A. Robert Lee - Americas - Selected Verse and Vignette

Smith’s sailing,

not to mention

those obstreperous Powhatan Indians

(and daughter princess, Mrs. Rolfe)

in virgin Virginia.

The silence

shouted

even guffawed.

Mercy, said Madame Chairman

Mercy, said the lady members.

And the black waiter

hand on bow tie

smile hardly concealed

whispered

Man, you’re in some kind of shit.

I was.

I hope.

Mississippi Headwaters

Those trickles

those gurgles

like Nature clearing its throat

and bound for Lake Itasca.

Border water

Canada dry

America wet

10,000 Lakes says every sign

woods of fir and cedar

Minnesota of sky-pond

and brown-green-arboretum.

We’d got there

up from twin-citied Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Dakotas to the west.

Wisconsin to the east.

Manitoba to the north.

Bemidji overnight.

White Earth daytime.

Vizenor family headstones

shadow of the 1862 Dakota War

and link-up with

wholly present-day

Anishinaabe Harold Goodsky

“Sorry can’t stay…

got a golf appointment,”

as he explained

how often he was taken for

the Norwegian Harold Gudski.

But then there was always Longfellow’s Hiawatha

not to say The Hiawatha Line in Minneapolis --

so how do you like your “Indians”?

Like spring water rises

literary memory

Rolvaage’s Earth Giants

Lewis’s Main Streets

Fitzgerald’s James J. Hill

Dylan’s Zimmerman family

Keillor’s Wobegon

Gilliam’s imagination.

Like spring water rises

Anishinaabe big river

Misi-ziibi, gichi-zibi

France’s Messipi

Spain’s Río Misisipí

America’s Mississippi .

Like spring water rises

Melville’s “father of a great multitude of water”

Dickens’s “enormous ditch”

Twain’s “big still river”

Langston Hughes’ “blues river”

Faulkner’s “luminous” Yoknapatawpha river.

Like spring water rises

each foreign atlas naming

through a ten-some of all-America states.

Minnesota Hastings

Wisconsin Genoa

Iowa Guttenberg

Illinois Cairo

Missouri New Madrid

Kentucky Columbus

Tennessee Memphis

Louisiana Venice and New Orleans

its clearwater to saltwater swell

into the Gulf of Mexico

as the city sings

Sachmo’s “Boy From New Orleans”

Fats Waller’s “Walking to New Orleans”

Johnny Cash’s “Big River”

Dr. John’s “Sweet Home New Orleans”

John Lee Hooker’s “Going to Louisiana.”

Like spring water rises

all from drips

amid grass drops

amid leaf leaks.

Like spring water

rises the

amniotic

birth

fluids

of

America’s

great

necessary

tree

and

sky

trade

and

slave

word

and

song

artery

river-run.

Rocky Flatirons

Five Colorado slabs

Five Nature fingers

(next to the Devil’s Thumb)

Five Green Mountain rock faces

Five signatures of the Eastern Slope

Five NCAR climate dials

Five homely tonsure names

A quintuple overhang

cretaceously

in dry cold and heat

the continental signatures

of earth time

Foothills Boulder beneath

Highway 36 and Broadway

Hop, Skip and Jump bus

Old Main campus

to Pearl Street Mall

Sand Creek-slaughtered Niwot

to Rocky Flats atoms

Chautauqua talk-park

to Arapahoe footprint road

IBM and Left Hand

to Doonesbury trekker-biker-skier-joggers

Buddhist Naropans full of creative degrees

to Coach McCartney Promise Keepers

Republic of Boulder alternative medicine

to ex-brothel Boulderado Hotel

A million’s million years geology

to the Daily Camera

Skyline and Baseline

to Boulder Creek

All the one scale

of measurement

All the one Flatirons

iambic pentameter

Five Senses of California

i

Golden Gate Bridge

of

suspended

West

and

Pacific

Golden Gate Bridge

of

suspended

San Francisco

to Sausalito

twin tower

Golden Gate Bridge

of

suspended

orange-red

modernity

Golden Gate Bridge

of

suspended

steel

wire

cable

web

and

harp

Golden Gate Bridge

of

suspended

passenger

of

foot

or

car

or

last

jump

Golden Gate Bridge

of

your

own

suspended

fog

then

sun

California

eye

ii

Sproul Plaza 1960s Berkeley

of thronged free speech

war and peace

Vietnam Berzerkley voices

Sproul Plaza 1970s Berkeley

combatant Reagan-hate

Sproul Plaza 2000s Berkeley

and Iraq no

Dubya Must Go

Each and all by hallsteps

by beaux art Sather Gate

by surging Telegraph

and stately Bancroft

Each and all as the

Campanile sounds

its grand music of

Italy hourly songster chime

iii

Marin Headlands

to John Muir Woods

a horizontal ride

into vertical redwood haven

Sequoia stands of

height and dignity

Column lattices

of light and shadow

leaf and ray

Touch the fibrous bark

and touch the very skin and coat

of up and down natural time

iv

Mid-1960s first ever venture

into Pacific Time Zone

my first US car, Chevy II

Desert crossing

into San Fernando Valley

Summer teaching

under LA traffic

highway

emission clouds

With the intermission

of lemon and groves

next to the soap and powder factory

The day and night fruit scent

its own nose

its own cleansing perfume

its own perfect blended

California road cocktail

v

Taste Berkeley Alice Waters panisse

Taste Stockton Street Chinatown duck

Taste San Jose sushi

Taste Irish Frisco tater

Taste LA Afro-soul platter

Taste East Los burrito

Taste Truckee Donner flesh

Taste California

Taste history

Hawai‘i Delegation

Japan Air Lines --

what other?

Our 2002 delegation

four Japanese, one Brit

all wearing IDs

of Nihondaikagu

Nihon University

Japan University

Tokyo Haneda

to Honolulu International

Oahu flying time7 hours

Meets and greets

student exchange-talk

signature and hanko

time-out

Diamond Head crater

Waikiki beach sun

Aloha Tower light

with to follow

Pearl City

Four Japanese

one Brit

at Pearl Harbor

a-gaze at

the Arizona

the California

a-gaze

at December 7 1941

a-gaze

at Tora Tora flights of

Nakajima

Aichi

Mitsubishi

Flying time

less than

one hour

Exchange

signings

Exchange

flights

Exchange

times

Japan to America

Time change.

Times change

Nominating Vancouver

You’d have thought wouldn’t you

that it was quite enough for

the good captain from King’s Lynn

to lend his name even if it has

Dutch origins

Not to say moreover that

England’s nomination of

George Vancouver RN

joins the outstretched hand of Gov. Gen. Lord Stanley’s Park