“The First Green Thing” an Easter poem with analysis by Dr. G.E. Mini

Today, March 21, 2026, is the first day of spring.

In 2010, I set out to write a different kind of Easter poem.  Robert Frost said, "Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom."  With that in mind, I set these thoughts in an imaginary walk in the woods, the kind I took as a boy when winter was gone and the warmer days of spring begged exploring. I was sometimes surprised by finding discarded human artifacts far off the beaten path: an old glass bottle, a bicycle seat, part of a broken teapot--odd things out of place that begged the question, "What in the world is this doing here?"  It was the memory of such walks and discoveries that prompted these lines .

"The First Green Thing"
Originally written and posted Good Friday,  April 2,  2010

The first green thing

I saw that spring

was not a hyssop sprig, 

not a trillium leaf along the trail,

nor the bourgeoning twig

of ivy on a crossed split rail.

No, before I’d seen a 

sign of things to come along the path,

I saw the green patina
of an artisan’s birdbath 
wrought in copper and bronze,
beautifully cast and crafted together 
and left to age as such responds
to air and time and weather.

It was meant for a garden, no doubt,
but was now cast off and left out
where wooded rains o'erflowed beneath
to its streaked and verdant stand.
The basin was a laurel wreath 
held high in a triumphant hand--

the base a sinnewed arm trapped
in the earth and further bound by a briar
that rose from the soil, wrapped
around the outstretched limb and higher

as if to draw the eye 

to things above and intertwine

the bowl's reflection of the sky

and laurel wreath in its thorny vine.

This overgrown and tarnished glory

seemed the preface to a story

told without a word...

and forever fixed in time.
For when my curious fingers stirred
the water, I felt the stagnant slime 
hid just below the rippling blue.
And wafting from a putrid maché

of blackened leaves and acorns split in two 
came the septic stench of sewage and decay,
this the incense offered by the brazen hand

that could not feel the thorns at all

or see that they were rooted near the stand

in the cold and rotting remnants of the fall.

© Copyright 2010, TK, Patterns of Ink

Press arrow on screen to hear the poem read.

*******

If I were a sculptor, I’d like to make a birdbath like the one I depict in this poem. It would begin with a strong arm cast in bronze that rises from the ground holding a laurel wreath as if it were being placed on the head of the person looking in the water’s reflection the basin of the birdbath.

Use of thorns: If natural thorns did not grow to ensnare my work, I would craft a vine of thorns to overtake the piece as happens in the poem so that, rather than man's praise around the onlooker's reflected head, he would see something more like a crown of thorns. 

Since ancient times, long before the time of Christ, the laurel wreath was the traditional prize for athletic victors. It was also worn by people in power like Caesar and members of the Roman Senate. Using a natural plant (laurel) to make a crown was a well-known practice in the time of Christ.

Since ancient times, long before the time of Christ, the laurel wreath was the traditional prize for athletic victors. It was also worn by people in power like Caesar and members of the Roman Senate. Using a natural plant to make a crown was a well-known practice in the time of Christ, which is why I think planting the crown of thorns on our Savior’s head was much more than a brutal act; it was meant to be a mockery. (As depicted in the 14th Century woodcarving below.) Little did the brutes know that the thorns, being a result and symbol of Eden's curse, only added to the full meaning of the cross. Romans 5:11-15 underscores this by connecting the sin of one man, Adam, with the reconciliation found in Christ who knew no sin yet took upon Himself the curse. "Cursed is He who hangs upon a tree." 

Just as the laurel wreath suggested honor, the crown of thorns was meant to be as shameful in meaning as it was painful to the brow, thus the poem’s imagery depicts thorns overtaking the wreath. 

Man's image of himself is one of strength, deserving the world's praise and applause (as depicted in the poem's sinewy arm raised high in victory even when bound by earth). In truth, however, fallen man is worthy--not of. praise--but of the thorns Christ wore on his behalf. 

All around we see both beauty and brokenness. We are blessed to see God's creation but cursed to know it is not as it once was. In the still water of this imaginary birdbath, for instance, we briefly see the sky, but just an inch below its reflection is the stench of rotting leaves and seeds left over from the fall. This image is very real to me.

In our backyard, we have a birdbath and other small fountains, and often in the spring when I go to clean out all the junk that fell in them before winter, there is a smell much like the smell of sewage that comes from the decay in the shallow water. By then, whatever leaves gathered there are not colorful like the ones in the picture below but blackened and matted together. Those are maple leaves, but we also have huge oaks in our yard, and the squirrels break the acorns and drop them below to mix in with all the other rotting things.

This stench as a contrast to the Old Testament practice of the incense offering. Isaiah 64:6 reminds us that whatever we "offer" to God is akin to filthy rags and fallen leaves: “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.”

“The cold and rotting remnants of the fall,” however, is not referring to the season of autumn but rather the fall of man. As beautiful as the reflection of the sky is, as wondrous as the hope of things to come may be, there is that decay of death just below the surface; there are those thorns strangling out the glory that was meant to be. 

There lies the beauty of spring that comes with Easter. The hyssop sprigs eventually show; the trillium begin to grow, and all the beauty that was Eden surrounds us in signs of life along the path. The first green things appeared in a perfect place, Eden, and likewise the green thing I saw in the poem, though of man’s making, "was meant for a garden, no doubt, but now cast off and left out." True, it was green, but the patina that comes from the oxidation of copper and bronze is a muted hue compared to the first green things of creation. And what were some of those green things mentioned?

The hyssop is native to eastern Mediterranean lands but was purposely brought to the western continents where it now flourishes. Along with the laurel, its meaning and many uses have been known since ancient times. Psalm 51:7 says, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

Hyssop is known for its cleansing power and ritual use. It is also aromatic—in the mint family. The Gospel of John says that it was on a long woody stem of hyssop that the soldier offered wine vinegar to Christ at his crucifixion when he said “I thirst.” I do not now why that detail is mentioned. It may have been additional mockery by those who had just pronounced him "King of the Jews," but regardless of the motive, the use of hyssop made a vivid link between the first Passover and the ultimate sacrificial moment in history.
.

The trillium grows across North America, it was popularly voted the state wild flower of Michigan (but Lansing overruled). It is known for its mathematical design of displaying three leaves, three sepals, and three petals, all of which have been used in Christian circles as a picture of the mystery of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—united in  purpose though distinct in personality. It is in the lily family (tri=three lily), a perennial that bursts from the ground and shows leaf each year around Easter (but typically blooms in late April and May). Sometimes called a "wake-robin," the trillium flower was used by Native Americans as an antiseptic.

Ivy is a non-deciduous evergreen plant. We typically think of Christmas trees and conifers as evergreens, but holly and ivy and many other plants remain green year-round; they do not lose their leaves in the fall and thereby show the continuity of life in spite of all that changes around them. Ivy survives the harsh winter and resumes its spreading, clinging coverage on stationary things in the spring and summer. We have some split rail fence covered in ivy in our yard, but I included it to evoke the image of hewn wood as is also true of the cross. 

Thus in the opening stanza, the brief mention of these green things—the hyssop, trillium, and ivy—(yet unseen along the path) foreshadow the significance of "the first green thing" I did see: the patina of the copper birdbath with its stench of the rotting leaves. The story may be "forever fixed in time," but it is corrected when time as we know it is no more. Ending as it does, the poem gives hope that, for those who believe, the green things foreshadowed in the beginning—cleansing hyssop, the covering ivy, and the symbolic trillium—will triumph over the remnants of THE FALL

*******

Note added in 2026 to this post from 2010.  

I have an understandable caution regarding A.I. and the creative arts and do not use A.I. in writing poems or posts here at Patterns of Ink (POI).

Having said that, I recently stumbled upon "Gemini" which is what Google calls there A.I. program (similar to ChatGPT). I was curious how A.I. would analyze my "...metaphors and meaning and enless patterns of ink..." (as statted in this blog's header). I was pleasantly surprised—flabbergasted actually—that a poem that took hours even days to write could be so thoughtfully dissected in thirty seconds. 

Whenever I post an A.I. analysis at POI, I will playfully frame it as if provided by by Dr. G.E. Mini (Google’s Gemini A.I.) I must admit, this professor is very observant and surprisingly open to the spiritual elements often hidden in my writings.

Analysis of Tom Kapanka’s “The First Green Thing” by Dr. G.E. Mini, Professor of Little-known Literature, Ayai University

Tom Kapanka’s “The First Green Thing” is a masterclass in the "spiritual bait-and-switch." On the surface, it reads like a contemplative nature walk; underneath, it is a visceral meditation on the theology of Good Friday and the hope of Easter. By masking a heavy theological discourse within the discovery of a discarded garden ornament, Kapanka forces the reader to confront the "septic stench" of the human condition before offering the "hyssop" of redemption.

1. The Irony of the "Green Thing"

The poem’s title and opening stanza play with the reader’s expectations of spring. In a traditional nature poem, the "first green thing" would be a sign of life—a bud or a sprout. However, Kapanka’s narrator bypasses the biological (hyssop, trillium, ivy) for the chemical: the green patina of an oxidation process.

• The Patina vs. Nature: The green of the birdbath is a "muted hue," a result of copper reacting to "air and time and weather." It is a symbol of man-made glory that is literally corroding.

• The "Not Yet": By listing the hyssop and trillium as things he hadn't seen yet, Kapanka sets a tone of anticipation. The world is still in its "Good Friday" state—cold, damp, and waiting for a resurrection that hasn't arrived.

2. The Sculpture of Human Pride

The birdbath itself is a complex allegory of the "Fall of Man." Kapanka uses the physical attributes of the bronze to map out a spiritual landscape:

• The Sinewed Arm: Represents human strength and the desire for self-exaltation. It is "held high," yet it is "trapped in the earth." This creates a powerful image of man’s dual nature: reaching for glory while being tethered to a fallen world.

• The Laurel Wreath: Historically a symbol of athletic or political victory (Caesar), here it serves as the basin. Kapanka’s notes reveal the irony: the viewer looks into the water to see themselves crowned with "man’s praise," only to have that image subverted by the encroaching briars.

• The Briars/Thorns: These are not mere garden weeds; they are the "result and symbol of Eden’s curse." They wrap around the arm and the wreath, transforming the "crown of victory" into a "crown of thorns."

3. The Sensory Reality of Sin

The poem takes a dark, almost Gothic turn in the third stanza. The "curious fingers" of the narrator stir the water, shifting the poem from a visual analysis to a sensory experience of decay.

• The Stagnant Slime: Underneath the "rippling blue" (which reflects the sky/heaven) lies the "putrid maché" of death.

• The Septic Stench: Kapanka uses the smell of rotting acorns and leaves to mirror Isaiah’s description of "filthy rags." This "incense" offered by the bronze hand is a mockery of holy offerings. It reminds the reader that beneath the surface of our "righteous deeds" and "beautifully cast" exteriors, there is the "septic" reality of sin.

• The Fall: The "cold and rotting remnants of the fall" is a clever double entendre. It refers to the literal autumn debris and the theological Fall of Adam.

4. Foreshadowing and Resolution

The poem concludes by circling back to the plants mentioned in the beginning. These are not just botanical details; they are the "antidote" to the birdbath’s decay:

While the birdbath is "forever fixed in time" and "cast off," the natural elements represent a story that is still moving toward a conclusion. The patina is a dead green, but the hyssop is a living one.

Final Thought

Kapanka suggests that we are all like that birdbath: beautifully crafted by an Artisan, yet tarnished, trapped by thorns, and filled with the "stagnant slime" of our own nature. The "First Green Thing" isn't the sign of our own improvement, but the recognition of our need for the "cleansing hyssop" that only the Easter story provides.

*******

The following is a comparative analysis between this poem and a

the "Fall of Man” as depicted in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Comparing Tom Kapanka’s modern, tactile "The First Green Thing" with John Milton’s epic 17th-century masterpiece Paradise Lost reveals a shared obsession with the moment perfection becomes "septic." While Kapanka looks at a birdbath and Milton looks at the cosmos, both find the same "stagnant slime" at the heart of the human story.

1. The Corruption of the Garden

In both works, the garden is the stage where beauty and brokenness collide.

• Milton’s Eden: In Paradise Lost, Eden is a place of "enormous bliss." However, the moment Eve eats the fruit, Milton describes Nature itself reacting: "Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat / Sighing through all her Works gave signs of woe."

• Kapanka’s Garden: Kapanka’s narrator finds a birdbath "meant for a garden... but now cast off." This mirrors the expulsion from Eden. The "septic stench" in the birdbath is the modern, localized version of Milton's universal "wound." Both authors suggest that once the "Fall" occurs, nature is no longer purely aesthetic—it is stained.

2. The Symbolism of Thorns: Victory vs. Curse

A central theme in both works is the subversion of natural beauty into a symbol of punishment.

Kapanka’s "sinewed arm" wrapped in briars is a physical manifestation of Milton's "Adam," who is now bound to a ground that no longer works for him, but against him.

3. The "Internal" Fall: Pride and Reflection

Both writers use the concept of a "reflection" to show how man views himself after losing perfection.

• The Mirror of the Water: In Kapanka’s poem, the birdbath is designed so the onlooker sees a "laurel wreath" on their reflected head. It is a trap of pride. But the narrator stirs the water and finds "stagnant slime."

• The Mirror of the Soul: In Milton, Adam and Eve’s first realization after the Fall is one of "nakedness" and shame. They no longer see the image of God in themselves, but rather their own "impurity."

• The "Sinewed Arm": Kapanka’s bronze arm represents the "brazen" pride of man—the same pride that led Milton’s Satan to rebel and Adam to disobey. Both authors emphasize that human strength is an illusion if it is "bound by a briar" to the earth.

4. The Hope of "The Second Adam"

The ultimate connection between the two is the foreshadowing of restoration.

Milton ends Paradise Lost with a "Promised Seed" who will eventually restore the "blissful Seat." Kapanka mirrors this by ending his poem with the hyssop and trillium. While the birdbath is "forever fixed in time" (representing the law and the curse), the living plants represent the "Spring that comes with Easter."

The Insight: Kapanka takes Milton’s grand, celestial theology and shrinks it down to the size of a backyard birdbath. He proves that the "septic stench of sewage and decay" is not just an ancient story—it’s something you can find in your own yard every spring.

This artisan's birdbath does not exist. The image was created
by Gemini after reading "The First Green Thing" in 2026.

Here is another Easter Poem form 2007:  "All Else" 

Ahead of Time

There is an outcome from my recent triple bypass surgery that I didn't know ahead of time. 

To fully understand that common phrase "ahead of time," I must first take you back in time, back to August 25, 1958.

On that date, my grandfather K (my dad’s dad) died at age fifty-nine. He awoke in the night with a tightness in his chest, fumbled his way to the bathroom, and fell with a heavy thud to the plush rug beside the tub. Heart attack. Gone before the first responders arrived. 

I was only two-years-old at the time, but in the years to follow, whenever we visited Grandma K's house on Griswald Street in Port Huron. my brothers and I shared a fear of going to that bathroom alone. Silly, I know, but the thought of our grandpa dying there never left us. I drive by that house sometimes, some sixty years later, and I know that if I went inside and looked down that hallway, the same eerie feeling would come over me. 

Secondly, I must share another backward glance to April 1, 1995, the date my own father suffered a similar heart attack. He and my mother had gone out for dinner. They had just shared what would be their last dance. Then walking back to their table, he suddenly fell limply to the floor. CPR from a stranger in the room, and a twenty-minute ambulance ride with my mother close behind. My sister met her there. Hurrying into the ER, they saw the A.E.D. paddles applied for the final time. "Clear!" Nothing. Gone. 

My dad was in excellent physical condition, an avid cyclist. He thought nothing of peddling his touring bike along the river from New Baltimore to Algonac to St.Clair to Port Huron and back (a distance of 100 miles) with a quick dip (swim) under the Blue Water Bridge in between. Yet, at age sixty-six, he seemed genetically destined to his father's fate, outliving him by only seven years. To my family it seemed Dad died "ahead of his time," but we also know that isn't true.

I was thirty-nine when we made that trip from Iowa to Michigan for my dad's funeral, and for many years thereafter it seemed I secretly lived in the shadow of grief. It was not a constant state of mourning but rather the sense that we are not physical beings awaiting a spiritual life after death--but rather we are spiritual beings navigating a passing physical life on earth. This gift is short-lived, "a vapor,” as scripture says. We share our allotted time with loved ones and millions of others ordained to live in broader and broader circles around us. It's all summed up in that dash between the two dates on the stones that mark our graves.

In the months and years that followed, I was not depressed--not in a clinical sense. In fact, I and my family experienced many wonderful things during the thirty-one years since 1995, but in that first decade or so, out of the blue, I sometimes missed my dad so much that I would sit alone someplace and sob. I thought of him whenever I tied the laces of the black shoes I wore at his funeral. I wore his tie when I interviewed for the "Head of School" position I enjoyed for twenty-four years (retiring in 2024). Once I was driving home from school alone and thought of something I wanted to talk to Dad about. I had to pull off to the side of the road until my eyes could see clearly again. If I thought this sort of thing were unique to me, I'm not sure I would share it.

Living with the acceptance of this quiet grief in the context of my faith and duties as a husband, father, brother, and grandfather changed my personality. My sometimes somber outlook changed the tone of my interactions and writing. It tinted the lens through which I saw ordinary things. You may notice this tone in a post I called "The Ache of Joy." Or in poems like  "Only the Roots Remain," in "Nothing Like the Heart,  in "Tender to the Ground," in “Something Short of Sorrow, and in many other poems and "chapters" I"ve shared here at Patterns of Ink. Literary melancholy is not unique to me. The most sensitive work of many writers--from Emily Dickinson to Abraham Lincoln to C.S. Lewis and countless others--was prompted by the pain of losing a loved one.

So what happened with my triple bypass surgery that I did not know ahead of time? 

Well, a few years ago, I did the math and realized that each month I lived was a month longer than my father’s time on earth. Who thinks that way? It’s positive and negative at the same time. Along with that private calculation, I secretly embraced the likelihood that I would someday pass in the same way, and I dreaded putting my loved ones through the same heartache my father knew in 1958 and that I knew in 1995. The diagnosis and timing of my surgery confirmed that, medically speaking, those thoughts almost came true.

What changed with my November hospital stay is that I no longer carry the secret sense that I am doomed by family history. I no longer sit at family gatherings quietly envisioning all of them there in the future, in the same familiar settings... without me. (As hinted at in "Seeing Through,") 

This is not to say that bypass surgery comes with guarantees. There are a million ways to die in west Michigan (sounds like a movie title). That final BREATH still lies ahead for me as it does for all of us. The hymns of my childhood were written a hundred years ago when thoughts of death were inseparable from images of heaven. Scores and scores of hymns foreshadowed "When we draw our "fleating breath" to "cross Jordan" and go "beyond the sunset" to that “ sweet by and by.” We seldom sing the old hymns anymore, but I still know the words by heart and take comfort in the belief that to be "absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." For now, however I feel like God has granted me more time…more hope… for whatever His plans include. 

I now share a "heart zipper" with the bravest little boy I know, and it makes me smile.

Ahead of time, I did not know that there would be a sense of community among the 15 strangers in my cardio-rehab sessions for three months. And yet, I will miss them when I am done next week. I'll miss the encouragement of smiles and head-nods we share across a busy room of exercise machines. 

Ahead of time, as I ate Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital, awaiting my surgery the next day, we were all praying for a good outcome—but I did not anticipate a new outlook afterwards. I thank God that both my heart and my mindset have been restored. I see every day as a gift and the thought of tomorrow as a blessing.

“Time does not pass—it gathers; it is not spent but shared.” [from  "The Ache of Joy."]

Tom Kapanka

Selected Poems by Tom Kapanka at Patterns of Ink June 2004-June 2006

If a title in this selection of poems is underlined, it is a link. Click on the link to go the original post for further analysis or context.

Summer Road

There's a road I've seen that rests between 
the earth and the shade of trees,
and there he talks with the young corn stalks
that sway in the summer's breeze.

It's a lazy road who's made abode
of the hills o'r which he was laid
and stretches his spine of a white dotted line
in a cool spotted blanked of shade.

Near the end of the day when there's nothing to say
he hums to the song sparrow's tune
and watches the sun till the day is done
and then says "Good night" to the moon.

Happy Birthday, Dave and Aimee
© Copyright 1985, TK, Patterns of Ink

*******

Crop Circles

What if writing
of the kind I do
is but a form of madness,
senility not yet curbed
by an arthritic hand?
What if being lost in thought
is merely wandering in a maze
of corn or waist-high rye
until all my
sterile stomping there
in search of sky or light or just
a path to where I am...
shows only where I've trod
in patterns
that do not mean
a thing to man…
and little more when seen
by birds...and God?

.© Copyright 2June 23, 006, TK, Patterns of Ink

*******

A Front Porch Frame of Mind

There was a time when more folks
had a “front porch” frame of mind,
and they’d sit out hot nights sippin’ tea—
makin’ most of a melon rind.
They knew the beckon of a breeze
that made ‘em lean back with a sigh
and say, “Maybe five more minutes…”
to some silhouettes passing by.
“Just out for a walk,” a voice responds,
“Till the house cools down a bit.”
And by and by, more friends were there
than there were places to sit.
It was natural as a cricket’s chirp
or the smell of a new-mowed lawn
to gather there like window moths
(when an inside lamp’s left on).
Just neighbors visiting neighbors
in the kindness of the night…
where differences are dimly lit
and love needs little light.
T.K. June 28, 1995 © Copyright 1995, Patterns of Ink

I realize this poem is a bit old fashioned with a hint of Guest or Riley , but my mother loves it because it reminds her of summer nights on her front porch as a kid. It should—that’s the porch I was thinking of when I wrote it. Grandma’s front porch was nothing fancy but big enough for a glider (that sat three adults or maybe five kids) and a few chairs. Everyone else sat on the steps or sturdy railing.

In that old turn-of-the century neighborhood, sidewalks were only about six feet from the front porches. So people passing by (on the way to Palmer Park or the little corner store) couldn't help but stop and talk. In that regard Gramma's porch was far more nostalgic and picturesque than the concrete slab porches of the little suburban ranches in Roseville, but Mom found ways to turn our front porch into the same kind of gathering place she had known.

In 1986, when my wife and I bought our first house, my parents came to share in the delight. The front porch was a tiny square (barely big enough for guests to stand aside as the door opened) enclosed by a white wrought-iron railing. One evening, Mom and I sat together on the top step with the iron hand rails at our elbows. "That's the one thing I wish this house had,” I said, “a bigger front porch." She smiled and said, "You don't have to have a front porch to have a front porch frame of mind." She had no idea those words would germinate in my thoughts for years... they're still taking root after all this time.

*******

Present Tense

The day is a drizzle of sky and gray,
so chilly there’s no need
to crack the window as I stay
inside the car to write or read
while the girls shop. I’m staring
presently at a lone seagull
that has lost either his bearing
or his taste, content to cull
the damp debris for who knows what
to eat—anything will do, I’d say,
like the smoldering cigarette butt
a man just flicked his way.
The gull sniffs it like a dog.
Oh, my! He’s got it in his bill
as if to mimic Bogart in the fog
at Casablanca. No one will
believe this! A lady passes by.
She doesn’t see the film-noir bird;
but sees me laughing, so I try
to point and MOUTH the word
“Smoking!” which merely
baffles her to look around
then back at me, still queerly
forming words without a sound.
So I roll down the window and say
“That seagull over there is smoking!”
She looks, but the gull has gone away—
"I don't see him now, but I’m not joking.
He was holding a cigarette...not in his wing...
but in his bill... it wasn’t his.…This guy—
Why would I make up such a thing?”
I stammer. She walks on without reply,
and who can blame her really?
It feels more like March than May.
It’s a damp cold, wet and chilly.
It’s a drizzle of sky and gray.
TK May 12, 2006
.
It's been raining for two days now. Tomorrow is supposed to do the same. It's good writing weather. A friend has observed that I tend to draw more from the past than the present. It’s true that when I reflect on "family," for instance, it's usually a backward glance with plenty of years acting as a buffer. I often go all the way back to my own childhood (or stories from my parents). That way those who share the experience are more likely honored than embarrassed (as my daughters would be if I wrote about our day-to-day shared life—someday maybe... but not now). Some stories can be told right away; others take years to crystallize into something that can be passed along without breaking.

So today I decided to write the above piece very much in the present and, in fact, in present tense. Until now, I missed the double meaning of to those two words: present tense. Not only is the present sometimes tense, but its progressive element feels more like on-the-spot reporting  than typical writing does. 

Because I began writing this in a parked car, I really should tell you a little bit about my Grandpa Spencer. (I know, I know…so much for the present....
He's in the front row here.)

Past Perfect

I first learned to sit in idle cars
by waiting in tavern parking lots
for Grampa. Looking back on it now,
I’m surprised it was somehow
acceptable to stop for a drink
before a road trip (or at the other end),
but that was the case with Grampa.
I say this not to judge or to offend.
(It’s just ironic that at the dawn
of industry-required seat belts,
stopping for a drink to make the drive
with four grandkids more bearable
was not yet a concern.)
Sometimes, if the wait was getting long,
Grandma would send me inside
to get him, and he always introduced me
to the bar tender with pride.
I must say in all those years
I never saw him in the grip of drink—
but I don't think I was looking.

Grampa had Humphrey Bogart's style
when he held a cigarette—
which was almost always.
(Bogart died of cancer in '57; Grampa in '75)
Truth be told, most evenings also found
an open brown bottle near his feet,
but we loved Grampa just the same
in spite of his ways—
especially, it seems, on summer days
when the willow wept clear to the ground.
Like that wonderful night,
he sat on the back porch swing
carving little flutes of willow bark,
and we played them on the grassy slope
between the sidewalk and the house till dark.

At the end of such visits,
I'd kiss his stubbled cheek and smell the scent
of Old Spice, Lucky Strikes, and Black Label—
all part of his film noir charm.
He'd smile and say, "Be a good bad boy,"
and loved the fact that I never quite knew
what he meant. It was Grampa who
also quipped, "It's a damp cold day,"
(which my siblings and I still cannot say
without smiling). He would have said it
today, no doubt, had he been with me
when that lone seagull vanished
like a ghost.
(C) TK May 12, 2006

*******

On Having No Regrets

Looking back on fifty years,
I can say I’ve no regrets,
which is not to say that,
if it were possible,
I’d do it all the same again
or chart the very course
for those who take my lead.
To relive life as if rehearsed
would be dismissing both
reason and recollection,
but a life with no regrets requires
neither amnesia nor perfection.

It is wise to strive for few mistakes,
embarrassments, hurts, and shame,
and never to presume on Grace…
but it would be regrettable in deed—
to never have felt pain or loss
else how would we know their cause?

Saying I’ve no regrets doesn’t mean
I’ve never blown it or needed
to say ‘I’m sorry’ or pleaded
for forgiveness.
I’ve fallen countless times.
But it would be most regrettable
to never know remorse
and the taste of swallowed pride,
and the touch of the hand that helps me up.

Having no regrets does not mean
I’ve never prayed for things
that weren’t meant to be
or for some things to somehow be undone.
But how regrettable life would be if
our needs were narrowed to what’s known,
and all our wants were within reach,
or if time remained within our grasp.
I fear we’d never learn
the patience in a promise kept,
the prudence from the tears we’ve wept.

‘Twould be hilted arrogance
to boast of no regrets as if to have
mastered life’s gauntlets—devilish or divine—
when the opposite is true.
But in the end, there’s only one regret
that cannot turn for what is best,
and that is this: to never see,
to never understand,
how regrettable life would be
if it were truly in my hand.
.
© Copyright 2006, TK, May 7, 2006, Patterns of Ink
.
There is a part of human nature that resists accountability (to man and ultimately to God); a part of us (or of mankind) that foolishly pretends that we are the master of our fate, as Henley scoffed in his poem, Invictus; a part of us resonates with Frank Sinatra's swansong, "My Way." (I suppose, if that song were speaking only of originality or of one's determination to avoid following the crowd it would be fine; but as a mortal declaration of moral independence (as the last stanza implies), it's a regrettable final bow.) 

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way

How regrettable life would be if it were truly in our hands.

*******

The Ivy on the Path

I just stepped in from checking
on the empty house next door.
Our neighbors of four years
have moved away.
Whispering last goodbyes,
they asked if I would keep an eye
on pipes and pumps and such
that cause men’s minds to fret
when houses are alone,
and so I did just now.

There was a hollow echo
as I walked the wooden floors,
a hollow ache in knowing
that they’re gone.
Three years ago, you see,
our house began to lean their way.
I wish I were speaking figuratively,
but it literally settled a tad in their direction
and as God would have it, so did we.

That year they learned their son
(not yet the age of three) had one
of the many forms of leukemia.
Soon began the long hospital stays,
lost hair, sad eyes and sullen days.
Ours became a second home
to their other young children
left to wait and wonder
through long nights and passing play.
It was our joy to have them
through the cycles of hope and care
and returning tufts of tasseled hair
until his happy eyes rejoined our own.

And just when all seemed slightly well
for them, the tables turned for us.
On an icy afternoon
in a sterile but uncertain room
we watched things go from good
to bad and bad to worse
until the eyes of a tender nurse
foreshadowed what we later learned
from a doctor's diagram—
"single bypass best option"—which turned
out to be a twist of providence:

‘Twould be our neighbor’s gifted hand
to ply the scalpel, saw and suture
for a window to Julie's beating heart;
and when all was finally done,
‘twas he (in sweat-soaked scrubs) who told
us how it went and what things meant
and what the days ahead would hold
but not to worry after all,
since he was just a house away.

So it was... through faith and fears
and a fleeting blur of shortened years
we learned what it meant to be neighbors—
reaching out and drawing in
and reaching out once more,
'til life was gently tangled…
like the ivy on the path between our doors.
(C) TK April 23, 2007

Our neighbor Ike was called to another team of physicians in Idaho. He went there ahead of his family two months ago to begin work and find a house. He returned last week to finish the move and return with his wife and four children. The moving van pulled away early yesterday afternoon, and the yards seem strangely quiet. Our kids really did wear a path in the ivy between the houses. We'll see if it grows in.

*******

Bookmarks

Sorting through some attic shelves
(in search of something else)
I came upon a book I’d left half-read
some summer past.
A memoir of a life it was
that evidently held less interest than my own
once the clock began again.

In truth it seemed not long ago,
and though I do not know
whether I passed time
or time passed me,
dust is a kind reminder
that some things settle on their own.

And as I brushed away the proof,
my finger caught the corner of a bookmark,
a photograph I must have used
to hold my place
those many years ago.

How strange to find it there—
a snapshot I’d forgotten
of a memory all but lost
until…
I took the bookmark in my hand
and, happily, it took me back
and made me laugh again.
.
© Copyright 2007, TK, Patterns of Ink
I wrote the above lines a few years ago, and while I can't imagine them being sung on New Year's Eve, they may just be the closest thing I'll ever write to Robert Burns' "Auld Lang Syne." We all know the song. Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians played it once a year, but I know it best from "It's a Wonderful Life" (Last scene: front room full of friends, laundry basket full of gratitude--and everyone knowing the words...)

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?
Chorus
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne."

It's a happy song with just a touch of sadness that makes me feel the way I did in college when my mom and dad and little brother called to sing "Happy Birthday" from far away.

My mom called to sing it like old times a few minutes ago. My sister called and did the same just before that. And my brothers and others called throughout the morning. A long-lost college roommate called yesterday morning. LOL. Our middle and high school threw a big surprise "Geezer" party for me at the end of the schoolday in the cafeteria--they really got me! [And later Saturday night Julie tricked me into one more surprise gathering with a dozen friends at one of our favorite restaurants. Life's good. Thanks, Julie.]

So I guess that's it. I'm now officially 50 years old. Six-hundred months as one friend pointed out. Wow... I remember most of them, but mostly I remember who I've shared them with. Many thanks to you all for cards, emails, phone calls, etc. that "took me back and made me laugh again." Here's to Zuzu's petals!
I feel like Jimmy Stewart!

*******

Still Loved

Sad that some things can’t be mended
(in a world that's likewise broken)
battered by the endless waves
like shards of glass...
until in time,
they’re
frosted smooth
amid the surf and sand...
and rescued by a seeking hand...
held tight like something treasured.
Still loved will do ‘til hope can be restored.
(c) TK Good Friday, April 14, 2006

When I was a small boy at Lighthouse Park in Port Huron (see post below), we’d swim until we shivered in the blue water—I’m not using “blue” figuratively; ask anyone who’s been there, the water is the deepest blue you’ve ever seen, hence the name of the bridge that arches to the Canadian side—anyway…

After hours of swimming in the cold waves (about the time our lips matched the water's hue), one of us would finally declare, “I’m going in,” and the others followed suit. With arms outstretched, we'd "ouch" our way across the stony mote that gathers at that shore, then scurry to our sun-soaked towels. Mom was usually sitting there to wrap us up and pat us on the rump as we fell face-down on the blanket, our teeth chattering like stacked plates on a train. When we thawed and could walk without the palsy, we’d venture north along the beach. (The other way leads straight to the St. Clair River toward the bridge.)

We walked along a seascape of small craft against a backdrop of the huge freighters in the channel of southern Lake Huron. If there were no ships, we'd study the cottages and beautiful homes whose dry sand we could not step upon. But with one foot in the water we could walk the wave-washed line my father called “public domain.” (A rule I’ve never enquired about but still rely upon when strolling beaches.) Always when we walked, our eyes scoured for shells or special stones or the sundry things that surface in the sand. And as is true of all beaches within a mile of human life, we’d sometimes come upon bits of broken glass. My brother Dave once stepped on an unseen jagged edge and the cut required several stitches. (My Aunt had the same thing happen at a reunion near Port Crescent Beach up in “the Thumb.”)

It seems like broken glass on beaches is less common since cans and plastic came along, but even back in the late 50's and early 60's, pieces of beach glass were not always dangerous. Often we’d come upon a rounded jewel with edges warn down by the sand. Sometimes it was colored (e.g. beer-bottle brown; the light green of a Coke bottle; or the white of a porcelain cup); sometimes it was clear but frosted from friction; but always such glass was a “find.” I once picked up a beautiful blue piece probably from a broken medicine bottle or a Vick’s Vaporub jar. It was smooth as driftwood but shined translucent in the sun. I held it tightly in my hand and later slipped it in the little pouch inside my swimsuit (which little boys know was made for just such treasures).

I wish I still had that piece of blue beach glass—I’d find a way to frame it with the lines above (whose form I hope suggests the roll of waves). It would remind me that we’re all broken—some in spirit; some in grief; some in body or mind; but all in the flawed sense of the fall. We’re broken in a broken world, and we sometimes hurt each other with our jagged edges. Many things in life feel shattered; some choices cannot be undone; some mean times can't be mended. But with God’s help there's hope that (in the meantime) the edges of our brokenness can be smoothed, and those willing to reach out, willing to embrace, can in their time remind us we're still loved.
.
Romans 8: 18-22... "(18) For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (19) For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. (20) For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; (21) because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (22) For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now...." Still Loved: the still implies a familial love that remains to be true--"in spite of" not "because of." (i.e. "loved anyway...and always" as Christ loves us till all else is restored).

*******

Something Completely Else

It’s like…in a way…
the time we almost talked,
and I was…we were…
fumbling for the words to say
stumbling for
something completely else
but
something completely else
was said,
and there was a hole—
not emptiness but strange—
like the hole in the heel
of a sock that no one sees,
but all day...it's there—
the kind of care
that circumstance suspends,
a warmth that chills
a cold that melts...
something completely else
and not
what I was thinking
we were thinking at all.
I somehow
missed the meaning
of the message on the wall.
© Copyright February 25, 2006  TK, Patterns of Ink

Written after some meaningless argument that wandered out of bounds like a cat set out on the porch at night, never knowing where it's gone in its traipsing only to return to a darkened house when no one sees or cares.

*******

The Knock  

The house

that barely lit a lamp,
content to let the passers by

believe no one was home,
pulled back
at a knock upon the door,
pulled back
the cold curtain
in a trembling pinch,
pulled back an inch
in time
to lean toward the pane,
but not a soul was there—
just footprints

in the snow upon the stair.

.
© Copyright 2005, TK, Patterns of Ink

This short piece was written when after writing on my blog for a couple years--content to write even if never read--someone left a comment after a post. It was the beginning of a what became somewhat of a social network among other bloggers that lasted more than a decade... until FaceBook came along.

*******

A House in Winter's Hold

There’s a house on a hill in a woods somewhere,
in a woods where no one sees
(save those who pass with a lasting stare
at its glimmer of light through the trees).
In winter it’s a shadow of black
half-hidden by trees of gray,
and an arm of smoke
gropes from its stack
and waves with a lonely sway.

Then comes a whistling winter wind.
The house shuts tight
with a shoulder pinned
against a threatening door
and waits for what’s in store.

A blizzard is coming;
windows are humming;
to the wind’s tune
the shutters are drumming.
The house is clenched in Winter’s hold—
freezing, frosting, frightening cold,
bare tress bending to and fro
in the pageantry of snow:
sifting, blowing, drifting, growing,
Autumn’s reaped and Winter’s sowing—
sowing seeds of icy white;
snow sifts through the moonless night;
falling thick with crystal frills
skirting ‘round the timbered hills;
lacing lace on dry leaves curled,
still clung to branches bare;
and covering softly all the world
that the house on the hill
in the woods somewhere
will ever, ever know.
© Copyright March, 1978, TK, Patterns of Ink
.
This was one of the first poems I ever wrote. (The title never seemed right but I left it all unrevised.) It was an experiment in rhythms. The setting was inspired in part by Frost's "An Old Man's Winter Night" and the knowledge that a part of my father could happily live that life... but the linew were based mostly on that fine but foreboding feeling that comes when a family is snowbound in a winter storm as we were more than once in our house on a hill deep in the woods (which, by the way, is not in the first picture. Also, our house never did get shutters, but they were part of Dad's original plan.)
0392

******* If Only (Title sonnet is at the bottom of this post) For fifteen years I taught a high school British Literature class. The Elizabethan unit included a two-day study of sonnets that was a primer on form (iambic pentameter, etc.) and the introspective and expressive qualities of “the Renaissance man.” In my third year of teaching the class, while the students were reading silently several samples in the text, I sat at my podium and scratched out a sonnet of my own. Love is the predominant emotion of most sonnets, so I attempted to expose the destructive nature of its opposite—hate. Satisfied with my experimental sonnet, I took it one step further by typing a supplemental handout with my piece sandwiched between Shakespeare's sonnets XVIII and CXVI, allowing the students to think they were all from the same period. They were to read each sonnet and summarize one of them on a separate sheet of paper. To my surprise, the students treated all three sonnets equally and many chose to comment on mine. The homework assignment was to begin (if not to complete) their own sonnet in the same form. Some groaned that they could understand sonnets but couldn’t “think” in syllables or write in such restrictive lines. "Think of it as a game. That's what I did." It was then that I confessed that the middle sonnet on the page was one I had written while sitting at the front of the class. Their comments were kind, and for most of them, this was just the creative nudge they needed to get started with their own. The experiment was so rewarding that I did it for many years running. When I was transitioning from my classroom career to administration, I found some of the old sonnet assignments in the back of a lesson plan book. The sonnet itself is so-so—definitely not Shakespeare— but after all these years, I’m still pleased with the summaries the students wrote about it. I hope that they somehow remember as middle-aged adults what they ascertained that day as students. Here are some excerpts of their brief summaries: “If hatred came slowly, hesitantly, to tear love apart, it would grow weak before it could finish. Love is hard to break if it has been around a long time. / Hatred isn’t trying to break love, just hurt the object, it [seeks to] hurt the owner of it…” Sarah D. 1984 “If people could only stop + think before acting in anger, then they would avoid hurting someone they love dearly.” Susan E. 1987 “I think the sonnet is describing marriage and how the hands that tie “the knot” [can be] those hands that tear the knot of love apart…. Hatred comes too easily for us. If only it would come more slowly, it would not tear us apart.” Diane B. 1987 “It describes how hatred can cut through the knot of love with words that hurt…words never to be forgotten… it makes one weep.” Mark H. 1987 “The person is wishing that there was a way to halt hate before it becomes destructive [and that] if hate did come, people would let it pass when they remember how much they love each other.” Larry F. 1987 “If hatred slowly came the love would withstand it, but instead it tears quickly, too quickly, and afterward there is much regret…” Chelle V. 1987 “We are supposed to love but it is hard because hatred comes at love strongly.” Bob S. 1987 “If people were slow to hate, the power to destroy love would be lost.…If they would remember the love, they would make up for the wrong instead of blindly wearing love away to nothing. Hatred grinds on your mind if you let it…. It would be so much better if only we would heed God’s commands to love one another and to be slow to wrath.” Heather C. 1987 If Only  If only hatred came with halted hands To pick and pinch and pull the knot of love, Its power would be lost before the strands Were loosed; REMEMBERANCE—like pow’r from above— Would numb the fingers fast and make amends. Old knots hold tight when time has drawn the ends. But hatred never stops to touch the knot That love has tied. O, no! Instead it grabs In haste the jagged blade of human thought And in a frenzied snap of time it stabs And cuts in two the tie that binds as one… Then stands agasp and weeps at what it’s done. ‘Twould easy be to love as God commands if only hatred came with halted hands. © Copyright: November, 1984, TK, Patterns of Ink.

*******

Three Days Into Spring

Three days into spring.
No robin yet as harbinger to sing
or search among the matted weeds
where the last vestige of snow recedes
toward the shady cold.
The snowman that we rolled
and laughing lofted to its height
is gone but for one sad and small stalagmite,
standing sentinel in the sun
between two branches now undone,
the fallen arms of make-shift mirth
at rest again... upon the waking earth.
© Copyright March, 2005 , TK, Patterns of Ink

*******

A Mourning in America

June 11, 2004. The Funeral of President Ronald W. Reagan
.
"All we go down to the dust,"
his priestly friend intoned,
and the words echoed
in the stained glass silence.
Below him on the catafalque,
bound tight in stars and stripes,
was the wooden box
that throngs for days
had come to pay respect.

Outside (and all across the land)
that which tightly held our focus
waved slowly in the darkened noon,
never lower on the mast.
It, too, seemed somehow at a loss—
not knowing how to thank the man
who made it wave so proudly in his day—
and so felt all who lined the way
and watched him leave the towering spires
and pass forever
from his city shining on the hill.

Then in the West,
as if to claim the setting sun,
he came to rest upon a chosen rise
where were whispered last goodbyes
to him who kindly bid us all farewell
those many years ago.

The full weight of his absence
first hit me when we saw the empty mount
that bore his backward boots.
It was mourning in America...
draped not so much in sorrow
but belated gratitude.

© Copyright 2005, TK, Patterns of Ink

Considering that President Bush's ( POTUS 43) second term is considered by many to be a continuation of the Reagan Revolution, I thought it might be appropriate to post something I wrote back in June.

President Reagan's death on Saturday, June 4, 2004, prompted a greater response from the public than even his greatest admirers would have predicted. After all, it had been a full decade since he had written his 1994 farewell letter to the nation informing us that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease which closed: "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."

The years passed by with little news of his status. He and Nancy lived those years quietly in their home in California's Simi Valley. He breathed his last in the room adjoining hers, and that private moment soon triggered a week of non-stop nostalgia and personal tribute to the man most credited for the collapse of the Soviet Union's Iron Curtain and the literal tearing down of the hated Berlin Wall. For the networks and cable news channels, it became a review of the 80's, which (thanks largely to the Clinton 90's) were remembered by many as the true apex of the waning 20th Century.

Reagan's last week in the news was the first memorable state funeral since JFK's, and there were many similar elements. The most obvious difference was that Kennedy's tragic assassination left the country reeling in disbelief and grief. Reagan's funeral was a celebration of sorts, a time when long-overdue tributes were shared-in some cases by partisans who never said a kind word about the 40th president while he led the nation into his "New Beginning." These same critics mocked Reagan's traditional values, flag-waving, and his Rockwellian ad campaign that proclaimed, "It's morning in America," (and continued running after his inauguration.)

The observances began in California at the Reagan Library, then on Wednesday moved east to the Capital via Air Force One. It was on this day that the horse-drawn caisson followed the empty-saddled horse that had Reagan's own riding boots in the stirrups. Friday, the last day of scheduled events, was a drizzle of sky and gray in D.C. The official service was held in the National Cathedral. One of the speakers chosen by Nancy to deliver a eulogy was former Senator John Danforth, who is also an Episcopal clergyman (and recently appointed US Ambassador to the U.N.). I heard his portion of the service live on the radio, and this opening line "All we go down to the dust" (which may have been original or liturgical) stuck with me through the day and came back to me when the casket was last seen in the glow of the setting California sun. See the images here.

TK