March 2022
Bio Note: From 11 to 18, I attended a boys only school in London, and from 31 to 67 I taught at an all girls high school in Richmond, Virginia. Adolescence rocked me out of joint; at 16 a friend and I formed what we called the Future Suicides Club. But I loved teaching teenagers, even if (later) many of them confessed that they had felt, as teenagers, as dire as I did—it's such a sweet, strange, difficult age. Hence these two "both sides now" poems.
Morning Assembly at ICHS, London, 1966
As sixth years we got rotated to the balcony. We could fit up there now, us top boys. The rest of us, as at 16 most kids did, had dropped out, to train for or take jobs. Below me, the first years in short pants and itchy ties filtered into the back rows and felt (oh, I remembered) tiny. Rising to mouth the Lord's Prayer, finding myself gripping the rail to not think of falling, or of which little boy might break my fall, I heard my voice, as I hadn't since I was one of them, saying aloud the words. All year (beneath my breath), I asked, sometimes, if I—not jumped, exactly— if, God, I just let myself lean too far— if the thrill of falling—the relief at falling— might not be what was meant by grace. The way, surrendering to gravity, a raindrop fattens on the tree limb and it brightens. It hangs full. I recall, still, how all that year I leaned and kept leaning, as if, by something like grace, held cupped; in a stay of heartbeat between thy will be done and on earth as it is in heaven.
Leaving You
“I promise to take you everywhere, my lovely child, and then to leave you.” —Max Apple, “Bridgings” We glimpse the stone hump of the bridge, and you clamber across the footpath's turns, through rocks and scrub brush, to peer from the overlook and spy the river. Be careful, I call, making my slower way—though more to hail you than in warning; we trust each other, we two; and you wave, hallooing back. When I reach you, you're rested, and I might wish I were less short-breathed. But yes, one hill left, since look, that glint's the river, and across the bridge the city, and this bench, to sit flank to shoulder, in pledge of steadiness. How long have we been walking now, sweetheart, I ask, is it twelve years? Sixteen, daddy, you say, knowing I'm teasing and must know. Oddly, though, I’ve begun to forget things. When we set out, wasn't someone with us, your mom, I must mean? And didn’t I come this way once with my parents? Remember, darling, I ask instead, how I'd carry you sometimes? You laugh. And there was a dog, you say. Trixie! I say back. You'd lurch off after her. I had to catch hold of you, till you learned that where we led, she'd follow. We’re walking again, in step, side by side. We'll get there by my half-birthday, bet you, you say, without impatience: the way down is sunlit, our stride a strong, shared heartbeat… But then as the bridge draws closer, your pace starts to flag. On the other side there are so many roads, and you know without talk of it that I will be done with leading— that we won't always favor the same ones; which is fine, except for the maze they'll be, and this fear you can't say, that our windings may not much meet. Oh, it’ll be fine, love, I tell you without words—with smiles; a hand reached wide behind me. I know this journey; I’ve come this way, and there is no other. Still, for a bit, what say we don’t cross yet? We’ll look only, and count all the coppery swift colors in the slapping water— and loll upslope to share our sandwiches— puttering by the bend where the wildflowers flutter—to twine our two sprigs of them. Then, when it’s time, I'll nod back once and go; not stopping, or slowed to see; till behind me I'll hear the sturdy engine of your breath.
©2022 Derek Kannemeyer
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