May 2018 Going to CLOUDBURST COUNCIL

A few days to go until Cloudburst. I am hoping to generate some content for the Cloudburst Blog before the event

Our theme is  Break-Through and the prompt is Resoluteness

Break-though is at least on the surface comprehensive as a social movement or whatever ( a trigger to experience)

The meaning for Resoluteness is more difficult for me. This does not have to be a new poem but if you can send me a poem and/or thoughts, I'll get them posted.

success is showing up

secret of longevity getting out of bed in the morning

          ----- Alan Casline

WAITING ON THE KEYBANK AT FOUR-CORNERS

I notice the lady with the open ledger book and open check book in the foyer as I reach for the door.

“It’s locked, You won’t get in there. They won’t open till nine” she says.

“I never figure on that. It’s not even like I’m here on an important errand,” looking at my watch. There’s at least ten minutes till nine.

“ I need to get a bank certified check. It’s not even for me, it’s for my employer,” she offers.

“I’m here to pick up some dollar coins for a poetry prize. The prize is for reciting poems from memory. “

“Children?”

“No adults. I belong to a poetry group in Voorheesville.”

She began reciting in a slightly softer voice.

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils…

Woodsworth, my favorite,” she smiled.

Do you think they still have children memorize poems in school?” she asked me.

“Probably not. I don’t think my own kids ever had to.”

“A pity.”

“Yes, when you memorize a poem it stays with you forever, or even if you forget, something will stir it up again and it surfaces.”

 She nodded her head in understanding.

“Even when it is forgotten if you start reading the poem again, the words come back and your eyes can leave the page as you continue in the memory of having learned the poem by heart.”
She paused in thought, then went on.

“Songs are interesting. Songs are like that too. My father had blood clots in his brain and a stroke when he was forty-eight. He lost all ability to speak but he could still sing. He lived twelve more years, with only the ability to sing the songs he had learned to communicate.”

“Wow,” I said. “It’s like the sit-com where they have the special singing episode and everyone sings in a musical style but the plot and story go on as normal. That was your father, in his own singing musical episode, except his went on for twelve years.”

She laughed, as the bank employee came to open the door, a little early, and let us in.

                                                                           Alan Casline

                                                                           May 9, 2007

                                                                                          Delmar, N.Y.