Pen in Hand
*Chumming
****Artesian Spring
*****The Crazy Poet
******The Verse is Yet to Come
Chumming
Sitting in my small birchbark shell
I cast out bits and pieces of bait
in an irregular pattern
watching the ripples
go out
and come back,
gently nudging
the canoe
bits of memories
scraps of phrases
trying to draw the Muse
up from the depths
s.m.chisam--4/22/92/revised 5/27/99
Moon Tales
Golden glow of billowed sail across the midnight sea
Tells the tales of long ago, and stories yet to be:
Tales of ghosts and witches' spells,
Cauldron bubbling clouds,
Tales of secret words and spells
No one would speak aloud.
Tales of tigers in the dark
Whose silent padded feet
Defy the pulsing jungle drums,
Deciding what to eat.
Tales of knights on gallant steeds,
Swords flashing in the air,
And moonlit courtyards long ago
Where stands a princess fair.
Dark tales, light tales, tales of love,
Or tales of mystery...
Golden glow of billowed sail across the midnight sea
What is the treasure in your hold:
What story, this night, for me?
s.m.chisam--
SOMETIMES I LIKE TO WRITE
Ah...to write!
Sometimes I pull the car over to the side of the road as a thought comes, unbidden...too precious to lose through time.
Sometimes as I listen to another speak, one phrase may be the seed for an essay, or a poem, or...just maybe someday...a book.
Sometimes the words of another hit a chord deep inside me, and then I want to walk in their shoes...see what they have seen. I am able to experience through the written and spoken word much that I cannot through time and travel.
Sometimes my inspiration is from God...I don't mean He visits me personally all the time or anything; but how can anyone not see His artistic touch in nature's cameo's?
Sometimes the process of creating seems almost magical - as solid as a redwood trunk, but as elusive as a butterfly's wing.
Sometimes words pour from me like a tumbling springtime waterfall, unhindered by rocks or curves in its path.
Sometimes I feel more like the salmon trying to spawn...upstream all the way just to create one small piece of myself. Turmoil and doubt assault me as I shift patterns, drop whole passages, check and recheck and check again.
Sometimes the content flows together and the style takes care of itself. I didn't even know I had a style of my own until an instructor started reading one of my essays, and several classmates said, "That's Sue's".
Sometimes the page is oh, so blank. I just start thinking, writing fragments of thought until I see a pattern begin to emerge.
Sometimes it's a playful process: like bright hummingbird wings, the thoughts flit from blossom to blossom, gathering here and there, spinning silken images of color as the thoughts dance around in my mind.
Sometimes it's easy, but not tonight.
I wanted to compose a poem to thank you in my own style, but this is what happened instead. A watcher-of-people, a writer-of-dreams is all that I am. The volume of gratitude filling my heart - the honor you have given to my writing - these thoughts are too deep to express in mere words. A hug would express the very least of what I feel, but how do you hug a Foundation?
May you continue to honor Estelle Peirano Crowhurst until all the wonderful people and things in the world cease to exist.
s.m.chisam
May 1991 at the reception for "Jonathan and Old Jake"
Artesian Spring
The fabled fountain rises into air,
Its waters captured in enameled sink,
Columns of marble rich beyond compare,
Where all and sundry gather now to drink.
I'd journeyed far to seek this fount of truth
Where each man in his turn could draw a cup
Of water pure, from which he could taste truth.
And so I gently placed my lips to sup.
I spat in haste the bitter water out.
Could this be truth, and I not recognize?
I1d traveled far to this much lauded font.
�Twas sworn to me by educated, wise
Men who had tasted of the waters here
After a journey longer far than mine.
How could I doubt their word? And yet I fear
'Tis not this truth I had set out to find.
A slight tug on my sleeve turned me away.
A simple poet beckoned me to come
And walk with him but just a little way
Into the woods nearby. Like a soft drum
Our footsteps trod the thick carpet of leaves,
The forest floor lined deep with winter mulch.
We wound our way through ancient bearded trees,
Through head-high ferns, then dropped into a gulch.
I found myself inside a faerie glen,
The very air a music with no name
Where primal warbling echoed now and then
And man could be himself without the shame
That wiser men than I have placed upon
The innocence of childish ways and games.
The poet beckoned me around a fawn
To an artesian spring. And there I came,
One human soul but searching for the truth.
'Twas all around me. I had but to taste
From this enchanted spring with this old youth.
While far from us the others ran in haste
To catch the brackish water they called clear.
Because the fountain, so rich and ornate
Could hide the toxic wastes that we all fear...
Like lies, and apathy, abuse, and hate.
I watched the poet holding back the ferns.
He, waiting patiently for me to choose.
I listened to my heart and not my mind
And wondered if by choosing I would lose
The very truth I had set out to find.
I dipped my hands under the water pure,
And tasted an ambrosia of delights
And suddenly I saw, and I was sure
As if all had been dark, and now was light.
For poetry was written before time
And poets go to that eternal spring
To wash away the scientific line
That they may drink of truth, and beauty bring
To humankind unhindered by man's lies.
That man might know the wondrous joy of youth
And learn to know the simple with the wise
And drink forever of eternal truth.
The poet smiled as if he knew my heart
And I gave him my smile in return
And now we walk together though apart
And from each other's poems, truth we learn.
s.m.chisam---
The Crazy Poet
Sometimes I think I think in rhyme,
Because it happens all the time;
I'm thinking, and I'm suddenly drowned
By words all having the same sound.
It can drive a person totally insane
When all the endings sound the same!
s.m.chisam---3/17/88
The Verse is Yet to Come
I wanna be a poet;
A poet I wanna be,
To make a lot of money
Out of my ability.
I wanna write the songs
That the world will want to sing
So I can pocket all the dough
And drip with diamond rings.
Maybe I'll write commercials
That you can't help but hum,
But whatever I do, remember...
The verse is yet to come.
smchisam 3/15/93
Copyright s.m.chisam