Hercegkút Benches

1997: My camera on a mini tripod captures me returning to the town of Sárospatak. Inspired by the beautiful morning walk I had just completed through the village of Hercegkút I soon sit down with my journal to scratch notes that evolve into the poem, "Benches".

(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins

Snow Tunnels and Kitchen Chairs: Fantasy of Youth, Practicality of Adulthood

Outside,
for hours
and days
I would tunnel in snow,
carve out a frozen world
of passage way,
shelter,
castle,
fort,
and igloo.
I would shovel snow into a large pile in the back yard, or make use of a pile my father had made as he shoveled out the alley behind our garage. I had friends, but this was my time to play alone. Seldom would those I did invite show necessary enthusiasm and endurance.
Inside,
for lunch,
stiff wool mittens or jersey gloves
to the radiator
where melting balls of snow
turn today's mittens
to limp and wet
and yesterday's
to warm and dry
to wear back out
after bowl of soup
for afternoon tunneling.
A coal shovel was the tool no bigger than I, but big enough to make my work productive. I would do finer work with bare hand or coffee can, but my work was never fine enough.
I never made the perfect tunnel,
nor perfect igloo,
nor finished castle.
Yet,
for so long
as cold and snow and mittens held,
I went out most days to try.
Some days I overworked my quota of dry clothes and mittens. Some days there was too little snow, or the Minnesota cold was too bitter. I did not object when my mother bade me stay in.
Perfection came imagined
during inside days
on bed or living-room rug.
I could play with toy figures
across snowfields visible only to me.
I could make believe my way
to architectural perfection:
snow walls carved thin
to let sun in
to glimmer
like cathedral window.
Outside imagination is different from inside imagination. Snow and cold are quite real. They were my immediate environment for a few months each year. My clumsy skills at tunneling were real but improving. I only need imagine that the world outside my snow tunnel was free of back doors leading to warm kitchens, hot bowls of soup and motherly protection.
During outside daydream time,
alone in a snow tunnel,
I would imagine my life
if real life included the tunnel.
How fun it would be
to be an expert
among people who live in snow.
When I grew big enough to be in fourth grade I found out about children who actually lived in the snow. They were Netsook and Klaya of Baffin Island, north of Canada and west of Greenland. I read about them in Visits In Other Lands, my 4th grade geography book at Saint Columba School. Yes, I had always remembered them, but, yes, I had forgotten the name of their book until my sister found a copy in an antique store during a visit to our home in Colorado. It had been her introduction to the world also, but she gave the book to me, sensing that I would treasure it and even read it again. This time around, I read the Foreword To The Teacher and discovered that these were imaginary children. The brother and sister in each chapter were created by the authors to give us an idea of different environments that challenge peoples of the earth and shape their cultures. In fourth grade I did not know these lofty goals, I only wished I could learn and use what these children knew to do.
However,
I lived among people who look out
to snow, rain, fog, and darkness
from warm, bright kitchens.
In the world of my people, I often became bored with my figures and their perfect snow structures, or found myself satisfied with plans for tomorrow's tunnel. During such days I would spend hours under kitchen furniture.
Inside our kitchen
I became an expert in chairs.
Four wooden, high-back chairs
became cockpit, wings and fuselage.
I would build airplanes
and fly the sky.
My mother seemed content to work around my obstruction. Now, I realize that as long as I was under foot in my airplane she need not worry about what trouble I was making. Back then, I just knew she was patient and kind. Mostly, I did not notice her.
Kitchens require concentrated imagination.
Chairs look nothing like airplanes.
Linoleum floor is neither cloud nor sky.
Nor should there be radio,
hissing pots,
telephone rings,
nor sky-walking,
loud talking
visitor giants.
I am sure I spent more time in my kitchen airplane than in my backyard snow tunnels. The airplane was as good for a rainy day in summer as for a winter day that was too mild or too bitter.
I know I loved my kitchen-chair airplane.
I know I gave piloting more time than tunneling,
yet, I remember snow tunneling better
and miss it more.
When my daughters were four and six years old we lived in a house with a picnic table out back. This was an unusually snowy winter for the island of Martha's Vineyard. As the table became a mound of snow I saw an opportunity. My daughters could experience some of what I had experienced. I wanted to play again.
For my children,
I shoveled snow
on top of snow
on top of table,
a marvelous mound
for a marvelous igloo.
I tunneled part way in
before putting them and friends to tunneling.
I was out of scale
and a damper to fun.
From inside the house,
at a window,
I could watch,
catch a glimpse now and then
of their tunneling and their play.
It was my day for joy and envy.
That day came before our move west, and before rediscovery of Netsook and Klaya. In Colorado I discovered the joy of summer in the back country. For a long while I thought I would also enjoy snow camping. It would be fulfillment of my childhood fantasy. Away from back doors and warm kitchens, I could live for a few days each winter in and around a snow cave a snow tunnel I would make out of necessity in a real world of snow. I held to that fantasy of winter perfection until a friend reminded me that the winter night is fifteen hours of darkness. For Netsook and Klaya a winter day would be all night. Would they if they had a choice choose to spend even fifteen hours, night after night, in their igloo? That is not for me to know, but question alone was enough to make up my mind. I would learn how to make a snow cave for a real emergency, not fulfillment of fantasy.
Today,
a winter day,
inside
among fantasy of youth
and practicality of adulthood,
I look out into cold and snow
wishing dining room chairs to be large enough
to be
for me
a good airplane.

(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins 

Second-Grade Truth

Lake shore is curvaceous
through microscope and telescope.
Sword has two edges,
as does blade of grass,
as do rainy season and lover’s shoulder.
My years resemble my months
during this moment
when I puzzle
over excitement
and disappointment
in this group
in this place,
and I see a truth
that I often discover
because I often forget.
I see in a crosscut of my memory
a slice through an old group
of long-ago children,
schoolmates,
who are the like
of this group today
and countless groups,
elite and humble,
big and small,
entered and fallen away—
each fresh,
each unique
until the moment of disillusion
when I see forgotten truth
in slices taken
(statistician slices)
(intuition slices)
for intelligence and sadness,
for humor and athleticism,
for effort,
loyalty,
homeliness and beauty.
I wonder if I often forget my schoolmates
because I fear life will be dull if I remember.
Am I addicted to rediscovery
of myriad truths joining present to past?
I wonder if we train our scientists
more to not forget
than to discover—
leaving the fun of rediscovery to the rest of us.

This moment
I see selfishness and charity.
I notice they look the same
sliced across farmers, villagers, poor people,
across city folk, suburban folk, rich people,
across second-grade schoolmates
and graduate school colleagues.
I see lake shore is curvaceous
through microscope and telescope.
Sword has two edges,
as does blade of grass,
as do rainy season and lover’s shoulder.
My years resemble my months.
A profile of my distant day on a train in Italy
mimics ten minutes in this morning’s garden.
Despite these symmetries,
because of these symmetries,
beauty hides in place and moment—
to find and forget,
to lose and remember
with rainy season
and lover’s shoulder.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 2001 :: Second-Grade Truth :: 0108

1962: Flunking into Depression—and Out

This story was not going to be a story. I had just tossed the poem below into my file of things that might someday fit among my autobiographical sketches. The poem is about a descent into and escape from depression. It is a fairly simple story because it tells of a personal journey that took place over thirty hours, less than two days, in 1962. I remembered the journey well enough to write it down in 1967 when Marney flirted with depression from our frustrations in getting down to work at the beginning of our Peace Corps assignment in Guatemala. I wanted my own experience to help her. I doubt it did; events took over; we were soon down to work. I see now that this experience is an important piece in the story not only of my emotional development, but also intellectual and artistic. At most, the poem hints at the larger story. Thus, this extended introduction is more important as an autobiographical sketch than is the poem. Where do I start?

I flunked English,
yes,
my first quarter at Dartmouth College.
Humbled-but-hopeful, I traveled 1400 miles by train home for Christmas break.
Second quarter
I flunked my second quarter of Calculus.
Devastated, I began the long train ride home that five years later produced the poem below.


Perhaps I will recall and write sketches that tell more of how I gradually discovered how my brain works, and, therefrom, discovered who I am. For now, I tell you that the low point came in 1963 somewhere along my solo train journey from White River Junction, Vermont to St. Paul, Minnesota. The journey started at the office door of my Calculus professor where I saw I had failed his class. I had achieved a passing grade in only four of the six college courses I had taken.

I do not remember by what means I went directly from his office to the railroad station in White River Junction. There I boarded a Boston-and-Maine train and began my thirty-hour railroad journey that continued over night on the New York Central, and finished on the Northern Pacific. I was headed home for spring break. From White River Junction I transferred in Springfield, Massachusetts to the New York Central which took me through Albany, New York to Chicago, Illinois. After a walk across the Chicago “Loop” from LaSalle-Street Station to Union Station I boarded the Northern Pacific train that took me to Union Station, St. Paul.

Twelve weeks earlier, arriving home for Christmas break with my first failed class heavy on my heart, I had lingered in the frigid air of the St. Paul morning. Not quite ready to put myself and my story onto the city bus that would take me to family and home, I walked around for half an hour waiting for the department stores to open. I wanted an emotional massage from the hustle, bustle and sparkle of Christmas. I remember the soothing distraction I got walking (for the first time) through a doorless heated entry into the sparkles and smiles of Christmas. I did nothing more than ride escalators up and down--first in one large department store, then the other. Then, somewhat fortified and comforted, I boarded the bus for the short ride from downtown to home.

The season of this second journey in failure offered no such massage. Nor did I seek one. I wanted only to get the difficult task over: tell my proud parents and high-performing sisters of my latest failure. I had by journey's end come to peace with my failure. I was prepared to return to Dartmouth and enjoy what could be my last weeks in this still-exotic place far from home. I knew that during this visit I could offer my family only disappointment, and that they knew they could do little to ease my pain and theirs. I boarded the Hamline-Cherokee bus at 7th and Wabasha., got off at Minnehaha and Pascal into a week of blur I scarcely remember. I know I felt resigned to my fate and confident I had found something in myself (a vague something) during the train ride. I also knew I had to test that something back at Dartmouth. I felt prepared for both both worst and best outcomes in the next academic quarter. Spring break could be no more than a calm before my test. I can now say I tested the words of this poem well before I wrote them. I, the tester, give them a passing grade.


Finally, below, “the poem below”:

Depression

I get way up
I can go way down
in all aspects of life
and in almost all
I can go with others
or cling to others
be pushed by others
or pulled by others
tromped by others
stifled by others
encouraged by others
or exalted by others.
But when I go way down
in the aspect of inside outedness
when vacuum has sucked my energy
from the top of my brain
down through a taut throat
past a heart that just beats
past lungs that just breathe
sinking lower
when it's impossible to sink lower
when I don't give a damn
to be pushed
pulled
encouraged
or exalted by others
my hands with fingers groping in
rather than out
are incapable of clinging.
I don't care if I'm stifled by others
or tromped by others.
I can't go with others
because there are no others.
There is only self
a sunken self
a sinking self
a self traveling alone
a self which
try as it may
cannot sink beyond itself.
The further I sink
the smaller the prison.
So I begin to swell
in claustrophobic hate of self.
I want out.
I know there's a way
but I can't find it.
There are echoes of suggestion from all sides
but the outside world is now too distant
too distant to be real.
I'm searching for a thought
for that's all I have left
a thought that can open up the way.
Open up.
Up! Open up!
Then a fuzzy coolness enters my raging hate.
Whom do I hate?
Self
of course
self.
But who is self?
It is the self of now?
I was all right until all this sinking began.
Who was doing the sucking that caused the vacuum?
Who turned me inside out?
Who was kicking whom?
Who was making who suffer?
Who is suffering?
Who else is suffering?
Who the hell else is suffering?
Those echoes are becoming less distant.
He is real; so is she;
and they;
thank you sir; yes mam; excuse me; 'd love to.
There are echoes from the inside now
but they are too distant to be real.
Ahh! a deep breath
a heart beating with vitality
a smooth unnoticed swallow
too distant to be real
too distant to be heard.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © http://komivesianpoetics.blogspot.com/2007/11/depression.html1994 :: Depression :: ,0x06

Departing Child

December 31, 1966: He joined another to form a new family.
He left this note in hands of the two who formed his family
on an earlier day.

When I try to thank two people
who have given life and self
to my life and self,
what do I thank you for?

The nightly noisy dinner table,
where problems large and small
were settled by loudness of voice
and strength of numbers.
The pay-day ice cream.
The childhood freedom
to cross streets, hike to parks, to get lost.
The punishment of misdeeds only immediately after the act.
Your support for each other.
These have been important;
thank you.

Thank you for your self respect;
You show me the importance of being me.
Thank you for living to the ideals of a child,
for your life of purpose and direction.
But, above all,
thank you for being human,
for confessing to human frailty,
for measuring what you are from what you do.
You show me how to love as well as measure.

You have given me a life of love,
success,
household riots,
tears,
error,
encouragement,
Christmas and Halloween.

I tried to paint your white house black
--your green door white.

Thank you,
I am happy.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 2008 :: Thanks from a Departing Child :: ,0x05
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Here is a  LINK directly to this same poem at Bob Komives Poetry, and indirectly to more poetry and other outpourings.

A Comfortable Place

exotic
comfortable
familiar
strange

These common streets seemed once uncommon.
These common folk were once exotic folk.
To them it is home,
has always been home--
          rarely beyond its boundaries,
          never beyond its language.
To me it was far,
farther from home than I had been;
my first time out of the Americas,
my first time in Europe;
and this was Central Europe,
Hungary, near Austria.

Here I found houses with no front door,
addresses that ran upward on one side of the street
ran strangely downward on the other.

In this common cemetery
I watched clusters of people
arrange a sea of flowers by day,
light a sea of candles by night.

Here I stumbled upon a palace
where Joseph Haydn had composed
and directed his music.

At this humble store I bought good wine
at less than the cost of coca-cola.

Here I saw headscarved old ladies on large bicycles;
walked by grassless front yards and back yards--
          filled with fruit and vegetables,
          flowers and raked earth;
met old Russian trucks loaded with sugar beets;
got passed by horse-drawn wagons of manure;
picked up fallen pecan nuts with a gypsy.

At this gate I was greeted,
felt discomfort,
gave my first kisses to a grown man's cheek.

Here, now,
for yet another visit,
in a place that will never be home,
in a place that is ever more familiar,
much is common among the once exotic.

Again I am here, but why?
They are dying;
they are dying who bind me to this place.
They are dying,
and younger bonds seem not to tie.

I came a decade ago
and found ancestor strangers buried here.
I have come again and again to visit new friends
among found relatives who live here.
When I come back once more (as I must),
I will find nothing exotic
but much that will be strange.
As I walk past familiar houses
to the familiar graves of ancestors
I will happen upon graves of friends
and find a comfortable place to mourn.

Bob Komives  ::  Fort Collins © 2004 :: Comfortable Place :: 0401