Purpose in Deer.:. I wrote this poem May 27, 2006 when my dad got stuck in the wrong hospital in an ugly, man-made system. Though he''d trained for survival in several ways, he had no training in surviving health-insurance clauses and actions taken to protect doctors from lawsuits actually leaning toward the liklier death of the patient.In the poem, written in one copy, that is, in ink with no rough draft, like always, was put down by my daughters, Mary who has a High School Of The Arts Master Certification In The Fine Art of Creative Writing, and Marina, 12 and aware of Mary's opinion of it and also always critical of me for writing about "real life." This time, I looked at the busty small teenager and said,"You're ready to read my novel, B.B. On A Four-Lane Highway. She's 14 and soon you won't be interested in girls that age. Girls tend to loike to read about girls a little olser than them." "Unh-uh," Marina said. "It's a well-known fact, sweetheart," I said, in a Don't Argue This One voice. "Unh-uh," "They do and now's the time for you to read it." "I don't want to read anything you wrote." "Why not?" "It's always about now." "Honey I guarentee this one is not about a now you've ever known.It was written years before you were born." "So." "So? You read it and tell me if it's now." "No." Lucky for her, I don't know where I packed it so she didn't get it shoved on her then and there. But she later handed me a sheet of paper on which she had written the why of a yet-to-be-written story. Her father said,"What is it? A poem or a story?" "A story," she said. "It's an idea for a story not yet written," I corrected. It was like she'd taken the novel B.B. ON A Four-Lane Highway that I'd written in my early twenties and looked at it through another side of a prism. I had made B.B. a loner, like I believed my 14-year-old self to be. Marina had more directly honestly addressed the fact that her protagonist was different from the others, ala B.B., but that she interacted daily with other kids at school on a superficial basis, ala my actual teen years and most assuredly B.B.'s, although I'd left that out like she was really a Twighlight Zone character no one in the town could see or hear. Marina was unknowingly tackling , or considering the idea of tackling, the same story I had, with a more rounded , believable perspective, and, of course, with different cast and storyline. B.B. is what I do when I make a poem melt into a novel. It sort of reminds me of National Velvet, the way things aren't explained so much as reported, and the kid has to think and re-read. Barbie has a series of scenes with folks and some inner dialogue that together show us a girl who feels essentially alone and defensive about it who is misguidedly punished when she does come out of her shell to help others and so runs away until a time comes when she thinks--she is by no means sure--her mother, even her father and caustic brother might need her.They do--at least her stubborness, as each one's guilt makes him easily accept the worst , whereas Barbie's guilt galvanises her.But throughout, I had her talk to her teen sister's weird little sister, her mean brother, her never-satisfied mother, her day-dreamy brother, a diner owner, a waitress, a grandiose musician . No school pals seem to notice her; in reality, she probably stood with the nerd group or "loser" group, or got a note or two slipped to her by a nerd, or the attention of an emotional basketcase of a girl, which are the type that attach themselves to pretty loners not in the frightening "it" crowd. Marina pinpointed it clearly in her novel's summation: "Carissa had never really thought much about her friends and what effect they had on her.She was just a regular twelve-year-old girl living in Los Angeles, California that happened to be quite popular. Everyone who went to Klaus Mont Middle School knew who she was, and over half of them were her friends. Though, the friends she hung out with most, she didn't even know. For three years she had been sitting next to Helena Campbell at lunch, but never bothered to ask her her birthday or even her phone number. For 2 years, she'd been allowing Mary Ellen Whitmoore to copy her homework and tests, but she never bothered to ask her why she copied her, or where she lived. Carissa had many friends like this, yet none of them were like her.No, they were trouble-makers, daredevils, outgoing teenagers. She was a quiet, loving, obedient beauty child. Only one thing was in common with all of them, deep in their hearts, they're all bad people. And until Carissa noticed that she was hanging out with those kind of people, did she notice what was wrong with her. Now she has to deal with her problems and fix her place in the world." Marina, 12, 6th grade, Orange Grove Magnet School of the Arts, gifted program. Here's my shot-down poem, which for me was a catharsis to get out the memories of Dad who was/is maybe going to die like tonight. Anytime. 6:49 a.m. the sky is light Did he make it through the night? Copyright by Deanne L. Young June 1, 2006 (I know it isn't lit--I know I rhymed, I forced a rhyme by contracting a word at the end of a line, I don't have a meter like Mary learned all of them of --it's just an outburst from my heart, no rewrites or editing or anything--real:) Prologue We give the deer no shot at getting back to the hidden spot her twin fawns wait now not for her but the next dog or fox. Pride in her babies as purpose? Not worth it. Even her appreciation of pine smells and silent hills, her amazing survival skills, are not purpose enough. There are too many and the over-population of them must be stopped. A few in a zoo will be enough to know the deer. There's no reason for that one or that one or that one or that one here. The Poem alone I always thought the rover enjoyed a sepia shoulder of the road our paths were on where news and shows came over giant radios all over to his house downtown Detroit and northwoods farm. And that the footprint of the Indians marked the ground still where he trod with his rifle as he sought deer and rabbit, and swimming holes and trout on the hooks on his fishing poles he jumped in the creek to escape the tribe of gnats in his eyes and biting deerflies shaped just like the B-25s he'd later fly a thousand times Without heat or oxygen close to the top of the sky but I wasn't alive to worry , then. -Just a few years of his life, but forever it defined the guy. A bombadier in World War Two. He also captained clubs at school The french Club, track team, yearbook sports, he spent a lot of time outdoors though lived over a factory. His folks'. Those industrious fishers made bamboo poles in the basement of their sepia home though it all looks sepia the story goes Detroit was white when they had their boat- and- fishing -gear shop and the boy loved jokes back when his mother scrubbed his clothes on a washboard and dried them in the sun. Outside there was always fun. He stoned squirrels and poecupine out of the tall, wind-rustling pines. He inteneded to understand nature But Hitler came and made him fly. When he could stop he had ghosts in his mind for the rest of his life as he drank to laugh again for he'd lost all his friends.Saw them blown to bits. Twice his gunners were blown right off.Unhurt but with those nightmare scenes While the dead escaped such misery at least. His father, very strong of mind, conducted the lad's strong outdoor life taught him to gut the deer he killed at twelve then save the hide. (He did taxidermy on the side.) Through careful diet, exercize he was strong last month for 85. I forgot to tell you, he said with a laugh, I'm never going to die. His heart caught him by surprise. Now like many old men he lies in a hospital bed his body tied by hoses and wires to machines- closing his eyes to find the scenes in his head of the wild world. That's the only place they were. Once his well-tuned ears identified each bird he heard and he knew them by the way they'd fly. Never shot down on a thousand missions with most of the oxygen a man needs missing his life was great, prospects arriving his blind wife dependant on his driving all his kids on his assigning them to graves, cremation, presiding over the way they were last residing places by a pond with ducks where no omnivores could dig them up. Beetles and bugs he could not stop but they weren't enemies, but sup -pers for the birds he loved. The chain had his respect the watch his command the batteries the drive to beat the stilling of the second hand. The world without him?Last time known was in the 1920 journal of a 20-year-old girl who had him kicking inside her while she chased runaway horses and daily tried her best with a gun to keep the crop-eating gophers down. Then he was born. His father took him to the mighty river on his shoulders. Then when he was older he became a soldier. A major, really, who's never yet heard of "msconfig" or"Acrobat reader" he came to the feeder that had football games. He worked out at a club three times a week and drove his wife to doctors to get her hearing-aid tweaked and was going to see his grandkid's college in 4 weeks it is no time to die. Yet hunters never know when they shoot a doe what she had left to do . It all surprised him, too. He didn't want to go have his footprints end around the very next bend of the very next road though he knew he was old. Jam that bullet don't open that pack of cigerettes the Army gives you no, give them packs of wolves instead so they can defend those who need them not leave us too soon. He saved his gun. Bring the wolves on! Please. Instead. Give him a chance to win. We all need him. 7:29 a.m. That was the poem my daughters scoffed at.Mary said,"keep the watch part and throw out the rest." Oh well--I expressed. Below, two stories I wrote about deer that had purpose in this world, because God gave it to them. THe Stories With the Poem |
A much younger Dad goes off on a jaunt in the woods. This is the front yard of our cabin. We feel special... We own it , plus a house on a big ski lake, when this was taken. Someone please tell Governor Bush, it's not either "high time"all the people on Medicaid learned that things in life aren't always free, learned a little responsibility, etc. Even if I didn't have a rich life before my disability when I was 42, I still always wrote darned better stories and poems than he ever did! And tell his mom that it's not true that we have nothing so anything at all looks like up to us. Even a hurricane taking all we have from us, because it's nothing, and if we go to a stadium packed with folks and broken toilets and get free water and sandwiches and money for an apartment, we're better off than we were! We have photographs and writings we'd be heartsick to lose... And as govenor, Bush shouldn't be making rules up about Medicaid if he doesn't even know who gets it, and all his info comes from Ma..... |
Dad at 85, just weeks from his operation. Hey everybody, he made it! He's da bomb! |
