ||||
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maybe taking wrong tools is a choice
for watery workers splashing against shores we don't really want to breach
would cause too much stir in the soul would have to admit who we are
(Journal excerpt, October 4, 2000) | |||
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