Childhood In Fergus Falls, Mn Poem by Daniel Brick
Childhood In Fergus Falls, Mn
The child I was believed the wind
was a very small creature, hidden inside things.
When trees waved their branches back and forth,
winds were suddenly born. They pushed past
our pinched faces, bent grass blades, lake reeds
and forgotten flowers. And they carried voices
as far away as China.
When the air turned cold,
we sheltered in the old garden gazebo, its planks
rattled by the same winds that chilled the air.
Leaves piled up around our refuge, but the taste
of summer strawberries persisted in my mouth
despite those shredding winds. My friends
were ageless, and my sister reminded me
I would never be as old as the next season.
* * * * *
Now I know trees did not invent the wind.
He is an invisible giant, who looms over me,
eighteen feet or higher, and commands all things
to bow before him, whether he moves or rests.
He is harsh, indifferent and always pursuing
a goal beyond us. From me he has stolen
the memory of strawberries.
yard. I wanted to create the world that children imagine because they have not yet been taught in school. I remember being absolutely certain there was a time that humans and animals once talked to each other and maybe that time would return. After writing a straight forward childhood memory, I decided to add a passage with a mythological explanation of the wind, as if adults gave up childish notions but were still in the grip of mythological rather than scientific reasoning.
Back to innocent childhood! I can visualize the twin siblings getting out, looking for straw berries when the wind whistled among the trees.... Naively you took the wind to be a strange identity being born from the rattling branches! Childhood is so full of such coagulated memories having very little rational basis. But a child's vibrant fancies have their own sweetness! Sad that as he grows up, his brain gets stuffed with dry scientific truths and all sweet memories are cruelly stolen away from him! But it is strange that in a world of Science, still there are people who see wind as a giant out to destroy everyone! A sweet poem reminding one of his early days of life!
A very amusing and precious poem Daniel! But what I found the most interesting is the reality you still ascribe to Science as a child might with a kind of 'blind faith.' Though I am a Scientist of sorts, I have come more to think of Science as a close relative perhaps of your 'wind giant.' Your wind giant, though a mytological, poetic creation is in fact a more scientific than a wind created by the benign 'dances of trees.' Your wind giant, though he is equally unreal, carries real danger and unknowable motives under his cloak of invisibility, like the tornado that destroyed my home town in 1947. How real can you get! The power of scientific reasoning lies not in its truth which is always more parable than reality. Who know how God, if God exists, sees things. His poetry is forever beyond the paltry imaginations of mortal man, though I imagine myself that he is amused by it immensely! The power of scientific reasoning lies in its relevance, for the poetry of science does not assert itself over nature but limits its truth to a simple affirmation, IT MAY NOT BE TRUE BUT IT WORKS. The best poetry too I believe is in harmony with this affirmation. The only 'reality' of our world is not in fact number crunching, put parable, and poetry is KING, not physics, not REALITY. Scientific theories are in fact poetry, incredible works of human imagination, a different type of poetry perhaps, but still recogniseable as a poem to those with eyes to see! Like your wind giant, closer to the truth but still not the truth. Yes, if you can get past the veil that keeps us separate from the divine possibility that our reality is immortal soul and not flesh, you begin to glimpse the possibility that our very death is no different from going to sleep every night. We just wake up in a different place. I personally take a lot of pleasure in the idea that not only does God love us, but that He has a wonderful sense of humor. Of course I could be wrong! But I don't think so....
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/19/2024 9:12:00 AM # 1.0.0.1119
there was a time that humans and animals once talked to each other and maybe that time would return. - I wish people wrote more such poems and preserved such state of mind and heart!