held together by shreds of faded fabric, pages torn, inside inked December 1914, that cursive once on chalkboards all across america, found it in the trash where my father had placed it, rescued history, my hands cradling the past, how could you throw this away?, i thought, but never said a word, her poems carefully pasted next to drawings of men and women, little girls, dolls and dogs, lakes with sailboats, christmas greetings from the 20’s, dance cards, foxtrot, lindy hop, young love in pencil marks, pressed carnations, color long gone, diaspora of flower petals wedged into the treasure’s every crevice, army v. navy football ticket, pink powder puff once pressed on a face, my grandmother’s, her life still here, with me forever.
Tag: History
Palo Alto Hermit
I live two blocks from the Apple store, don’t own a cellphone or a TV, don’t have an internet connection. Some weekends I unplug my phone and I’m an ascetic, surrounded by my volumes of John Muir, Jane Kenyon, A Buddhist Bible, and my journals of poetic plodding. I watch them on their headsets, talking to the air, talking about technology into technology. They fill the Starbucks on University Avenue with their napkins, sketching schematas of the next IPO. I’m a walking anachronism, a luddite they call me, voluntary simplicity, I call me. Doing the mental math, I calculate whether I’m the only one in all of Palo Alto completely disconnected. Maybe a couple of Stanford religion majors without TV, but none would be internet free, no, that is just me, 1 out of 66,000. But there is Greg, that isn’t his real name, no one knows his real name, he drags his feet, toes sticking out of his shoes, his long, unkempt blondish brown hair jutting in all directions. Greg and the other homeless people by the creek are my kin, my kind, fiber-optically missing, invisible, off the grid. One night I meet Larry Page at a Stanford pub, we don’t talk about his company, Google. He tells me he likes Dance Dance Revolution, but only does it in private. The seven minute conversation sticks with me, like the mornings when I see Steve Jobs at the farmer’s market. Me, Steve, and Larry, we’re in this thing together, makes me feel like I’m a part of the team, the future. But all I teach about is the past, the Cherokee, the Californios, the buffalo, the removed, the replaced. I hike miles on Sundays, Butano Ridge Loop, Foothills Park, my fern-filled temple, my isolation, my solace. I try to make sense of it all, the movement of time, my standing still. After many days, maybe hours, I plug my phone back in, walk down Kipling Street, go to the library, check my email.
Yearbook 1990
we care, we don’t care, ballpoint pen, sharpie, maybe a pencil, use words like dude, sign with love, air out grievances, i guess we did have a few little arguments this year, address complicated romance, i suppose we’ve said before that everything was a mistake, but i really don’t feel that way, attempt humor, have a nice winter! make fun of teachers, doesn’t ms. earle look like grimace when she wears the purple lab coat? express bland kindness, you’ve been really cool this year, and i hope to see you around, give unwanted relationship advice, make sure to keep your girl in line, she’ll run all over you, talk sports, oh and by the way, the Braves do not suck, comment on music, STRAY CATS RULE! forget who’s yearbook it is, jim, chemistry wasn’t great but we made it to june, and this quasi-document, could be pompeii, everything, and nothing
When Capri Spoke
i have seen the goats nibbling on me, and the tan skin glistening with mediterranean sea that surrounds me, i grow perfect red and orange tomatoes, green arugula, and lemons, never to be forgotten, my sun is famous, kids even drink it with a straw, i’ve changed since the roman days when tiberius used to throw unfortunates from my steep rocky cliffs, now yachts undulate near my shores, celebrities film me with their phones, visit me in july and august, i am the mastic trees, bougainvilla, the bees, and cicadas, i am shady pathways through woods, and luxury hotels, i am the smell of grilled octopus and aperol spritz, summer in the square, i hear it all, dutch, spanish, italian, german, english, arabic, french, tamil, russian, swedish, i am the world on an island, but when winter comes i hibernate like a bear, rain, fog, and wind engulf me, daylight disappears in the afternoon, the caprese families stay on me, i hear their children, watch them walk to church on sundays, they slumber softly at night, i bless them all.
Doo Wop
sing me on street corners under glowing lampposts, harmonizing vocals, black, white, race is no matter, sweet sound knows no color. sing me in philly, in brooklyn, in baltimore, i am your love, your longing, your heartbreak and your joy. a cappella, alive on 45’s and chevy stereos, cruising, because there’s a moon out tonight and life could be a dream. never-ending youth, ephemeral song. doo wop has died, but the music lives on.
Above Rome
Pantheon
Coca-Cola
translucent brown bubbles, how else to describe, perhaps dark caramel, better image of sweetness, and this is just the surface, have a coke and a smile, coke is it, i’d like to buy the world a coke, and on and on, streaming backwards in time, all the ads, commercials, inducements to imbibe this drink, that the chileans cursed, leche de los yankees, yankee milk, and to think it will wash away even the saltiest of buttered popcorn, attract yellowjackets like no other, this beverage, this legend, white script on a red can, on a bottle, tingles on tongue, blamed for cavities, craved over pepsi, coffee, or sprite, hated and loved, this never-ending all-american delight.
Groton School
Ode to Harpeth Hall
You students, you plaid, you dress uniforms
You Souby lawn grass, you magnolia shine
You red bricks, you Ann Scott Carell library
You Wallace, you Massey, you Bullard
You green hills, and rain, and snow sometimes
You cardinals darting from tree to tree
You middle school girls skipping and free
You AP scholars, you Harkness discussions
You United States history, your voices so bright
I sing your praise for days now past
Though some may say he’s a California lad
The truth is, he’s really quite sad
Harpeth Hall you have made your mark
And hark, you who I taught, I may be gone
but you still have my heart
Daniel W. Polk 