A recent trip back to North Dakota for a family funeral for a favorite Aunt, Bernice Alfson, was a special time for me to see her grandchildren grown and her great grandchildren who were new to me. I had written a poem in remembrance at 2 AM before the one day trip, but the tributes at the funeral by her grandchildren were more apt and a pleasant reminder of the wonderful person that so many of us called "Barney" or "Aunt Barney." She was a person of great warmth and kindness. Here is a late draft of the poem I wrote in remembrance of her.
Drifting over the drumlin
Tonight the stream is up blowing crystals
Desert dry o'r the ridge onto the lee.
This ridge of mounds scoured by polar winds
Was once the debris wall of an empire of ice.
Was it the burden's mass pushed ahead
By the invading ice (tiring of onslaught)?
Or did sun shine warmly on day of rest,
Leaving debris a sign of far enough?
From here the First People signaled with smoke
The bison's direction in the sea of grass.
Later emigrant scouts atop these mounds
Scanned to the horizon for fields of promise.
Below in the ridge's lee a finger lake
Collects the snow's runoff and hosts the flocks.
I hear here a loved one with wisdom blessed
Who stops eternity from such a spot.
She places her foot out, remembers
That time long ago on a sylvan shore.
Now she pushes at air as once she pushed
At waves washing ashore with her prospects.
A moment shoeless girl sudden bounded
Start and raise family, so soon to leave.
Winds speed, spirits journey, from this bleak ridge.
Give her wish its flight, resounding air.
I beg you feel this ocean of air here
At this place; leap off with a lighter heart.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Thanksgiving, a double blessing.
I was so pleased to see families on Thanksgiving coming to the shelter for homeless men to serve Thanksgiving dinner. One family was hard at it all day in the various phases of food preparation, service, and clean up.
I was there briefly at the Simpson Shelter in Minneapolis just to serve and to do some clean up. The men who came to feast seemed so glad of the food. I poured milk and replenished water glasses and everyone seemed gracious. I encouraged folks to pass condiments and butter around to others.
I believe that the blessings and thanks of these men made the evening a two way street. Kindness and goodness are each their own reward and we need look no further for reward. I know my own fears of economic hardship seemed so much lighter after this particular meal.
I am especially thankful for time with my children and grandchild at the home of my former wife who put on a marvelous dinner yesterday afternoon.
I was there briefly at the Simpson Shelter in Minneapolis just to serve and to do some clean up. The men who came to feast seemed so glad of the food. I poured milk and replenished water glasses and everyone seemed gracious. I encouraged folks to pass condiments and butter around to others.
I believe that the blessings and thanks of these men made the evening a two way street. Kindness and goodness are each their own reward and we need look no further for reward. I know my own fears of economic hardship seemed so much lighter after this particular meal.
I am especially thankful for time with my children and grandchild at the home of my former wife who put on a marvelous dinner yesterday afternoon.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
A Poem of Gratitude for my Readers
Prairie rose volunteers
Be glad of your wants, each of you.
Do not be anxious for your life.
If you can, you shall not want.
Be still, be comforted, feel blessed.
When we did without all those years
And sacrificed for naught, then
I say we have known want:
Spiritual or material want or both!
The psalmist trusts, “I shall not want,”
But we struggle to get it right.
Unless we stand with who dare say:
“God loves me as you can see by my plenty.”
We can keep a prairie rose volunteer
In a clay or silver cup;
We can complete each sunrise or sunset
With a celebration in song of yet another day.
Somehow it’s the half empty cup
That’s filled with what is unseen:
The sense of contentment and acceptance
Of the unfinished business of life.
Be glad of your wants, each of you.
Do not be anxious for your life.
If you can, you shall not want.
Be still, be comforted, feel blessed.
When we did without all those years
And sacrificed for naught, then
I say we have known want:
Spiritual or material want or both!
The psalmist trusts, “I shall not want,”
But we struggle to get it right.
Unless we stand with who dare say:
“God loves me as you can see by my plenty.”
We can keep a prairie rose volunteer
In a clay or silver cup;
We can complete each sunrise or sunset
With a celebration in song of yet another day.
Somehow it’s the half empty cup
That’s filled with what is unseen:
The sense of contentment and acceptance
Of the unfinished business of life.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Peace Now Grows Ever Remoter a Possibility
My sympathies are with the victims and their families of victims of the shootings yesterday, Monday, November 5, 2009, at Fort Leonard Wood, Texas. President Obama has declared a national mourning period from today forward thru Veterans Day.
The Muslim world is living and dying each day in a world dominated by the United States and its allies. Many in the Muslim world believe that their world is under attack by and is victimized by Western values and Western powers. The proponents of terrorism and suicide bombings in wrecking Muslim vengeance on the Western world and their own Muslim populations are into a victim mentality and justify the evil they do as necessary for the ultimate triumph of the Muslim world over the Western world.
The American people are led to believe that they are safe in their beds because of wars, occupations of foreign lands, and drone attacks. As a United States citizen, I do not believe I am made safer by the killing done in my behalf. On the other hand, I can not wash my hands of what my country is doing because I live in a republic of laws and elected representatives. The blood of innocents is on my hands.
I do not see my government's current efforts as helpful nor ultimately productive. Drones with pin point accuracy launched by the United States are fired at targets in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The target selection is often done in haste with personnel of the enemy often in transit and using the screen of villagers for protection. Innocent men, women, and children are killed in these attacks which presumably have a degree of success in killing actual terrorists who are at war with the United States and its allies. Technology permits my government and enemies of my government to kill indiscriminately. I know technology is not the enemy, but the servant of those who would do war on one another.
When civilians died on September 11, 2001, in the World Trade Center attacks,it confirmed that we are all combatants and are asked to take sides. Where is the end of war to be found in a world gone mad?
I find myself asking for spiritual leaders for the Muslim world who could help Muslims embrace peace instead of revenge. I find myself asking for spiritual leaders for the Western world who could help non-Muslims embrace peace instead of revenge.
I advocate for restorative justice in how the Muslim and Western worlds interact. We need to step back from the ledge of pursuing solutions to relationship ills between people by resort to violence.
The Muslim world is living and dying each day in a world dominated by the United States and its allies. Many in the Muslim world believe that their world is under attack by and is victimized by Western values and Western powers. The proponents of terrorism and suicide bombings in wrecking Muslim vengeance on the Western world and their own Muslim populations are into a victim mentality and justify the evil they do as necessary for the ultimate triumph of the Muslim world over the Western world.
The American people are led to believe that they are safe in their beds because of wars, occupations of foreign lands, and drone attacks. As a United States citizen, I do not believe I am made safer by the killing done in my behalf. On the other hand, I can not wash my hands of what my country is doing because I live in a republic of laws and elected representatives. The blood of innocents is on my hands.
I do not see my government's current efforts as helpful nor ultimately productive. Drones with pin point accuracy launched by the United States are fired at targets in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The target selection is often done in haste with personnel of the enemy often in transit and using the screen of villagers for protection. Innocent men, women, and children are killed in these attacks which presumably have a degree of success in killing actual terrorists who are at war with the United States and its allies. Technology permits my government and enemies of my government to kill indiscriminately. I know technology is not the enemy, but the servant of those who would do war on one another.
When civilians died on September 11, 2001, in the World Trade Center attacks,it confirmed that we are all combatants and are asked to take sides. Where is the end of war to be found in a world gone mad?
I find myself asking for spiritual leaders for the Muslim world who could help Muslims embrace peace instead of revenge. I find myself asking for spiritual leaders for the Western world who could help non-Muslims embrace peace instead of revenge.
I advocate for restorative justice in how the Muslim and Western worlds interact. We need to step back from the ledge of pursuing solutions to relationship ills between people by resort to violence.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Coming into Life in North Dakota
There was a time when I had next to no experience of the rural life of my home state, North Dakota. During college years (1968-1972), I had learned to stack bales on a wagon and to make a haystack with the bales on the rolling hills above Lake Lida, for farmer Cliff Hanson, but that was in Minnesota. As a child, I had no hankering to live a rural life either, or even live in a small town. I would come to have experience of rural life.
After college graduation in December 1972, I accepted a position as a replacement teacher in Neche, North Dakota, for January 1973. I remember getting off the Greyhound Bus in Pembina and hitchhiking into town with a very beautiful but forlorn woman who knew Neche first hand and knew the address where I had quarters with another teacher. I never saw her again but her kindness in helping me out is not forgotten. I enjoyed my students but felt totally detached from the community and was not even sure there was a community. Fellow teachers left Neche to have a social life in a neighboring town at a bar. I thought then I was not meant for life in a small town.
When the quarter at Neche public school ended, I returned to Fargo-Moorhead and went to work in a farm store where I worked with another young man, Dennis Gerger (a friend from Moorhead State University). He lived in Barnesville, Minnesota, where he was raised on his father's very prosperous farm. As a town kid, I had to admit small talk with farmers was a stretch for me. I was selling them plow shovels, harrow teeth, and harvester blades with only a mental image of the equipment the part fit into.
Dennis on the other hand knew exactly what the part was. He was into history and sparkled when he talked about his family heritage. His ancestors were German immigrants to Russia at the invitation of Catherine the Great because of their agricultural acumen. Later in time, his grandparents had fled the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 for the United States.
I remember attending Dennis's marriage to Julie in southeastern North Dakota. I did not think I was headed for small town life such as Julie and Dennis knew. I married that summer myself to a sweetheart from Carrington, North Dakota, Jean Bronaugh.
Even though I would go to law school in 1974-1975 at the University of North Dakota, I would end up in really small town North Dakota as a rural English teacher. At the end of first year law, I was busted up having worked two jobs in addition to attending class with a really low grade in Property Law and seemingly little prospect of finishing my professional degree. Wife Jean had to do almost all the child care and housekeeping when our first child Kendra was born that year while I kept going out the door to work or to the law library and class. We did not have an easy year to say the least.
Fortunately after the harshness of first year law, I was asked to interview for a position teaching English in a rural village, Grace City, North Dakota. It was the best thing for me it turns out as I came to know the land which is my home state and to garden prodigiously (until wife Jean could not stand canning another thing). The people of the school district were welcoming and kind. We joined the local Lutheran Church and I served as a trustee and Sunday school teacher. The three years in Grace City for me were very heartening.
At this point in time, it has been years since I physically lived in North Dakota. The keepsakes I have are the poems that capture for me the experience of the land, the people, and the the thoughts and feelings of living on the great plains in my native state.
After college graduation in December 1972, I accepted a position as a replacement teacher in Neche, North Dakota, for January 1973. I remember getting off the Greyhound Bus in Pembina and hitchhiking into town with a very beautiful but forlorn woman who knew Neche first hand and knew the address where I had quarters with another teacher. I never saw her again but her kindness in helping me out is not forgotten. I enjoyed my students but felt totally detached from the community and was not even sure there was a community. Fellow teachers left Neche to have a social life in a neighboring town at a bar. I thought then I was not meant for life in a small town.
When the quarter at Neche public school ended, I returned to Fargo-Moorhead and went to work in a farm store where I worked with another young man, Dennis Gerger (a friend from Moorhead State University). He lived in Barnesville, Minnesota, where he was raised on his father's very prosperous farm. As a town kid, I had to admit small talk with farmers was a stretch for me. I was selling them plow shovels, harrow teeth, and harvester blades with only a mental image of the equipment the part fit into.
Dennis on the other hand knew exactly what the part was. He was into history and sparkled when he talked about his family heritage. His ancestors were German immigrants to Russia at the invitation of Catherine the Great because of their agricultural acumen. Later in time, his grandparents had fled the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 for the United States.
I remember attending Dennis's marriage to Julie in southeastern North Dakota. I did not think I was headed for small town life such as Julie and Dennis knew. I married that summer myself to a sweetheart from Carrington, North Dakota, Jean Bronaugh.
Even though I would go to law school in 1974-1975 at the University of North Dakota, I would end up in really small town North Dakota as a rural English teacher. At the end of first year law, I was busted up having worked two jobs in addition to attending class with a really low grade in Property Law and seemingly little prospect of finishing my professional degree. Wife Jean had to do almost all the child care and housekeeping when our first child Kendra was born that year while I kept going out the door to work or to the law library and class. We did not have an easy year to say the least.
Fortunately after the harshness of first year law, I was asked to interview for a position teaching English in a rural village, Grace City, North Dakota. It was the best thing for me it turns out as I came to know the land which is my home state and to garden prodigiously (until wife Jean could not stand canning another thing). The people of the school district were welcoming and kind. We joined the local Lutheran Church and I served as a trustee and Sunday school teacher. The three years in Grace City for me were very heartening.
At this point in time, it has been years since I physically lived in North Dakota. The keepsakes I have are the poems that capture for me the experience of the land, the people, and the the thoughts and feelings of living on the great plains in my native state.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Poets Against the War
In 2003 I was so fortunate to hear of a poetry reading of Poets Against the War and then later to attend this poetry reading in downtown St. Paul. In attendance among others was Robert Bly. This reading convened poets to read poems of their own, or another, against the war mongering which was rampant in the run up to the Iraq War. Similar readings were held elsewhere in our country for the same purpose. I subsequently purchased Samuel Hamill's collection of the poetry he anthologized at that time by Poets against the war.
The country seemed caught up in jingoism at the time but not everyone bought into that popular sentiment to go invade Iraq. I recall first lady Laura Bush disinvited poets to the White House when she learned of anti-war sentiments that were rife in the literary community.
One observation I would make is that poets, even the most political of us, are unlikely to set out to write anti-war poems. I remember writing an anti-war poem as a young man as a language experiment. It is the least successful of poems except as an experiment but even that contains concern for the youth offered up as cannon fodder.
Poets of anti-war verse more likely are caught up in the moment by an underlying concern or passion about our fellow humans. Poems I wrote later in life that can be characterized as anti-war are a product of concern for my country and the human race. These poems ended up in a collection of my own anti-war poems (available upon email request to this blogger).
The country seemed caught up in jingoism at the time but not everyone bought into that popular sentiment to go invade Iraq. I recall first lady Laura Bush disinvited poets to the White House when she learned of anti-war sentiments that were rife in the literary community.
One observation I would make is that poets, even the most political of us, are unlikely to set out to write anti-war poems. I remember writing an anti-war poem as a young man as a language experiment. It is the least successful of poems except as an experiment but even that contains concern for the youth offered up as cannon fodder.
Poets of anti-war verse more likely are caught up in the moment by an underlying concern or passion about our fellow humans. Poems I wrote later in life that can be characterized as anti-war are a product of concern for my country and the human race. These poems ended up in a collection of my own anti-war poems (available upon email request to this blogger).
Editing my blog - thank you.
I am especially grateful to my brother, Joe Hilber, for being my reader. At his encouragement I have reworked my blog chiefly for paragraphing and emphasis purposes today. If you are a reader, please provide criticism and insight feedback. I cherish it and know my work product is thereby a living project.
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