The Unknown
11/11/08 13:44
The dehumidifier here in the bunker is kaput. Again.
It seemed to me a very short time since this last one
was purchased, so I spent part of my morning digging
around in drawers and files in a fruitless search for
warranty paperwork and/or receipts that I could
possibly take back to Sears and get a freebie
replacement be made whole again. Alas, it was not
to be.
As often happens in an unsuccessful search, the mind begins to wander, and, in an apparent antithesis to the old joke about always finding something in the last place you look, the search ceases to be about finding anything and becomes simply exploratory, you give up on what you’re looking for, yet continue looking, just to see what’s there.
Amongst my collection of useless crap my kids will throw away when I die, I stumbled across an old, blue paper folder containing a few sheets of yellowed paper torn from the stenographer’s notebooks in which I used to write all my thoughts, dreams, poems and various attempts at literature thirty-some years ago. There’s not much left, in fact I was surprised to find anything at all. At one time I had several of these folders and a stack of those notebooks, but I burned it all over a decade ago when (I thought) I gave up on the notion of being a writer. I often wish I had saved all that stuff now. At the time, it looked amateurish and unfinished, but now I realize I was just blogging before blogs existed. Yeah, that’s it, I was ahead of my time.
The oldest piece of paper in the folder doesn’t actually hold my own work. Printed in pencil, in the meticulous handwriting of the serious young man I was then (I must have been 12 or 13) is a copy of one of the epitaphs from Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. Here it is in full:
I have no recollection of why I felt moved to hand-copy this particular piece, perhaps if I read the whole collection again I could place it in context. The fact that I can so clearly visualize the cover of this book - an ancient paperback copy - makes me think it’s probably not far from where I’m sitting, somewhere in one of those boxes of books I’ve been carting around all my adult life. But that’s a search to get lost in some other day.
As often happens in an unsuccessful search, the mind begins to wander, and, in an apparent antithesis to the old joke about always finding something in the last place you look, the search ceases to be about finding anything and becomes simply exploratory, you give up on what you’re looking for, yet continue looking, just to see what’s there.
Amongst my collection of useless crap my kids will throw away when I die, I stumbled across an old, blue paper folder containing a few sheets of yellowed paper torn from the stenographer’s notebooks in which I used to write all my thoughts, dreams, poems and various attempts at literature thirty-some years ago. There’s not much left, in fact I was surprised to find anything at all. At one time I had several of these folders and a stack of those notebooks, but I burned it all over a decade ago when (I thought) I gave up on the notion of being a writer. I often wish I had saved all that stuff now. At the time, it looked amateurish and unfinished, but now I realize I was just blogging before blogs existed. Yeah, that’s it, I was ahead of my time.
The oldest piece of paper in the folder doesn’t actually hold my own work. Printed in pencil, in the meticulous handwriting of the serious young man I was then (I must have been 12 or 13) is a copy of one of the epitaphs from Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. Here it is in full:
The Unknown
Ye aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown
Who lies here with no stone to mark the place.
As a boy reckless and wanton,
Wandering with gun in hand through the forest
Near the mansion of Aaron Hatfield,
I shot a hawk perched on the top
Of a dead tree.
He fell with guttural cry
At my feet, his wing broken.
Then I put him in a cage
Where he lived many days cawing angrily at me
When I offered him food.
Daily I search the realms of Hades
For the soul of the hawk,
That I may offer him the friendship
Of one whom life wounded and caged.
I have no recollection of why I felt moved to hand-copy this particular piece, perhaps if I read the whole collection again I could place it in context. The fact that I can so clearly visualize the cover of this book - an ancient paperback copy - makes me think it’s probably not far from where I’m sitting, somewhere in one of those boxes of books I’ve been carting around all my adult life. But that’s a search to get lost in some other day.
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