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Rod &
Kubby. Photo by Bob Gentry, ©2002 by Stanyan Entertainment Group.
A Thought for Today
It is not the iceberg we remember - the
snowflakes only.
FROM the¨BOOKS
THREE CHRISTMAS CARDS
Today’s poems all originated as Christmas cards I sent to friends and they
finally wound up in a book of mine, “Twelve Years of Christmas”.
More often than not my cards didn’t deal as much with the winter holiday’s
as they did with summing up the year just passed.
As 1969 ended I had every reason to be happy. Three of my books were on
the best-seller lists and several albums had hit the record charts. I was
nominated for an Academy Award for writing Jean, had finished the lyrics
for Henry Mancini’s score for “Me Natalie” and several songs for “A Boy
Named Charlie Brown.” But gloom hung heavy over our house at Christmastime
because we had lost Katie, our beloved Old English Sheepdog in July and as
the year wound down we were still trying to come to terms with that loss.
Instead of dwelling on the triumphs of the past twelve months the 1969
poem, entitled Barking at Shadows, is almost entirely about Katie.
1965 / Naming the Baby
What a name to give a newborn child.
Jesus.
Don’t they know
he’ll have to wear it all his life?
Bill or Robert would be easier to carry
through the years and up that final hill.
A man named Jesus has a saddle on him
from the first day on.
They might as well have called him Marvin
or Jean-Claude.
Whoever heard of Frank or Fred being
strung out on a cross?
Mothers never think of things like that.
How many kids named Elvis
will grow up wondering?
A man needs all the help there is
in later life
just to stay anonymous in crowds.
Don’t our fathers know
a man named Jesus or René
will draw K. P. because he sticks out
from the rest?
Those of us who wanted to
would still have known him from the other
Jim’s.
Those of us who needed gentle men
Would still have found him out.
1966 / Pour Mon Cheval
At times I feel
there'll be no summer any more
that time of reason will not come again
and so I have my green days filed away
to call back when the snows come down.
There was the year I first heard Brel
and cried
because I thought I'd never sing that well.
I took home sugar in those days
pour mon cheval
and lived my life in St. Germain cafes
and thought I liked Chagall.
How many summers gone,
how
many old days past,
how many July afternoons are never
coming back?
The snow falls now all bed-sheet white
the green days this year are all done.
I still go home with sugar
but when I fall asleep at night
I find my horse has run away and gone.
If summer comes again
will it be this year's Christmas I call back
to save me from the sun?
-from “Twelve Years of Christmas,” 1969
Last Sunday morning I was interviewed by The San Francisco Chronicle and
the story is scheduled to run next Saturday on the first day of winter. I
spent the afternoon on Stanyan Street being photographed for the story and
at one point I was close enough to the house I loved in to throw a rock
through one of its beautiful windows. I didn’t.
I have never told anyone the address of the house on Stanyan Street or
pointed it out even to friends so posing for a photograph near it was
quite a test. I’m happy to say I passed the test and the where and when of
the poems inspiration is still a secret shared by only two.
Sleep warm and join me tomorrow for a Flight from the Past.
RM 12/13/2002 10:20 PM PST
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