The Dog

By Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev
Trans. Constance Garnett

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

Us two in the room; my dog and me.... Outside a fearful storm is howling.

The dog sits in front of me, and looks me straight in the face.

And I, too, look into his face.

He wants, it seems, to tell me something. He is dumb, he is without words, he does not understand himself - but I understand him.

I understand that at this instant there is living in him and in me the same feeling, that there is no difference between us. We are the same; in each of us there burns and shines the same trembling spark.

Death sweeps down, with a wave of its chill broad wing....

And the end!

Who then can discern what was the spark that glowed in each of us?

No! We are not beast and man that glance at one another....

They are the eyes of equals, those eyes riveted on one another.

And in each of these, in the beast and in the man, the same life huddles up in fear close to the other.

February 1878

Dreamland

By Lewis Carroll

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

When midnight mists are creeping,
And all the land is sleeping,
Around me tread the mighty dead,
And slowly pass away.
Lo, warriors, saints, and sages,
From out the vanished ages,
With solemn pace and reverend face
Appear and pass away.
The blaze of noonday splendour,
The twilight soft and tender,
May charm the eye: yet they shall die,
Shall die and pass away.
But here, in Dreamland's centre,
No spoiler's hand may enter,
These visions fair, this radiance rare,
Shall never pass away.
I see the shadows falling,
The forms of old recalling;
Around me tread the mighty dead,
And slowly pass away.

A Backward Spring

By Thomas Hardy

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

The trees are afraid to put forth buds,
And there is timidity in the grass;
The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds,
And whether next week will pass
Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush
Of barberry waiting to bloom.

Yet the snowdrop's face betrays no gloom,
And the primrose pants in its heedless push,
Though the myrtle asks if it's worth the fight
This year with frost and rime
To venture one more time
On delicate leaves and buttons of white
From the selfsame bough as at last year's prime,
And never to ruminate on or remember
What happened to it in mid-December.

Sailing To Byzantium

By William Butler Yeats

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

          I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

          II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

          III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

          IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

A Dream

By Christina Georgina Rossetti

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)
     We stood together in an open field;
     Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,
Sporting at ease and courting full in view.
When loftier still a broadening darkness flew,
     Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;
     Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;
So farewell life and love and pleasures new.
Then as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground,
     Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops,
     I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep:
     But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops
Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound
     Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.

Dulce et Decorum Est

By Wilfred Owen

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

By William Shakespeare

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

To Fausta

By Matthew Arnold

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

Joy comes and goes: hope ebbs and flows,
Like the wave.
Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.
Love lends life a little grace,
A few sad smiles: and then.
Both are laid in one cold place,
In the grave.

Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die,
Like spring flowers.
Our vaunted life is one long funeral.
Men dig graves, with bitter tears,
For their dead hopes; and all,
Maz’d with doubts, and sick with fears,
Count the hours.

We count the hours: these dreams of ours,
False and hollow,
Shall we go hence and find they are not dead?
Joys we dimly apprehend,
Faces that smil’d and fled,
Hopes born here, and born to end,
Shall we follow?

The Raven

By Edgar Allan Poe

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door,
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;, vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore,
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you", here I opened wide the door;-
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!",
Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore,
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;,
'Tis the wind and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door,
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore,
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door,
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered, not a feather then he fluttered,
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other friends have flown before,
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore,
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never, nevermore'."

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore,
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee, by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite, respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!, prophet still, if bird or devil!,
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted,
On this home by horror haunted, tell me truly, I implore,
Is there, is there balm in Gilead?, tell me, tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil, prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore,
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore,
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting,
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!, quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my
door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted, nevermore!

Poetry Project in the Cerro Coso LRC

Picture of the poetry project in the IWV Campus library. Poetry lines by Cerro Coso students.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be

By John Keats

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

A Maiden

By Sara Teasdale

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

Oh if I were the velvet rose
Upon the red rose vine,
I’d climb to touch his window
And make his casement fine.

And if I were the little bird
That twitters on the tree,
All day I’d sing my love for him
Till he should harken me.

But since I am a maiden
I go with downcast eyes,
And he will never hear the songs
That he has turned to sighs.

And since I am a maiden
My love will never know
That I could kiss him with a mouth
More red than roses blow.

Come Into the Garden, Maud

By Alfred Lord Tennyson

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, Night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd
To the dancers dancing in tune:
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, "There is but one
With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?
She is weary of dance and play."
Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;
Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.
O young lordlover, what sighs are those
For one that will never be thine?
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose,
"For ever and ever, mine."

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,
As the music clash'd in the hall;
And long by the garden lake I stood,
For I heard your rivulet fall
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,
Our wood, that is dearer than all;

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet
That whenever a March-wind sighs
He sets the jewelprint of your feet
In violets blue as your eyes,
To the woody hollows in which we meet
And the valleys of Paradise.

The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,
They sigh'd for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"
And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"
And the lily whispers, "I wait."

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

By William Wordsworth

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -

By Emily Dickinson

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—
In Corners—till a Day
The Owner passed—identified—
And carried Me away—

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods—
And now We hunt the Doe—
And every time I speak for Him—
The Mountains straight reply—

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow—
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through—

And when at Night—Our good Day done—
I guard My Master's Head—
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow—to have shared—

To foe of His—I'm deadly foe—
None stir the second time—
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye—
Or an emphatic Thumb—

Though I than He—may longer live
He longer must—than I—
For I have but the power to kill,
Without—the power to die—

Memories of West Street and Lepke

By Robert Lowell

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

Only teaching on Tuesdays, book-worming
in pajamas fresh from the washer each morning,
I hog a whole house on Boston's
"hardly passionate Marlborough Street,"
where even the man
scavenging filth in the back alley trash cans,
has two children, a beach wagon, a helpmate,
and is "a young Republican."
I have a nine months' daughter,
young enough to be my granddaughter.
Like the sun she rises in her flame-flamingo infants' wear.

These are the tranquilized Fifties,
and I am forty. Ought I to regret my seedtime?
I was a fire-breathing Catholic C.O.,
and made my manic statement,
telling off the state and president, and then
sat waiting sentence in the bull pen
beside a negro boy with curlicues
of marijuana in his hair.

Given a year,
I walked on the roof of the West Street Jail, a short
enclosure like my school soccer court,
and saw the Hudson River once a day
through sooty clothesline entanglements
and bleaching khaki tenements.
Strolling, I yammered metaphysics with Abramowitz,
a jaundice-yellow ("it's really tan")
and fly-weight pacifist,
so vegetarian,
he wore rope shoes and preferred fallen fruit.
He tried to convert Bioff and Brown,
the Hollywood pimps, to his diet.
Hairy, muscular, suburban,
wearing chocolate double-breasted suits,
they blew their tops and beat him black and blue.

I was so out of things, I'd never heard
of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
"Are you a C.O.?" I asked a fellow jailbird.
"No," he answered, "I'm a J.W."
He taught me the "hospital tuck,"
and pointed out the T-shirted back
of Murder Incorporated's Czar Lepke,
there piling towels on a rack,
or dawdling off to his little segregated cell full
of things forbidden to the common man:
a portable radio, a dresser, two toy American
flags tied together with a ribbon of Easter palm.
Flabby, bald, lobotomized,
he drifted in a sheepish calm,
where no agonizing reappraisal
jarred his concentration on the electric chair
hanging like an oasis in his air
of lost connections....

The Clod and the Pebble

By William Blake

Reprinted by Met in celebration of National Poetry Month 2013. This poem is in the public domain.

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives it ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."

So sang a little clod of clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."

Memory

A Poem by Tim Holloway

Memory – by Tim Holloway

Our memory is like a burning scrap of paper,

we use it to light up the past.

*

Once upon a time there were people

that weren’t very good at thinking.

To them, everything old was sacred.

Priests made sure that no son did anything

that his father had not done before him.

**

They lived in cities and towns,

buried from time to time by the desert sands.

The land turned year by year like a potter’s wheel.

They would eventually become the greatest inventors of all time.

***

Have you ever stood between two mirrors?

Even when you can’t see the mirrors in their reflections anymore,

they are still there, and you know it.

Like the past, they continue on, becoming the future.

**

And behind every ‘Once upon a time…’ there is another.

For some reason the ego needs a past to spring from,

or it would suffer and crumble into dust.

*

Our memory is like a burning scrap of paper,

we use it to light up the past.

Contributor's Note: This is my sixth foray into online education at Cerro Coso - the first being a pair of computer classes - followed by Philosophy, Ethics, Music, Film Studies, Anthropology, Archeology, Theater, E-Commerce, and Creative Writing courses. It has been an experience that I highly recommend. I’m slowly whittling away at completing the required courses towards acquiring an AA degree - of one form or another - and having these classes available online is priceless.

Nine in Time

A Poem by Tim Holloway

She lay in repose
on the frost nipped lawn,
Jagged, sharp teeth bared in the grimace
of her last thoughts.
Her silver hair reflects the iciness
of the scene.
Her fur coat stiff; breathlessness
claims what once ran wild.
Carefully, awkwardly, I collect her
and then place her to rest rigidly with my discards.
Many mice will dance tonite.

Contributor's Note: This is my sixth foray into online education at Cerro Coso - the first being a pair of computer classes - followed by Philosophy, Ethics, Music, Film Studies, Anthropology, Archeology, Theater, E-Commerce, and Creative Writing courses. It has been an experience that I highly recommend. I’m slowly whittling away at completing the required courses towards acquiring an AA degree - of one form or another - and having these classes available online is priceless.

Memory

A Poem by Tim Holloway

Memory is like
a burning scrap of paper
lighting up the past.

Contributor's Note: This is my sixth foray into online education at Cerro Coso - the first being a pair of computer classes - followed by Philosophy, Ethics, Music, Film Studies, Anthropology, Archeology, Theater, E-Commerce, and Creative Writing courses. It has been an experience that I highly recommend. I’m slowly whittling away at completing the required courses towards acquiring an AA degree - of one form or another - and having these classes available online is priceless.

Sunset Boulevard Villanelle

A Poem by Angie Wilson

A bag lady leans against a palm tree
At the corner of Sunset and Gower,
Smashing cans with a broken chunk of concrete.

Her face has aged twenty years past the dreams
That brought her here. At the heart of rush hour,
A bag lady leans against a palm tree.

At Van Ness sits a double amputee
In his chair by the KTLA tower,
Smashing cans with a broken chunk of concrete.

An impeccably dressed studio flunky
Looks in a rush but pauses to glower.
A bag lady leans against a palm tree,

Singing, strumming, and stinking of Chablis.
Dream big but don’t wind up on a corner
Smashing cans with a broken chunk of concrete.

It’s a short walk from the Grove to gritty
And they keep the doors locked at Sunset Gower.
A bag lady leans against a palm tree
Smashing cans with a broken chunk of concrete.

Contributor's Note: After fifteen years of sporadic study at four community colleges, I accidentally earned an A.A. in Social Sciences from Cerro Coso and now I occasionally take a class for fun. I'm a city girl living in a small town, a beach bum marooned in the desert, a pacifist working on a Navy base.

The Mountaineer

Short Story by William Barclay

When they checked into the hotel, Carolyn remembered something strange. A year ago, probably to the day, they had been in France. There were no problems then with the lavatories or with airport security. They had each brought a single bag. It was a group vacation, one of those organized tours, and they had been surrounded by strangers who talked over everything and laughed raucously at secret jokes. Steven hated the tour guides, hated walking around in a herd and being told where to look. He wanted to see great art and had no interest in street performers or the clever boutiques at the Palais Royal. They separated from the group; they spent hours looking at Caravaggios; they made love the day before they came home. It was pleasing in a comfortable and entirely familiar way, the way their friends’ vacations were pleasing. And now, a year later, this.

There was no accounting for life. She had learned that much, and yet Carolyn was still prepared. While they waited for the elevator, trailed by a bellman hauling their collection of trunks, she inspected the list of names and phone numbers, the precisely choreographed itinerary, the new dosing schedule. She managed her existence this way, writing everything down on checklists and color-coded index cards held together by rubber bands. She was no longer herself; she was the thing on those papers; she was the next thing.

In their room, plain but decent and overlooking a narrow, tree-lined courtyard, she helped Steven into the bathroom and onto the toilet. She took a dampened washcloth to his face, being careful not to rile the sore that had appeared on his chin. She brushed his teeth. While Carolyn brewed his coffee—decaf, not that it mattered, not that he would actually drink it—she inspected the brochures fanned out along the table in the kitchenette. They were provided by companies that sold hiking equipment and offered rafting trips for outdoorsmen and their families. Sun River, she was reminded, offered you the time of your life.

Armed with his coffee, Steven worked some more on his letter to the family. It was his opus, composed over the course of months using a device that translated his speaking voice into large blocks of text on a laptop computer. It was a stupid machine. It put contractions where whole words should have been; it didn’t know the difference between “am” and “an”. His words were punctuated by long pauses, by neck spasms and short, sudden gasps for air. A couple of times, when the machine went haywire or he forgot where he left off, he glanced over at Carolyn and widened his eyes comically. This was his wink, his shrug. They could still laugh, couldn’t they?

Soon he drifted off. He was sleeping more and more lately. Whether it was the drugs or the stress or the gradual diminution of his body no one knew. He could sit there for hours, twelve or fourteen at a time, waking only to chew on muscle relaxants or sip water through a straw. Carolyn usually read a book. This time she decided to go for a walk, although she wasn’t entirely sure why. Air seemed like a good idea, fresh air, and even though it was dark she thought that she might recognize a thing or two.

She headed out along the main road and tried to remember which of the side streets would take her down to the gorge. It had been more than twenty years since she and Steven had stumbled upon the lonesome sandstone gorge and that dusty knoll where they shared a picnic lunch and watched tiny pinpoint men scale far-off mountains. They were like that then, not brave enough to summit a mountain, not exactly, but young enough to sit and look at one. Now she dreaded the thought of Steven in his chair, wincing as they crossed over unpaved roads and cursing her in his mind for taking the long way.

The town was larger than she remembered it, but prettier, too. Rows of tiny shops and mock cottages had sprung up along the thoroughfares. The streets themselves were mostly empty, illuminated by old fashioned street lamps, by the glimmer of a half-obscured crescent moon, and the steady clapping of her feet against the pavement reminded Carolyn how wonderfully far she was from home. What a little silence could do; how easily it could swallow up time and place. Yes, even people. Especially people.
Wandering down side roads and winding in and out of cul-de-sacs, she realized after a little while that she was lost. In the distance, some tiny glass-fronted place—a restaurant or maybe a bar—lit the sidewalk in spheres of green and gold. She decided to go in, just to ask for directions, really, but when she did, the bartender set down a menu. Carolyn wondered if it was fate. She believed in fate sometimes.

The place itself was darker than it had seemed and Carolyn found herself surrounded by sights and sounds which seemed familiar, but only vaguely so, like memories from childhood or perhaps from some past life, memories, she was sure, which were better left forgotten. There were the bleary-eyed older men, the vapid, giggling young girls, the deafening clang of too many people and things. But there was music as well and the music, although she couldn’t place it, the sound of music still made her smile. When the bartender returned, Carolyn ordered a white wine, whatever they had, the drier the better. She couldn’t remember the last time she had taken a drink and when it came the wine scorched her tongue. It was rotten; it was just like too-ripe pears and she suspected the bottle had been corked, but it went to her head in a way that helped her forget about the taste.

“Climber?”

The man glancing over at her was young and broadbacked, sitting two stools down, with a beard that looked as though it might have grown in by accident. Carolyn had seen him earlier, staring off at persons or places unknown, but his sudden attention still left her confused. “Excuse me?” she asked, trying her best to smile.

“The climbing, is that it? Are you here for the climbing?” Carolyn thought for a moment that he was being deliberately stupid, that he was mocking her age and her situation, and then, looking down at her plain khaki pants and practical shoes, it dawned on her that she was perhaps dressed for the part. Were there really female climbers? Of her age?

“Yes,” she said in a tone meant to be deadpan. “I can hardly get enough of climbing. Mountains, rocks, anything really.”

He nodded his agreement and then began to tell her his story in the way that people do to strangers in bars, with great attention to detail, with sweeping movements of his hands, with a voice so loud and booming that it made her blush. He had, Carolyn learned, read a magazine article about someone kayaking the Kali River and decided to circle the globe in search of the world’s fiercest rapids. He travelled with a friend, a rich friend who funded their expeditions, and the two of them had already visited four continents and more than a dozen states. He hated Tambor and loved Phuket. Once, while passing through Cyprus, he had broken his wrist and had it set by a local shaman. It healed in a matter of days. She marveled at the very idea of people like him, of just picking up and going somewhere. He seemed every bit as reckless and brave, every bit as childlike, as the men in her books.

“You know,” she said, straightening up a little, “I don’t think that there’s anything more glorious than standing on a mountaintop at daybreak. Just at daybreak, I mean. When the sun is coming up and the sky is light.” Carolyn wondered where she had heard that, probably in a movie. For a second, she was quite proud of herself and then, suddenly, an image: her sagging neck and sunken cheeks, the lines around her eyes, that time of night, a woman alone, some strange bar. What must he be thinking?

“Actually, my husband and I did a pre-dawn climb not far from here,” she said, emphasizing it—emphasizing her husband—as best she could. “Just a few days after we were married.”

“That’s cute,” he said in a way that left Carolyn embarrassed. “So this is part two then? Sort of a second honeymoon?”

“Well, no,” she told him, tracing the outline of her glass with one finger. It occurred to her that the man was waiting, that she would need to tell him something more, and then, as quickly as she realized it, the something appeared, as if it had willed itself into being, as if it had perhaps been waiting all this time for a chance to emerge. “My husband is dead.”

It was a horrible thing to say. Carolyn did not understand where the words had come from or why, having said them, she did not feel guilty or ashamed. Just this: she had said them. She wanted to take another drink, something stronger, maybe a whiskey sour. Yes, whiskey sounded good. It occurred to her that she could probably stay there and drink until the bar closed, until she could barely stand and had forgotten where she was. No one knew her there. What difference would it make?

Things became quiet for her.

She ordered another glass of wine and then, because she remembered that she hated the wine, a cognac. The man with the beard said something brief and meaningless about rivers and rainfall, but was otherwise silent. Carolyn understood. The alcohol made her breath feel heavy and allowed her to lose track of the space between herself and the man, between the man and the street, between the street here and the street she knew as a girl. She had been meaning to go back and visit. Her poor mother.

Finally, when she found herself gripped by a strange and uncomfortable ringing in her ears, Carolyn excused herself and exited to the restroom. She paid her tab, leaving the bartender an especially large tip. What a nice man to stand there and draw her a map on the back of a napkin. What a nice place. The world was smaller than it sometimes seemed. On her way out, she put a hand on the shoulder of the bearded man.

“I need to go now,” she told him. “But good luck with the river.”

He stared back at her blankly. Carolyn realized that she had interrupted, that he was already having a conversation with another man, this one clean-shaven but equally large. She thought it might be the friend he had told her about. Soon after she left, a brief chorus of laughter poured out of the bar, echoing off of the abandoned storefront across the street and Carolyn wondered if it was them, the two adventurers, laughing at the foolish old lady and her talk of mountaintops.

She looked at the map only briefly. The hotel, it turned out, was closer than she had realized, and on the way there she was able to locate the road that led down to the gorge. She followed it halfway down, until she could see what she thought was moonlight reflecting off of the water, and decided not to go any further. It was dreadful, just a haphazard slit carved into the earth. It was worse than dreadful; it was nothing; it was the absence of space. Carolyn hated this town now, how it was crowded and desolate all at once, how far away it seemed from every familiar signpost, every hint of civilization. She should have never left the hotel, she knew that now. She ought to have stayed with Steven, to have finished her book and taken her pill and fallen asleep to the sound of the television. It was, after all, her job, her only job, to be there and attend to him. And besides, he needed her so much.

Contributor's Note: William Barclay lives in Santa Monica and sometimes in Ridgecrest.

A Forest

Painting by Kelly Pankey
Acrylic on Canvas
11" x 14"

Contributor's Note: I have recently graduated from Cerro Coso and will be majoring in English at CSUB in the fall of 2010.

The Value of Choice

Essay by James Collins

Throughout mankind’s history, we have always looked for the answer to why men do what they do. Why do bad people do bad things and why do good people do good things? Or, more interestingly, why do good people do bad things and why do bad people do good things? Although modern psychology was not closely studied until the 19th century, the ethical search for the causality of human behavior dates back to the earliest civilizations of Egypt, Persia and Greece.

In literature, this enigma is often the driving force of the countless characters in countless stories. We find this protagonist thrust into that situation, and the suspense of the tale lies in how they will react and whether we will be able to predict what they will do. In “real life,” this conundrum often also drives our dramas of reality as well. How will our parents react to our recent engagement? How will our siblings deal with our father’s death?

In almost every instance, the choices characters make in literature, as well as the choices we make in reality, have immediate and longstanding consequences. The real question that ultimately matters in our judgments of any choice is not so much why, but was the choice justified? Could we celebrate the choices made if they are positive? Alternatively, can we understand and sympathize if the choices made were not in line with our own value set? Often, our society tends to “give a pass” to those who make poor decisions based on what the individuals have gone through in their lives and this, unfortunately, tends to relieve them of, if not true accountability, at least moral accountability.

This conflict of the reader’s judgment is very prevalent in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Indeed, the entire story is based upon two figures who, driven by their circumstance in life, seek to avoid accountability. Victor perpetually tries to ignore the existence of his creation, at first clapping and expressing “joy” (Shelley 63) simply to have the creature out of his sight. The creature, on the other hand, embraces “hellish rage and gnashing of teeth” (Shelley 125) towards “all mankind” (Shelley 126) due to his suffering at the hands of those he encounters. Yet, for both of these characters, the reader is expected to maintain a level of sympathy and understanding towards them, if not agreement.

We see further evidence of this tendency to expect sympathy and excuse for action in Mary Wollstonecraft’s From Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman in the main character, Jemima’s, depiction of her mother as one who was “seduced” (Wollstonecraft 197) rather than one who made the free decision to enter into a relationship with her father, leaving her “ruined” (Wollstonecraft 197). During this telling of the woeful tale, we are expected to accept Jemima for what she is as if she is beyond accountability since things were so hard for her from the beginning. Throughout the story, we see examples of less than desirable thoughts and decisions, such as stealing and fancying the murder of her sister in jealousy. Yet, in the end, it seems as if we are expected to feel as if all these things are excusable due to her harsh treatment.

In William Godwin’s Things as They Are, or The Adventures of Caleb Williams, even the antagonist of the story, Mr. Collins, excuses Caleb, stating “you did not make yourself” (Godwin 196). Again, we are presented with a character that is in a dire circumstance who seems to be there for every reason other than his own doing. Although Mr. Collins’ excuse of Caleb is more dismissive than sympathetic, it is excuse nonetheless. The character is a victim of his life and worthy of excuse.

This tendency of human nature is not restricted to the literary world. It seems that in all facets of life and popular culture, we tend to feel sorry for those in strife and think first of the turmoil they suffer and second, if at all, about why they are there. We feel bad for celebrities being chased by the paparazzi, for example, but don’t seem to give much thought to the fact that they are not suddenly cast, by surprise and against their will, into the public eye. They have spent years or decades trying to break into the upper echelon of Hollywood stardom. There is no mystery to what life is like for those that famous.

There are a number of articles and essays that carry this motif into reality. In one such article, “Peer Pressure Influences Gang Behavior” by Dale Greer, we follow a young underprivileged child named Hubert. It is stated as a given that he was cutting school because “his lack of material assets was so embarrassing” (Greer). By this logic, every child in his area should be cutting school, which, since there were obviously children at school, is untrue. Not long after, we find Hubert “committing crimes to provide for himself what his mother's income could not afford” (Greer). Certainly, Hubert couldn’t have been the only child in his neighborhood that had a poor mother. But, just as certainly, it is probably safe to assume that not every child in the area was a criminal.

There is no doubt that we are the sum of our parts. Certainly, many people in the world are forced into a life situation that is misfortunate. The refugees in Darfur, for example, either live in deplorable conditions in the refugee camp or face certain death by staying in their homelands. This is a much different situation than we see Victor, the creature, Jemima or Hubert face. Victor did not face certain demise if he did not toy with creating humanoid life. The creature would not have suffered more had he not killed Victor’s young brother. Jemima would not have starved had she not satisfied her “liquorish tooth” (Wollstonecraft 199). And, Hubert’s choices to commit crime so he wouldn’t be teased cannot be seen as one made in self preservation.

The moral dilemma being discussed here, when is it acceptable to commit egregious acts, does have a grey area, but one must tread lightly when considering whether to excuse one’s actions. A good example comes from a story used in psychology to study this very subject: moral dilemma. Dr. George Boeree published an article titled “Moral Development” outlining this topic. In the article, Boeree recounts a groundbreaking psychologist, Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg, using the following dilemma to test how subjects came to moral justification. It centers on a fictitious character named Heinz.

“His wife was dying of a disease that could be cured if he could get a certain medicine. When he asked the pharmacist, he was told that he could get the medicine, but only at a very high price- one that Heinz could not possibly afford. So the next evening, Heinz broke into the pharmacy and stole the drug to save his wife's life. Was Heinz right or wrong to steal the drug?” (Boeree)

Obviously, either answer would have positive and negative implications. If Heinz were to let his wife die, he would be not only heartbroken, but could even be considered negligent. However, if he steals, he has broken a key tenet of society. The argument isn’t so much which choice Heinz should make, but that Heinz must accept consequence for either choice and expect no excuse for his actions either way.

Such is the recurring theme in Frankenstein. We have a story that sprawls through numerous settings and even more numerous moral landscapes. With Victor, at every turn, he is confronted with his foul decision to bestow life to the creature. Instead of embracing his decision and fostering the goodwill of the creature, he instead allows “disgust” (Shelley 61) to drive his actions. Although this does not, by any means, excuse the creature’s future actions, it certainly lays the seed for what is to come. This failure cannot be excused. As Peg Tittle puts it in her article “Couples Should Need a License to Obtain the Privilege of Parenthood”, “’I created someone by accident’ should be just as horrific, and just as morally reprehensible, as ‘I killed someone by accident’” (Tittle). Although the context Ms. Tittle uses is one for procreation, the argument is the same and denies Victor the excuse that he could not have known what would happen upon animating the creature.

Just as surely, the creature can expect no sympathy for his actions, regardless of how he was treated in his life. Nothing can justify murder as a tool or a means to an end. Just as Paracelsus declares that “every field is ordered by its seed, and no seed by its field” (Paracelsus 204), the creature can seek no shelter of justification that the world had made him what he was. He could have chosen to exile himself, to continue to approach Victor in benevolence or any order of different paths other than vengeful murder.

It is clear that Victor and the creature do not value true accountability. They lament their situations at length throughout the novel and attempt to blame the other for their misfortunes, but neither of them ever seek to resolve the problem between them and, once it is too late and innocent blood had been shed, neither of them are willing to commit to the other any quarter which may end the ever escalating conflict between them. What they value is a victory over an adversary which is unattainable. They base this value upon a false notion that evil deeds perpetuate evil responses. They justify these actions to themselves at every step at the cost of those around them. In the end, not only does what they hold dear crumble around them, but those who are unwittingly associated with the situation pay with high cost– some with their lives.

What a reader should take from this writing, and those discussed throughout this essay, is that poor choices need to be dealt with head on. That which can be salvaged should be salvaged and that which is lost must be put behind oneself. What we see in Shelley’s Frankenstein is the manifestation of failure perpetuating failure and lack of accountability perpetuating further acts without accountability. We should learn from this writing that, although we are a sum of our parts and often victims of our circumstances, we are not ever without choice to do the right thing. To do otherwise or to believe contrary invites only more strife and indignity.

Works Cited

Bidinotto, Robert James. "A Lack of Morals Causes Criminal Behavior." Current Controversies: Crime. Ed. Paul A. Winters. San Diego:Greenhaven Press, 1998. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Cerro Coso Community College. n. pag. Web. 21 Apr. 2010

Boeree, George. "Moral Development." General Psychology. N.p., 2003. Web. 22 Apr 2010

Godwin, William, "Things as They Are, or The Adventures of Caleb Williams." Frankenstein (Contextual Documents). 2nd ed. Johanna Smith. Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martins, 2000. Print.

Greer, Dale. "Peer Pressure Influences Gang Behavior." Opposing Viewpoints: Gangs. Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press,2001. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Cerro Coso Community College. n. pag. Web. 21 Apr. 2010

Paracelsus, "On Creation." Frankenstein (Contextual Documents). Johanna Smith. Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martins, 2000. Print.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 2nd ed. Ed. Johanna Smith Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martins, 2000. Print.

Tittle, Peg. "Couples Should Need a License to Obtain the Privilege of Parenthood." At Issue: Is Parenthood a Right or a Privilege?. Ed. Stefan Kiesbye. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Cerro Coso Community College. n. pag. Web. 22 Apr. 2010

Contributor's Note:I am a current student of Cerro Coso seeking a business degree. I am a US Air Force veteran and married father of two. I have a passion for writing and other creative expression. I wrote this piece during my freshman composition course and was encouraged to submit it to Met by my instructor, Gary Enns.

 

Evening Watering

Poem by Amy Ashworth

The polished brown rock in my garden
Shines when drips from the watering can hit it.
The light fragments
In the water drops
Are the falling pieces of your mind-
One of which recognized
Your imminent departure
From memory's world-
One of which presented me
With this glowing, smooth gift.

Contributors Note: I'm taking Creative Writing with Gary Enns to challenge myself to work. I grew up in Ridgecrest and graduated in 1996 from PLNU with a degree in English Education. I'm currently living in Campbell and enjoying online courses.

Untitled

Painting by Kelly Pankey
Oil Crayon on Paper
24" x 30"

Contributor's Note: I have recently graduated from Cerro Coso and will be majoring in English at CSUB in the fall of 2010.

The Doldrums

Poem by Uriah Burke

Here I sit behind bars fabricated out of other's minds.
Monotony is my guard, he beats me regularly.
My mind rots ever approaching the destruction of my soul.
The world sentenced me here, for the infractions of Nature.

I am surrounded by folks who share my turmoil.
The term is life, and that is exactly what it takes.
Most will expire forever ignorant to what they could have.
Knowledge is my ally, she inspires hope.

Daily I salt the grounds with my progress.
Inch by inch out, under a poster of beautiful thinkers.
But when freedom is achieved the joke is on me.
I will become a juror, passing the same sentence.

Contributors Note: I am currently in my last semester here at Cerro Coso. This winter I will be Transferring to Cal State Bakersfield. I have years of experience as a tutor under my belt, and have tried to incorporate it into a lot of my work. I enjoy all kinds of fantasy and fiction, and while I enjoy writing have never been published before.

The Storm

Poem by Kelly Pankey

We rode faster on the way home.

As the storm crawled over the mountains to my right
I began to notice things I had not given thought
To before, as I was preoccupied with reaching
My destination in record time.

But now I was hurrying for another reason.
The storm was approaching quickly but
Hardly detectable
Slowly stalking over the mountains and casting an ominous shadow

Over the highway and the roadside memorials
Weathered by time with names that are now
Peeling and cannot be read by the passing machines that
Would not look anyway or care to know whose life ended on that highway
Years before, when the disintegrating walls of the old buildings were newly painted and cared for
By other names no longer remembered.

Buildings, memorials in themselves of dreams tasted but never fully realized
Now only their peeling, splintered skeletons remain as a testimony to someone’s hopes
That existed long ago
Beside that highway.

As I raced to beat the rain I thought about how temporary it all is
The buildings, the memorials, the highway, this moment and the
Storm which would cover all of it including me

And how the machines that care not for such things
Will still be passing it all by
When there is nothing left to remember us

Contributors Note: I have graduated from Cerro Coso, and will be attending CSUB in the fall of 2010.

The Phone Call That Changed My Life Forever

Essay by Marilyn Booth-Horn

It was an early morning in June, one week after school had ended and the day after my tenth birthday, June 25, 1958 to be exact. The phone rang. My dad, Ken Gormley, still in his pajamas and bare-footed, dashed across the hardwood floors of our Malibu Lake home in Southern California to answer the phone with a surprised look on his face. No one ever called this early. After a brief conversation, Dad walked ashen-faced back into the family room. He called to me and my little, eight year old brother, Pat, to tell us the grim news.

“Marilyn and Pat, I’ve something to tell you. Mommy has died,” he muttered softly.

This was unexpected. We’d all just visited her yesterday. The Motion Picture Hospital where my dad worked as a steam and refrigeration engineer and where my mother, Bessie, had been in “hospice care” had given us a special birthday visit. As young as Pat and I were, we were never allowed to visit our mother the long months she’d been hospitalized on and off for the past two years. But on this “birthday visit” the hospital had made an exception.

Mom was doing well and was obviously proud of my reaching ten. I could sense something in her expressions, a relief that seemed to say, “My babies are growing up and are doing fine.” She sat up in bed and chatted with us with a satisfied and calm demeanor, her soft Southern accent always pleasant to hear. In later years, my family came to believe that she’d willed herself to keep living those long eight years of battling cancer until that moment when she felt confident that Pat and I would be okay, not babies anymore.

My beautiful mom with high cheek bones, blue-blue eyes and the Southern drawl, only thirty-six years old, gone from my life when I had only just turned ten. My mom who baked cookies and made strawberry short cake from scratch; my mom who would give the most profound answers to my simple, childish questions was never going to be part of my life again.

“Where did everything come from?” I asked Mom when I was five.

“God made everything,” she replied. This revelation led to my lifelong belief in God.

“There must be life on other planets since there is life here on Earth,” she had stated when I ask about that possibility when I was eight years old.

Back in the 1950’s, before space exploration, this was very advanced thinking for her, who’d been raised as a Mississippi farm girl. I would never be able to ask her about her life and beliefs again. This is what I miss the most.

Sadly, Dad called Pat and I to his now dimly lit master bedroom where we sat on our parent’s double bed with the happy yellow bedspread. A place we two kids had snuggled safely when we were little. It was now our place of mourning. We all cried together for hours like an old Irish wake. There was nothing to be said. Mom was gone forever. We three were as one sad heart, each grieving the same loss.

Before that phone call our family had been Mom and Dad and little brother and big sister. I was Daddy’s little girl and Pat was Mommy’s little boy; a totally even parent distribution. There were no conflicts. We each were cherished by both our parents, but each was “special” to either Mom or Dad. Now it was a different dynamic, just Dad to be shared in competition by brother and sister. This didn’t become evident at first, but in a couple of years it became our daily power battle.

When the day ended, Dad quickly set to work to solve our dilemma. For two years we’d needed a baby-sitter during the swing shift which was two in the afternoon to ten at night that Dad worked on weekdays. He got us up and off to school, not very well groomed, but well fed and loved much. After school, various regular baby-sitters would care for us. On weekends, Dad spent all his time with us, a true “Mr. Mom.” Now he was in a panic, but didn’t let us know it. He was terrified Social Services would take us away, a totally irrational fear since he was a good provider and care giver.

Therefore, Dad arranged for me to spend the summer at my best friend, Debbie Gunn’s home. Debbie and I were so much alike, we were often mistaken as twins. Despite the fact that Debbie was a brunette and I was blonde, we were both very short, had blue eyes, and acted alike; both a little shy, but goofy and silly. So instead of having a sad, lonely summer, I had a really fun summer with Debbie, swimming and boating in Malibu Lake, playing dolls, swinging and pretending we were horses, which was one of our favorite games.

I also assisted Debbie with all her household chores, which were many since she was the oldest daughter of eight children in that large Catholic family. Even though I missed Mom terribly, the fact was that despite the shock and finality of my mom’s death, I had become used to her being gone. Pat was to spend summer days at his best friend, Robbie Blakely’s house; later in the evening he’d go home when Dad would pick him up after work.

Dad, a short French-Irishman with black hair, barely middle-age, a Maurice Chevalier nose, always with a joke to tell and clever sayings he made up, had a charm that could win any lady. He started dating Esther immediately and quickly won her over. She was a fifty year old spinster, seven years older than Dad. She worked at the Motion Picture Hospital and had served food to my mother. She and Dad had met in the elevator. Pat and I were introduced to her when Dad took us all to the country fair. I liked her; she laughed a lot and seemed to be truly happy and comfortable with our family.

On Labor Day, in early September, they married. Dad called me home from the Gunn’s. The Gunns tried to persuade me to stay by offering to take me and their kids to the Ice Capades. Later I found out they’d offered to adopt me, primarily, I thought, to help Debbie keep their four-story home clean, while Mrs. Gunn was continually pregnant and Mr. Gunn worked two jobs.

Pat and I, who were always included in all our family’s activities, were invited to go on the honeymoon, a trip to Seattle, Washington. Cute, button nosed, blue-eyed Pat, the spitting image of our mother, who had declared to Esther before the marriage, “Go away, you’re not our Mommy,” started adjusting to her as our new step-mom. We called her “Es,” her nickname, never Mom. “Mom” was reserved forever for our Mom.

Sometimes I felt guilty for how Dad, Pat, and I occasionally excluded her as part of the “real” family. When we’d talk about Mom it was like we had a secret club that Es didn’t belong to. We needed to talk about Mom and work through the grieving process, but because Dad had remarried so quickly, it was awkward. It must have been difficult for her and showed in the hurt in her green eyes when this happened. She tried hard to be the mom we needed but that special intimacy and bond that existed with our own mother was gone forever.

Despite Dad’s mad dash to “save the family,” he was unable to cope with his own grief and bitter disappointment because of my mom’s death. Never allowing himself to fully grieve, he started drinking daily. He was angry at life and God for Mom’s death and was often unkind to Esther, even sometimes throwing her dinners against the wall if he didn’t like it. But he always treated me and Pat as precious. We were never spanked or even disciplined in anyway; the way he had always raised us. He continued to be a good provider and limited his drinking to “after hours.”

Esther responded to this abuse by having a mental breakdown the summer I turned thirteen. She spent that summer of 1961 in a mental hospital having “shock” treatments. She came home with daily medications, a changed attitude which was cold and sometimes hostile, with future tendencies towards more nervous breakdowns. Her laughter was gone. Later we learned she’d exhibited mental illness symptoms since she was a child in the 1910’s when she had almost died because of a very high fever. There was a lack of antibiotics in that era. Perhaps that’s why, despite her Irish dark-haired, freckled good- looks, she had never married until she met Dad.

Now my family had become dysfunctional. Dad and Es stayed together for twenty years, until her death at age seventy. They had their good and bad times, but managed to raise me and Pat in an outwardly normal way with vacation trips and outings. However, there was always an underlying tension. Pat and I battled competitively from junior high on, never being nice to each other. The sweet, cherished family when my mother was alive became just a memory.

In my teens, I learned of other women who had worked in World War II factories who had developed cancer, like my mother; and their daughters were unable to have children. I concluded my mother’s cancer had developed by exposure to radiation or toxins in the San Francisco bomb factory she’d worked in during the war where she’d met Dad. She had been a lead lady who was in charge of testing bombs for leaks and cracks.

As adults, both my brother and I, although healthy, never were able to have children. This led to my becoming an adoptive and foster parent. I wanted to help children from troubled homes. I wanted to be a loving and guiding support in their life, as my mother had been in mine. Although Mom’s time in my life was short, I always carry the memory of her love.

Contributor's Note: I've lived here in Lake Isabella for seven years now. I'm a retired foster parent, but am still raising permanently placed children. I started college at the age of 59. The things I enjoy the most are helping kids be the best they can be and going to college so I can be the best I can be, too.

View from the River Styx

Essay by Kristine Perry

This room is dark and motionless. I lie in the stillness, breathing in the reality of what I was going to face on this day. I was going to hold my baby. I have waited nine long whole months for this day. I struggle to lift my swollen body from this lumpy, comfortless mattress. Every movement is a new ache that empowers my body. Standing in this room I can see minute traces of shadows stirring from the light outside my bedroom window. The smell of dirty socks and strawberry shampoo congests my senses as I step towards my unlit bathroom.

The brown stained linoleum floor in this room is cold and wet. I rub my belly, “soon little one,” I say as I start the water in my shower. The warm feeling from the drops of water on my body is refreshing and motivating. Yet thinking of my baby makes me tremble both with fear and joy. This is my fifth birth yet it feels like my first. The moisture from the steam of the shower fogs the mirror on my medicine cabinet. I wipe away the residue and peer at my glowing, tired features. Time has sure had its toll on me and I am afraid. Can I handle another child, both emotionally and financially? What kind of support will I get from my husband? He failed me so many times before. I can hear him getting the kids up. Soon it will be time to go to the birthing center. With a deep sigh, I press on towards getting dressed and out the door to my delivering destiny. My next stop is a quaint little room on the third floor of San Joaquin hospital.

My family drops me off in front of the automatic doors to the hospital entrance. I stand in the twilight of the morning and wave good bye to my kids as they drive away with my husband. I enter the waiting room where many expecting parents wait—funny how I am all alone. Baby pictures from various ethnic races hang from the textured tan walls and fake, multi-colored wildflowers adorn the lone coffee table. The waiting takes so long that I begin having second thoughts. Maybe I can come back tomorrow; I’m only two weeks overdue. Too late, they’ve called my name.

They lead me to a crisp white room that smells of ammonia and baby oil. New life will begin in this room. Blue checkered curtains suspend from my second story window view and brown, padded chairs sit empty. The sound of a tiny heartbeat echoes through the room from a monitor next to my adjustable hospital bed. Suddenly shadows fall from the ceiling as the room begins to fade into darkness. People rushing around look like flickers of light from a burning candle. Faint voices stir in the background of my diminishing existence. This room full of joy and happiness has turned into a chamber of sorrow and tears. My unborn son suffocating and my blood spilling everywhere—this wasn’t supposed to happen! This is a room where one life was lost and one life was saved. A new life has ended in this room.

Three days after my son is put on life support, I am taken into a big conference room. Everywhere I look there are people in white jackets with name tags holding clipboards. Doctors and nurses hush their conversation about my son when I enter the room. The gloomy look on all their faces tells me what I knew all along. My baby is gone and the damage to his brain is irreversible. Pain shoots through my gut but I know I still have one option left for him. “I want my son to be a donor,” I say with a heavy heart. The silence of the room is broken by the condolences of strangers for my unselfish gift to others. As I leave the room and enter the cool hallway of the hospital, I fall to my knees sobbing uncontrollably; time to say goodbye to my son.

How do I tell my kids? How do I break the news to my family? I cannot contain the anger, fear and sadness long enough to speak. They look at me with solace and know that my news is grim….. I don’t need to speak. My mother escorts me into the neo-natal unit at the hospital were my son lies among the tiny premature babies. He is not like the others. He looks like a giant among the crowd. The nurse gently places him into my arms, wrapped in a soft woolen blanket; his eyes are closed. I rock him for the last time: “I need to let you go now. I am so sorry” I choke as tears roll down my face, “I will see you again, when it is my time, I want you to be the one to meet me there.” I want to remember this moment, I want to stay here forever but I can’t. It’s time for him to go so the nurse takes him from my arms—he is gone.

I sit alone in my pale green hospital room awaiting the news that my son’s organs have been harvested. I feel numb all over my body. My nurse comes to check on the three IV’s attached to my arms and leg. I stare off into oblivion, as the housekeeper spreads water and what smells like pine-sol on the floor. At three in the morning a coordinator from the organ donor association arrives with the news that two little girls will be saved because of my son, two families will hold their children. I am given a consent form to give permission for the hospital to take my son’s organs, mainly his liver and heart; he had a strong heart. I stay up until the early morning hours crying and feeling like I was in a bad dream. The television has been on all night and I turn up the sound when the Channel 29 news comes on. They are covering my story and the death of my son. I watch as a long white limo, carrying my son’s organs, arrives at the airport, where a plane is waiting for his precious commodity. As the tiny plane flies into the distance I cover my head with my thin hospital sheet and go to sleep.

Funerals always seem to bring people together. It’s sad to think that it takes the death of a loved one to make you forget about all the quarrels you’ve had the past year. As I ponder this thought, I walk across the dew covered grass towards the green colored canopy above my son’s grave site. The breeze blows a sweet aroma of pine needles and fresh cut flowers. I can see my son’s tiny white casket that has been filled with many letters and toys alongside his lifeless body. Friends and relatives approach me to offer their sympathy. Today is the day I bury my son, today I breathe in the reality of life and death.

Contributor’s Note: I am involved in a few community programs as well as withCerro Coso College. I am the secretary for the ASCC in Lake Isabella, a tutor, and a peer mentor. I volunteer at the local library and I am a volunteer for the Salvation Army. I am also a full time student and mother. I am also an Ambassador for One Legacy. I write with deep expressions of my emotions and
experiences that have occurred in my life.