GETTYSBURG

Next time you visit go alone.
.
Go there empty-handed
leave the battlefield map in the car
Go there as the sun is setting

Get out and walk

Listen

You may hear faint cries
or even loud ones

    water for Christ's sake water
    God damn this God damned war
    Where are you? Ben? Ben?

All of them in their own way
prayers

Next time you visit --
if you are brave enough --
go alone

A PERSONAL WORD

To those of you who visited my blog and were looking for my usual Wednesday post -- my apologies for no posting.

I do have a pretty good excuse. Last Friday, August 3, I was taken to the Camp Hill Hospital with a diagnosis of pneumonia. After a six day stay (not the most pleasant experience of my life, to say the least), I returned home late this afternoon. It looks as if my recovery will be fairly long and slow. In any case, I plan to return to my regular posting schedule next week. So look for it next Wednesday, August 15.

Ken G.

PRE-MARITAL SESSION

Her voice on the phone was breathy, pitched higher than I remembered from the two Sunday mornings when I met them at the door. And this is my boy friend Tom she had said. His handshake was a bone-crusher, his grin goofy.

    The reason I'm calling, pastor, is we'd like to come and talk to your about our wedding.
Oh, I see.

    You know, I've always had my heart set on a church wedding. You know, in one like yours. Tom -- 
    he's my boy fr. . . my fiancé . . . says he'll go along with it if I really want it.

I see.

    So anyways, we could come this Sunday night. Around seven?

Well, I think that . . .

    It couldn't be until after the football game. Tom's a big, big Redskins fan. He says he has his heart 
   set on having "Hail to the Redskins" for the music when we walk down the aisle.
Yes, well . . .

    So. Sunday night at seven? For our talk?

Yes. I suppose so.  I . . . I think we'll have a number of things we'll need to talk about.

READING THE GREAT GATSBY FIFTY YEARS LATER

Off I go again to the Jazz Age.
This time I will not fall in love
with Daisy. The parties on the lawn
are crasser, the men stupider,
the women shallower than
I remember. I did not and
do not envy you, old sport.
You are even more pathetic
if that is possible. You have
it all wrong, all wrong. You
are too young. Do not succumb
to your death dream. But I see
you hear her laughter and turn
your head. She enters the room
and looks in our direction.
And we are both goners.
Again.

HERSHEY PARK, 1950

Come with me. I have coins
in my pocket and the day is ten o'clock
new and cool. We will dash past
the merry-go-round to the mill

chute and stand in line behind
girls who toss their heads and crack
their gum. We'll hear the dummy
woman's cackling laughter at

the funhouse but will not go in.
We have been forbidden to go in.
At the bumping cars we will stand
next to the measuring post. You

may be just tall enough this year
to reach the pedals and I could
ride with you. For a break we can
stand on the walking bridge and

watch grown-ups toss bread chunks
to the carp as couples glide by
underneath in rented canoes. If we
run out of money, we can still go

to the fence and watch the Comet cars
climb slowly to the top of the track,
see them come almost to a stop,
then plunge down, down.

We'll wonder if, when we are old
enough, we will have the courage
to raise our arms and show off
like those guys sitting in the front car.

WHEN THE BARN BURNED

We drove to watch. We had moved
away when I was seven, the year
before. I had seen mighty men fill
its mow with hay pitch-forked from
wagons. Lodgers lodged there:
pigs, steers. Sheep too, one the buck
that knocked me down or so I was told.
Pigeons chortled from rafters. Rats ran
rampant, one across my shoe once:
I screamed. Oats, wheat, corn sequestered
in burlap stood in rows. Wagons rested
from rollings. I had climbed the barn's
straw bale mountains, had peed in corners.

I stood watching the flames oranging
the night, burning all of it away. All of it.

I was eight.
I was wrong.

ANYTHING WAS POSSIBLE IN 1949

How young must you be to believe that the man who gets out of his black Buick and stands watching you and Danny tossing the baseball     back    and    forth in your front yard and then says as he is leaving you know Connie Mack is always on the lookout for some good ball players might actually be a scout for
the
Philadephia
Athletics?