Dave Lilly

There's a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be full of trout,
But there's nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished out.
I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago,
And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen or so.

There was a man, Dave Lilly, who lived on the North Adams road,
And he spent all his time fishing, while his neighbors reaped and sowed.
He was the luckiest fisherman in the Berkshire hills, I think.
And when he didn't go fishing he'd sit in the tavern and drink.

Well, Dave is dead and buried and nobody cares very much;
They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such.
But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish;
He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but he certainly could fish.

The other night I was walking up the hill from Williamstown
And I came to the brook I mentioned, and I stopped on the bridge and sat down.
I looked at the blackened water with its little flecks of white
And I heard it ripple and whisper in the still of the Summer night.

And after I'd been there a minute it seemed to me I could feel
The presence of someone near me, and I heard the hum of a reel.
And the water was churned and broken, and something was brought to land
By a twist and flirt of a shadowy rod in a deft and shadowy hand.

I scrambled down to the brookside and hunted all about;
There wasn't a sign of a fisherman; there wasn't a sign of a trout.
But I heard somebody chuckle behind the hollow oak
And I got a whiff of tobacco like Lilly used to smoke.

It's fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that brook;
And there's nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook.
But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set
I know that it's full of ghostly trout for Lilly's ghost to get.

I guess I'll go to the tavern and get a bottle of rye
And leave it down by the hollow oak, where Lilly's ghost went by.
I meant to go up on the hillside and try to find his grave
And put some flowers on it -- but this will be better for Dave.

-Alfred Joyce Kilmer

I meant to write this ages ago, and I didn't. Life happened, I guess. And now I'm home, after returning to Norway and a stopover in Iceland. I'm home. From Moby-Dick (which I'm still making my way through):

"Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us.

"Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed."

Part of Iceland is about the sights. The place is, on the whole, strange; steam rises from the ground, and you can see where the earth has split open and filled itself in. The island itself is expanding. But it's still a small place, with a small population, and a peculiar history. But, like a lot of places, its residents are proud of it, proud of themselves. I don't blame them; I think I envy them.

Iceland is a country of settlers, but Icelanders have sagas that date back to the 10th and 11th centuries. And there's something about that appeals to an American with loose roots. I find--have found--the myths of Native Americans hugely appealing, primarily because they come from the place I'm from. But they don't belong to me, and there are times--well, there are always times. But maybe ownership isn't the most important thing. After all, I have no claim to Iceland, but I can still go there, still read the Icelanders' sagas. All sorts of things are open to me.

But for now, I'm back on American soil. There are plenty of stories here that are mine, mostly because I made them.

Sestina of the Tramp-Royal

Speakin’ in general, I ’ave tried ’em all—
The ’appy roads that take you o’er the world.
Speakin’ in general, I ’ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get ’ence, the same as I ’ave done,
An’ go observin’ matters till they die.

What do it matter where or ’ow we die,
So long as we’ve our ’ealth to watch it all—
The different ways that different things are done,
An’ men an’ women lovin’ in this world;
Takin’ our chances as they come along,
An’ when they ain’t, pretendin’ they are good?

In cash or credit—no, it aren’t no good;
You ’ave to ’ave the ’abit or you’d die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn’t prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some’ow from the world,
An’ never bothered what you might ha’ done.

But, Gawd, what things are they I ’aven’t done?
I’ve turned my ’and to most, an’ turned it good,
In various situations round the world—
For ’im that doth not work must surely die;
But that's no reason man should labour all
’Is life on one same shift—life’s none so long.

Therefore, from job to job I’ve moved along.
Pay couldn’t ’old me when my time was done,
For something in my ’ead upset it all,
Till I ’ad dropped whatever ’twas for good,
An’, out at sea, be’eld the dock-lights die,
An’ met my mate—the wind that tramps the world!

It’s like a book, I think, this bloomin’ world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you’re readin’ done,
An’ turn another—likely not so good;
But what you’re after is to turn ’em all.

Gawd bless this world! Whatever she ’ath done—
Excep’ when awful long I’ve found it good.
So write, before I die, ‘’E liked it all!’

-Rudyard Kipling, 1896

Above the Ford

The cliffs on life's swift current
are cleft by shallow valleys.
Masses have queued to cross there —
crowds of billy-goat milkers.
We'll go upstream, God willing,
to walk the hawk-high ridges
and pitch ourselves — impetuous —
plumb in the roaring torrent!

-Jónas Hallgrímsson, 1845

It Is That Dream

It’s that dream that we carry with us
that something wonderful will happen,
that it has to happen,
that time will open,
that the heart will open,
that doors will open,
that the mountains will open,
that wells will leap up,
that the dream will open,
that one morning we’ll slip in
to a harbor that we’ve never known.

-Olav H. Hauge

After my first full day in Berlin, all I could think was that this was a proper city. My second day, I could articulate it a little better: unlike Prague, unlike Vienna, my experience of Berlin was one where the city's past didn't overshadow its present. Which is saying something, because it's not like Berlin is lacking for history. And I spent one day with the history, with the monuments and memorials; I spent my second day riding the subway (u-bahn) and walking Berlin's neighborhoods until my feet were sore. It was not enough time, really, but I am increasingly convinced that there's an entire trip composed of the things I didn't do on this one, and--well, that's another trip.

'The Lives of the Others' (Das Leben der Anderen) is a very good movie, made remarkable by Ulrich Mühe's lead performance as a Stasi officer in East Berlin. I saw it for the first time in 2006, when it came out, with my college German class. I've seen it at least twice more since then. Although I'm aware of German history in the way a lot of people are--it does, after all, interface with world history rather significantly--that movie was my inroad to the history of living in Berlin. It's also a reminder that Berlin's history is not always something that Germany wants to celebrate. Which is not to say it's hidden in the city as it exists today. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is right behind the Brandenburg Gate; a memorial for the Nazi book burnings sits where it happened, in the central Bebelplatz. You can look down through a piece of glass into a sealed room lined with empty bookcases.
But consider New York City, or any of the world's major cities--New York has history, surely, but that's not why people go there. They go there for culture, vitality, for what the city is now. Berlin feels like that. The memorials to the past are there, but the city isn't so enamored with its past that the present is overshadowed. A good illustration might be the East Side Gallery: a swath of the Berlin wall, with commissioned murals lining its east side. History, painted over with something new and present. I started there before I explored the neighborhood of Kreuzberg, where I walked where the wall once stood, along canals and through parks, past neighborhood döner shops, graffiti plastered train stations, kiosks selling newspapers, bicyclists whizzing past in their red-painted lanes. And people--so many people. In my last post I mentioned that Berlin is one of the most visited cities in Europe, but most of the time you could hardly tell, because the tourists disappeared into the millions of people who actually live there.

So that was Berlin, then: a proper city, sprawling and vital. A bit gritty. Complicated public transit system. International. 'Arm, aber sexy' (Poor, but sexy) its mayor said in 2004. 'Ich bin ein Berliner,' JFK said in 1963. According to my German instructor, he was trying to say he was a citizen of Berlin, but he actually said he was a jelly donut. According to Wikipedia, that's not true, so I'll have to throw that piece of trivia out. And I thought it made such a good conclusion, too.

I Live My Life

I live my life in growing orbits,
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years.
And I still don't know if I am a falcon,
Or a storm, or a great song.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, 1899