THE MOCKINGBIRD’S RIVER SONG POEMS, ESSAYS, SONGS, AND STORIES 1946-2011 THE MOCKINGBIRD’S RIVER SONG POEMS, ESSAYS, SONGS, AND STORIES 1946-2011 * * * Richard D. Alexander Photographs by Lynn and Ciara Lesko, Holly Swain Ewald, Susan Alexander, Nancy Alexander, Megan Kanta Young, Mark O’Brien, and Mary Jane West-Eberhard Drawings and wood carvings by the author Copyright © 2011 Richard D. Alexander All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or trans- mitted in any form or by any means, electronics or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, with- out permission in writing from the publisher ISBN- Woodlane Farm Books 10731 Bethel Church Road Manchester, Michigan 48158 www.woodlanefarm.com Manufactured in the United States FOR LORRIE v To a Life Mate should we be primitives you and I could lie together naked between bearskins staring at the night-time sky listening to the forest and dreaming sweet sadnesses about all that must have gone before us and all that must come after. vii Contents DEDICATION v TO A LIFE MATE vii I. PONDERING POETRY AND VERSE 1 A Good Poem 2 Music for the Soul 3 Mockingbird Songs 1 (An Uninterrupted Sequence of 96 Midnight Songs of a North Georgia Mockingbird): for this page, songs 1-10 4 II. MOVING SOFTLY THROUGH THE VILLAGE 5 Moving Softly through the Village 6 A Part of the Hunting 7 And the Dreamingest of Times 8 The Rabbit’s Heart 9 A Common Sort of Man I Know 10 The Old Man beside Me on the Bus in Montreal 11 Today, an Old Lady 12 Something about an Old Man 13 Mockingbird Songs 2 (songs 11-22) 14 III. WINTER: A POINT OF VIEW 15 Winter: A Point of View 16 Tiny Moth 17 Life Effort 18 On a May Day 19 About the Social Contract 20 Something Almost 21 Motivation 22 The Meaning of a Man 23 Injustice 25 Okefenokee 26 IV. SOFT MORNING FOGS AND IMPOSSIBLE INCLINES 27 Last night autumn became winter 28 ix Destinos des Amantes 29 To a Fly, Probing 31 Love Poem to a Former Employee 34 Message to Naomi 35 Poem for Lorrie 36 V. THE MADDING CROWD 37 Of Routes and Ways 38 People! People! 39 Today and Tomorrow 40 Where Cities Grow 41 A Place to Know 42 For Life to be Worthy 43 Mockingbird Songs 3 (songs 23-35) 44 VI. BAD MAN BALLADS 45 The Ballad of Billy Cook 46 Billy E. Hardesty 49 VII. AND SOME OF THE GOOD GUYS 51 Heroes are Works of Art 52 Folk Song 53 A Funny Little Man I knew 55 Aubrey Hart: Museum Shop Man 56 One by One 57 Noble Porter Heath II 58 A Place for Sam 62 Kybe: The Curator of Reptiles 64 Charles: Professor of Frogs’ Lives 65 Hibbie: Fossil Man 66 Fred Parker’s Auction Sale 68 Emory Mulholland: Township Supervisor 71 Mockingbird Songs 4 (songs 36-48) 72 VIII. COUNTRY SONGS 73 Lenawee County 74 The Car and the Payment Book 78 All I’m Tryin’ to Do is Change Your Mind 80 x Saturday Night in an Ozark Tavern 82 Arnie Beckett 86 Grandpa’s Radio 89 The Freeway Blues 91 Good Man Blues 94 IX. WARM OPENINGS IN THE DYING BELLIES. 95 Tropical Trucks 96 Prairie Lookout 97 Fort Knox:1952 98 Bivouac:1951 99 The Military Trainee’s Lament 100 Cadence Calls 103 After Chickamauga 109 Shiloh 110 Of Bliss and Ignorance 111 Tribute 112 X. FREEDOM TOWNSHIP TALES 113 Freedom Township 114 The Ghost of the Old German Horse Farmer 116 Miss Rubena’s Wings 118 Doc Eames: An Old-Time Vet 121 Me and Old Slim 126 It was Not a Pretty Sight 131 The Ballad of Bill Suiter 137 Walter Bihlmeyer 138 When Eddie Died 140 Two and a Half Per Cent 141 XI. VERSES JUST FOR FUN 143 The Blonde in the Lavender Buick 144 The Clarksburg Cat 146 The Ballad of New York City’s Finest 149 Nevada 151 The Farmer and the Weatherman 154 Lawn Pride 155 Just-So Story Revisited 157 xi Exploring the Universe 158 The Doctoral Student’s Candidacy Examination 159 The State of the Botanist: Telling It Like It Is 160 The Billboard Bandits 161 Ballad of the Billboard Bandits II 162 A Note to Mitch 163 The Tree Swing 164 The Pocket Pebble 165 A Haircut Poem: 1950 166 The Changing of the Seasons 167 The Magpie Goose: A Difficult Rhyme 168 XII. ANIMALS AND PLANTS 169 Of Ladybugs and Their Betters 170 The Ballad of the Forked Fungus Beetle 172 Concerning the M Word 175 Freshman’s Interlude with Coelenterata 177 Bark Cricket Biology 178 The Professor and the Cockroach 179 The Strange Case of the Entomologist’s Heart II 184 The Nozzlehead Journeyman 186 Tree Treasures in My Woods 190 Big Bluestem: Hidden Roots and the Limits of Consciousness 193 My Blue-Speckled Hound 198 Songs of the True Katydids and Their Hybrid Zone 200 XIII. MOCKINGBIRDS, KATYDIDS, CROWS, AND THE ARTS 201 The Songs and Dances of Mockingbirds 202 The True Katydid: Another Non-Human Acoustical Species 205 Back to Mockingbirds 206 The Mockingbird’s River Song 209 Final Exclamations about the Arts, Somewhat Less Than Theories 211 Phantasm 213 Crows in Ann Arbor 214 Mockingbird Songs 5 (songs 49-62) 224 XIV. HUMOR 225 Just for Fun 225 xii Reverse Reciprocity 226 Humor and the Arts: Hypothesis 228 Who Laughs 230 Mockingbird Songs 6 (songs 63-77)) 232 XV. WAR 233 Bragging Rights: The Other Side of the Cooperation Coin 233 XVI. PEOPLE AND THEIR LIFETIMES 243 Pleiotropies 244 For Most 246 If Not in Years, Then How 247 Theodosius Dobzhansky 250 About Going All Alone 251 Even We Two, Life Mate 252 We’ll Be Reminded 253 The Ones Who Continue 254 Synergism: Ultimacy: Self 255 Creating the Treasures of Your Truths and Mine 257 Reality and the Human Enterprise 260 Mockingbird Songs 7 (songs 78-87) 262 XVII. THE PRESSING HAND OF RELIGION 263 Religion: An Evolved Adaptation? And What If It Is? 264 Acknowledgments 294 God Most Recently 295 A Prayer for Global Harmony and a Kindred of the World 296 Blessings 298 Mockingbird Songs 8 (songs 88-96) 300 XVIII. AND THEN, ALWAYS THEN, THERE IS FOREVER 301 Perhaps 302 Epitaph 303 Untitled 304 References 305 Acknowledgments 308 Other Books By Richard D. Alexander 309 xiii I ————— PONDERING POETRY AND VERSE 1 A Good Poem is first cousin to the song, a rhythmic, patterned, short-short story, sequencing splendidly and sometimes quirkily designed features of language, generating multiple messages via metaphorical surprises and unexpected connections, juxtaposing startling revelations of novel meanings potentially bewitching, even baffling befuddling, and sometimes seeming irreversibly incomprehensible, yet finally combining and cooperating to inspire the still unwary audiences virtues that in concert command the poem to linger, testing and enriching the imaginations of all lucky enough to encounter it. * * * Robert Frost famously said that writing poetry with neither rhyme nor meter is like playing tennis without a net. Someone else scoffed that poetry nowadays is any writing in which the printed lines fail to reach the usual page margins. Some might consider that definition potentially at risk, as a result of recent narrowing of the page width in Poetry Magazine. Sometimes perhaps even the court has been removed by Frost himself. And why not!? 2 Poem: A composition, whether in verse or prose, having beauty of thought or language. Verse: Poetry in general, especially when light or trivial or merely metered and rhymed, but without much serious content or artistic merit. Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language * * * Music for the Soul Artists help us generate enthusiastic dreams, enriching all our fantasies, enhancing all our schemes. The poem and the painting are music for the soul, set moods and dreams a-gleaming, refresh us, and console. 3 Mockingbird Songs 1 ~ f l1 I ~ \ ~ I 2. f 1. \ I I I ' If I .r \o I I • f I • i,·r-·· tr ;~~~ "I»,~ 't·-~ I lj \ ~ I ~ ' , I t 3. 4. ~ I \ \,\ \~ \. \, " ,." \. '~-. ,, ' •' I ,j ,1 / I I 1 \ ~ 6. 5. I ,~,\ ,, 1~ ' ,;,,I \,\ \ \, •· • - 10 8. 7. I It ·~,, 11 \\ •· \ 10. -, ,, ,.,. ; I , ...-. ~~. ..... Note: The eight pages with mockingbird song notes were delivered as a con- tinuous, unbroken sequence of 96 songs sung several decades ago by a sin- gle male at midnight on top of an electric company pole north of Atlanta, Georgia. The sounds are portrayed here by a series of songs on audiospec- trographs. They show pitch changes as up and down (doubled heights of sounds represent overtones), rates of singing horizontally across the song, and intensity of the sounds by darkness of marks. Experts with audiospec- trographs can imitate the sounds closely, and often can sing songs or series of notes portrayed on audiospectrographs accurately, sometimes at their usual rates of speed. Pages with the mockingbird's sequence of songs are 4, 14, 44, 72, 224, 232, 262 and 300. For songs and dances of mockingbirds, see p. 202 and the back cover. 4 II ————— MOVING SOFTLY THROUGH THE VILLAGE 5 Moving Softly through the Village at dusk, gaze swiveling slowly, unwillingly, witnessing the confidence of youth thronging laughingly between Dave’s Party Store and Susan’s Bridgewater Bank Tavern lives still on the rise, no apprehensions of lessening strength, balance, stamina, acuity of mind, or of aging, death, or finiteness of anything at all; no premonitions of the loneliness of such as philosophers and farmers or of the folk once within the reassuring solidarity of the surrounds of intimate social groups, but gradually, at first imperceptibly, separating, one by one, diverging quietly toward their obligatory, solitary, and final contentments.