SOME OF THE BEST:
19 June, 1998 |
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Rod & Sunny: Photo by Bob Gentry
8/5/1999
A Thought for Today
Adversity tells us who our friends are.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
In the midst of the 30th month of A Safe Place to Land, Ken and I wanted to acknowledge the First Anniversary of The Rod McKuen Message Board as administered by Melinda Smith and Jay Hagan. We've also just past the First Anniversary of The Stanyan Message Board
whose Web Master is Dwight Michaels.
Both of these meeting places serve a valuable service for those who like to get together to discuss my work and carry on other dialogues. Although I stay out of the policies of both and have no input or personal involvement, I wanted to thank all of those involved and express my special thanks to Melinda, Jay and Dwight. Happy Anniversary &
thanks again. All three of you lead busy lives and the time and effort you put into these sites on my behalf is much appreciated by Ken and myself.
To those of you who use the boards I know you value the friendships you have forged there and the prompt answers you get from the other participants. To those of you who haven't yet discovered The Message Center or the Message Board I invite to give them a once over.
Again my thanks to Melinda and Jay who have carried on the work that tara started and to Dwight who took up the torch when we were temporarily without a rallying point. Rod.
Rod McKuen Message Center
Stanyan Message Board
SOME OF THE BEST
Rod, please reprint one of your earliest Flight Plans that contains part of the introduction to "Come to Me in Silence."
Thank you, Roma
ENTRY I: SILENCE
Ivy geranium has sped across the front end of the yard, strangling the dandelion and the rose alike. Flowering now in pink and white and almost red, it hides its tentacles. Still, you know that inch by inch, underground and just above, it slowly moves to capture this whole block. I doubt the hedge will offer much resistance. The ivy is an idea that has found it's time April into June. Three months should be enough to see it do its final battle. One last all out offensive and every foot of ground will be geranium, made so in silence - no evidence of proper plan.
So much is done in silence. So much accomplished without word. I read silence like a bible, attend it like a reference work. Having tasted it with the well loved making love, and the would be lover after loving didn't work.
Silence is the science of the times that stay. And yet we use whole paragraphs to say what saying nothing could have spoken better.
-from "Come To Me In Silence", 1973
Tomorrow it's back to Ask Rod. Sleep warm and I'll see you then.
-RM 10/12/2000
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PARAPHRASE / For Robert Munoz |
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When they come for me
let them in.
Don't worry the door
by barring it
To what end nostalgia?
Only the room advances.
only our days come forward
To praise our other days
I could dye my muscles
as a first disguise but always
I would want to swim.
When they come for me,
let them in.
We conquer our days daily.
Surprise each sunrise as it arrives.
The dream is always developing
it never comes complete.
We are victims of interpolation,
not tradition.
However heroic beads may be
unless you really believe
they are only another string.
Infinity owes me something still,
so when they come for me
let them in.
-from
"Suspension Bridge", 1984 |
