PROGRESS

I worked on
Dave Sangrey’s farm
for three summers
when I was in high school.
I didn’t want to.
Dad talked to Dave and arranged it.
So that was that.
It took me half an hour
to ride my bike to the farm,
the last half mile up the
steep hill of the lane -- too
steep to ride. I had to
push the bike.

They tell me the farm is gone now
bulldozed into tract houses
and the lane isn’t there,
the hill scraped away.
"You wouldn’t believe how
different it looks," they say.

I think I’ll just take their
word for it.

WHEN JACK SOAPED THE CUPS

When I was in the second grade, we had no running water in our one-room school building, so each day the teacher dispatched two students to walk to a neighboring farm. Their mission: to carry back a large can of well water for us to drink. At the back of the room sat the water cooler and 30 or more cups, each one the property of a pupil. Mine was a blue agate tin with white flecks -- a real beauty.

One fateful day, following the afternoon recess, our teacher made a discovery that filled her with consternation. Someone had taken a bar of soap and coated the rim of several cups. We kids thought it was a good practical joke. It showed some imagination and a flair for the dramatic.

Our teacher saw it in a somewhat different light. She raged and stormed at us, demanding to know the perpetrator of the nefarious deed. You would have thought the unknown culprit had committed high treason. No doubt that’s how she saw it, as a traitorous challenge to her sovereignty. She told us we would stay in our seats until the guilty one confessed.

But nobody confessed.

Dismissal time came . . . and went. There were no buses; we all walked or rode bikes to school. So we sat.

It grew late. The shadows of the trees outside stretched across our desks in patterns we had never seen before. Some of the youngest began to sniffle. They wanted to go home; they were hungry. In desperation, our teacher issued a command: "put your heads down on your desks, close your eyes, and raise your hand if you soaped the cups." It was almost like an altar call at church, only in reverse. For a long time the only sound was the old Seth Thomas clock on the wall, tick-tocking away the time.

Then at last we heard a voice. It belonged to the older sister of Jack M. Jack was a third grader brave beyond his years, a boy as drawn to trouble-making as a vulture is drawn to road-kill. "I didn’t see Jack soap the cups," Jack’s sister said, "but he’s done it at home sometimes." That was as good as a confession for the teacher. We were all released, except Jack, of course. What punishment he received I never learned. But ever since that time, I have had an illicit admiration for miscreants who hang tough in the face of tyranny.

On that day, Jack M. was my hero.

ODE TO SPINACH

O thou greenest green chlorophyl-filled
Vegetable
How wrinkly crinkly is thy leaf
How rich in vitamins and
Minerals is thine essence.
Arrange thyself invitingly
In my salad bowl.
Caress my waiting
Palate with thy garden freshness
And I
Like the sailor man
Of cartoon yore
Shall be strong to the
Finish.

EASTER HOMILY

There was a time (I was younger then)
when I held forth on the theme
that spring-time and Christ's
resurrection were coupled only
by happenstance, by co-in-CI-dence.
(There is, after all, a southern
hemisphere to reckon with).

There was, I firmly believed, a need
for sound theology to trump
Easter accretions: lilies,
bunnies, painted eggs, et al.

I do not recall that I ranted
-- not my style, really --
and I doubt if anyone paid
much attention anyway, especially
that Easter when Vince Myers
found a nest of baby rabbits
hiding in the church lawn.