... -..~-. \ —— . t i ‘ % - . — — —~ — s ~ 1~- -t -4 -- .- -.... --. ~ —— r - ~ q. ~n~c — • ..•~ —~ • ie~ .~ ..r....—•J—• -. _ . -~ \• ~•. ......~ ~.. i.-.. ;~. - &,....—, -. -. :‘-~‘ •%≥~•~~~ fl~ -‘ — - . ... • -. - . .~- .. n - c “7:•- e — ——>i.• —. :•Th — C- S’-... ‘-a 3. _4, .‘ ~ ~ —.- 1• - ~ . .. - - — - PA VAN FALL 1fl~ PAL/AN ~k tZtt~~ ~ ~ ~ VOL. L FALL, 1986 STAFF Editor Mary Erbach Assistant Editors Patricia Portee Juan Cabrera Kathleen Erbach Graphics Editor Christopher Peruzzi Editorial Staff Michael Portee Susan Loud Kari Larsen Steven Foster ©Copy Rights 1987 by authors and artists Cover Photo by Al Grosman. Leaves Fall, Love Rises A young woman and her son walked through the park observing nature’s last remnant in the smooth grey city. Their relaxed strides enabled them to digest the beauty wasted by others. Hand in hand, their partnership emitted trust exclusive to mother and son. The tree tops formed a natural sieve, through which the sun slipped, blanketing them in a yellow hue. Illuminated by the casual rays, they were truly beauty in microcosm. The squirrels, ducks, geese, and birds, being new to the young boy’s world, puzzled him into an interrogative stupor. Unfamiliar with many denizens of the unfenced zoo, he spouted forth question after question with a rambling uncertainty. He listened as his mother solved, with the ease of a philosopher, his every problem. She explained with the limitless knowledge only a mother can possess, where the birds go during the winter, what squirrels eat, and why the trees change color. He looked up at his mother, and kissed her hand. She tasseled his hair and smiled. The feelings he had for her transcended far beyond any comprehensible limits he knew himself to have. He loved her with an innocent vengeance that convinced him he could not exist if she were gone. But she never would be; his love would make her stay with him, forever. If not, he reasoned, he would end up like one of the brittle leaves being shattered under his sneakers. Why had he just kissed her hand? She felt comfort in believing he loved her as much as she loved him. It was not an unusual maternal love she had for him, but it was slightly more intense than the average mother. If anything ever happened to him she would. nothing ever would. She would see to that. They stood a few feet from the mushy edge of the lake, feeding the geese and ducks bite size morsels of white bread. His pudgy hand flipped the white hunk into a crowd, and he watched them scuffle, bump, and squirm, until one clipped the piece between his bill. He felt sorry for the ducks because the geese kept pushing them away. He began throwing the bread in between the webbed feet of the smaller animals, so they could get to it before the selfish members of the gaggle gobbled it up. A strangely temperate wind, that both silently and invisibly betrayed the inevitable approach of fall, tossed his bangs down into his eyes. He cleared them away with the same chubby hand he had used to pitch the bread to the deprived ducks. She had long ago, it seemed like twenty years, forgotten how to enjoy the simple beauty of a park. However, the scrutiny with which her son looked around gave her insight. He helped her to find beauty in the naturally pure things she had come to take for granted. She did not, of course, realize this; she was instead baffled by the mixture of love and happiness she felt Late Afternoon on the Roof of the Bellarmino swimming around in her chest. They halted occasionally, to chase a bird, or to rest on the harmless blades of grass. Bathed in the afternoon’s warm sun, Lying on their backs, in a clearing, they played the cloud game. The act of The spires and domes of Rome stretch out before me looking for faces and figures in the ambiguous forms is probably as old as A rich carpet of antiquity, the clouds themselves, but he thought she had invented it that afternoon, for A tapestry of art and worship. him. She showed him the shape of a horse, a dog, and an almost perfect visage of George Washington. He laughed, and pointing to a cloud that had II just drifted into their field of vision, said, “That one looks like daddy.” The curling smoke from nearby chimneys “Yes, it does, a little. Look at that blue-jay, honey.” She pointed to the bird Seem wisps of incense and wondered how he could have recognized his father in a cloud, for he Drifting upward in the sunlit sky. had only seen him in pictures. Nevertheless, her son had identified his III absent father in a fleeting mass of white nothing cruising above them. At six, the bells chime out in mellow choirs, She thought, looking into his wide eyes, how much he looked like his Echoing and answering each others’ peals, father, wherever he was. But she refused to let herself start wondering, for he With slow civility. had left her four year ago, a child bearing a child, and she could not allow herself to care if he was alive or dead. Iv She knew that the doomed relationship, however tragic and painful, had For levity, the swallow swoop and climb, left one small piece of happiness in its wake. Her son, even if he resembled With gay abandon in the gentle breeze. the irresponsible whimp she had once loved, represented the only good A counterpart of swift black wings remnant of a past she tried desperately to forget. Against the afternoon’s bright cloth of gold. On that beautiful day in the park, with the shedding trees shriveling up to V face the coming chill, mother and son were each intoxicated by a new love. Here Caesar’s legions marched, and Dante wrote A unique love that had come on as unexpectedly, and as subtly as the story And Michelangelo made marble speake. book day they were lying in. Here to, a fisherman from Galilee was crucified. Head downwards for a faith he was thrice denied. — Bob Anderson Their ghosts gather round me in the Roman air. —Richard Cronin S.j View to a Kill The deer stood in the distance, darkness disrupted by the shadow of a blue moon. In the distance its snarling teeth glistened with hunger. The wolf approached for the kill. The silence of the meadow echoed the sound of our hearts pounding from fear, guilt, and the drive to survive. The wolf closed in, saliva dripping from its crippling jaws of death. The deer trembling with fear stood frozen. Do it now I thought, the moon beginning to fade. The wolf bolted toward the deer which made a dash for the woods darkness. The rifle fired, dropping the wolf to its knees. He lay silent, frozen, as the deer stood moments before. The moon faded, the wolf destroyed; the deer to live in fear, me to live in guilt. — Michael Gilsenan A Visit to a Master of Words A great poet lived not too far from me. I had read his poems in various periodicals and collections and was always fascinated by his wonderful use of his extended symbolism and imagery. His poems always had such deep meanings, that it would sometimes take me weeks to figure them out. I’ll confess, there were some that I’ve never been able to make heads or tails of. Having not yet reached the age where one becomes too much of an adult to stop asking questions, I got the poet’s address by calling his publisher on the pretense of researching an article for a feature on the lifestyle of modern poets. I assured the publisher that his firm would be mentioned prominently in my piece, which would appear in the Sunday section of an upstate newspaper. I had seen my hero’s picture on the back cover of his collected works. He was a distinguished looking man, striking a reflective pose with pipe in hand. I couldn’t believe that very soon he would be discussing his classic works with ME. He received me with some suspicion. I guess it was only natural, considering that it was late in the evening, and he was nearly eighty years old now. He hardly resembled his jacket photo as he stood there with the door half open, wearing a sleeveless undershirt, gray pajama bottoms and slippers. Still, he let me into his apartment. There I was, face to face with a legend, a genius, a veritable god of the English language, a... “You want a beer?” he asked. “I’m watching the Love Boat. Charo is guest starring. Sit down over on the sofa, but watch out for the cat, huh?” I took the seat and decided not to waste any time. Who knows? I may have been interrupting the thought process of a work which could be remembered for centuries. I wondered, secretly whether he noticed that I was wearing almost the exact same Tweed jacket and ascot that he had worn in that jacket photo. I began to light my pipe (as close a replica that I could find) when he snapped at me. “Do you have to smoke that pipe in here? Jesus, I hate those things.” Flustered, but not intimidated, I hastily stuffed the pipe in my pocket and got down to business. First off, I praised him generously and told him that he had been a great influence on me. This seemed to please him, though it was hard to tell, as he was staring intently at the TV screen.