Eruptions of starlight, joy and gladness As, at 10:30 p.m. on Shattuck, the New World dawns with shouts of "Yes we can!" From young persons thronging the clogged street. The street people, however, are just trying To get some sleep. I infer this from the body- Bundles I see huddled in every alcove. But why, In the rapture of intoxicated victory I glimpse around me, do I insist on this Dissonant note? "A complete curmudgeon," Gentle Dorothy once called me, in Exasperation, accurately, I cannot deny. Aye, O Friend! I fear there are What are lately called Depression Issues At work here. How tiresome, really. By Depression do I mean the mental kind And am I signalling I "need help"? Some, I'm told, might well secretly think so. "And maybe they're right, William," tenders Gentle Dorothy from across the hearthside. The nights are growing sharp, November In the Cumberlands, ancient aching joints, Getting up in the dark and seeing your breath, Bad patches of thatch to fix before frost Closes in and fingers, too numb for labors, Withdrawn into religious half-mittens.
There were street people in William's village Too. But in knowable communities That which is often seen soon becomes known, Thus accepted and not stepped over As if inhuman, insignificant Or nonexistent. Naturally William, Who saw the poetry in everything, Perceived the poetic aspect of this-- Particularly after coming back from London, where the bewildering urban Alienation and estrangement Had already long since taken hold. Awed have I been by strolling Bedlamites, He writes in Book XII of The Prelude, Referring to the road-wandering not- Quite-normals of that not-so-remote epoch, From many other uncouth Vagrants pass'd In fear, have walk'd with quicker step; but why Take note of this? When I began to inquire, To watch and question those I met, and held Familiar talk with them, the lonely roads Were school to me in which I daily read With most delight the passions of mankind, There saw into the depth of human souls, Souls that appear to have no depth at all To vulgar eyes. I like that. To me it feels More considerate toward the Bedlamites Than the shrieking street partygoers To the street people trying to sleep this night Of victory through, unnoticing. It's Their right, one might almost say, acknowledging In the same breath that they have no rights. Who needs a loud victory party When all you want to do is lay your body Down in a shop doorway, wrap your thin fleece sack Around you, and chase a few winks. Morning Wake-up on the street comes at five--with the light, Now that Standard Time's back, and the clatter And roar of garbage trucks and street cleaners.
"I have to get out of my negative Comfort zone," Angelica's wise cousin Peter Heinegg, Ph. D., joked Ahead of the election, anticipating A liberal landslide that would leave Him little content for further volumes Of social criticism. His That Does It: Desperate Reflections on American Culture comes with the dedication "For Angelica--I had to dash off a Few more jeremiads before Obama Comes and drags me out of my negative Comfort zone." This reminded me of a work Whose title has always strangely intrigued Me: Granville Hicks' I Like America. My tattered paperback copy cost Fifty cents in 1938. "A native Sees his country as it is and as It might be," the subtitle goes. And it's not Just a rose-colored-spectacle gloss
| Of a book: Nobody Starves--Much--perhaps The chapter most pertinent to the scenes I see on the streets as each night I pass By--discusses such uncomfortable Subjects as that phenomenon thought Of, as recently as the Eighties, As pure anachronism: the American Street beggar. Enough for Everybody Is another chapter. And The Freeing Of America. And Can We Work Together? But even with bread lines still fresh And vivid in his mind, Hicks remains Able to build his vision upon an America Of known and knowable communities That no longer exists in the world of lies The no less honest or idealistic Peter Heinegg must needs begin from.
Her other cousin Paul sent us a picture of His wife Rita, a black woman, and himself, Embracing Barack Obama, smiles all Around. Paul had signed up fifteen hundred Voters for the cause. Gentle line of second Generation Americans, the Heineggs. Paul like Peter with his brood of bright kids: So That now, as another cousin puts it, this clan Of transplanted Austrians has a new branch: The Black Heineggs, citizens of the New World that this morning has its dawn. What I mean, O Friend! is, please don't take my lines To mean I'm tempted to sell the New World short. On campus the night is again cool, dark, and Almost empty under the dripping canopy of tall Eucalypti by the Genetics labs. Junior, In which a character portrayed by The present governor of California Is seen to become "with child", somewhat Like Mary toward Bethlehem to wend-- Only it's not immaculate conception But expert science by brainy Emma Thompson that works the supra-natural Magic--had these labs as its fictional Location. Well do I recall the ten long Widebody movie production trucks Lined up like supersized camels of Hollywood Magi, as far as the parking Kiosk. Not even UCLA Boosters, When Bears host Bruins, boast that big A bus fleet. A world is going on and constantly Changing, changing. The Election Night Sea of celebrants has ebbed. Away From the crowds of tooting screaming white People on Shattuck, five young blacks loiter In the shadow of the labs. Four males and a Girl. Smoking and quietly larking. The biggest dude--athletic, in a STRIKE FORCE windbreaker--talks quietly on cell. The girl reels between them, singing softly "He loves you," and "he loves you," and "he loves You" as she goes. Each of her friends accepts This news in turn, without any expression I can detect. As I skulk past, not wishing To spoil what appears the lowest-key And best victory party of the night, The girl, whirling, floats up to ancient me. "And he loves you," she sings with eyes and smile That say, I guess, You may be surprised by What's coming. And I go on my way. |