Everything is new:
my mother’s crude husband,
this small Alaska town,
my unknown
fifth grade classmates—
including Larry Sefrovitch
who wants to fight.
A crowd circles us on the playground
as we flail fists.
Only after a teacher
separates us
do I cry.
I can’t stop.
Seward, Alaska, 1952
(No. 62 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Starting afresh in a new location is always a challenge to a kid, maybe especially one with no siblings. I did this several times as a child–and learned, early on, that there is a place deep inside where we can go to survive. Here, raw pain can somehow be handled–In My Room, as the Beach Boys once put it. There may be an entry price; more importantly, it is vital not to get stuck there. As ever, underlying the psychological impact is the essential experience of sitting alone under a solitary moon, even if lost and confused. And it is in this sense that, even at such a impressionable time as described in this poem, “everyday is a good day,” as the old teaching story has it.
(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)
