ERIC CHAET
Eric Chaet, born Chicago, 1945: reading, writing, arithmetic, baseball, race riots. Post office, factory, warehouse, and office jobs. University and civil rights and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. Several years hitchhiking, mainly in USA, often posting signs I'd silk-screened on cloth, indignant male face and sayings such as SEEK TRUTH, DEVELOP CAPACITIES; and YOU'RE LIKE ME IN THIS RESPECT, WHAT YOU DO HAS ITS EFFECT. Stapling them--more than 1,400--to utility poles along highways. Books include Old Buzzard of No-Man's Land (poems, 1974) and People I Met Hitchhiking On USA Highways (fiction & philosophy, 2001). My wife, Brenda, and I live in Wisconsin USA. Many of our neighbors are dairy farmers (and cows) and paper mill workers.
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TRAIN THRU WRIGHTSTOWN
Crescent moon, & the urgent horn & low rumble of a train,
across the river, rushing into Wrightstown.
When Perry brought a miniature locomotive to Tokyo,
the silk-clad people knew the Shogunate was over-
there were assassinations, factories, rifles,
wars with China & Russia, & colonizing Korea.
Where there were 300 principalities,
now there was Germany:
every little market town--brick church towers, oaks--
connected, south to north, west to east--sleek rails!
& everywhere people riding them
to factories, ports, America.
Von Moltke moved carloads of troops from 20 directions,
Paris fell, the balance of power was unbalanced.
Every producer--farmer, craftsman, manufacturer-
was in competition with every producer everywhere.
American farmers protested shipping rates
that favored those who controlled iron, oil, coal.
Irishmen, Chinamen, serfs, & prisoners
laid track across the Rockies & Siberia.
Steel mills, coal mines, stocks, bonds, & soot.
Horses & Apaches penned in.
Strikes put down by troops & private armies of Pinkertons.
Booms, bubbles, & busts beyond your control--like weather.
River-spanning bridges carrying weights
previously unimaginable.
Now--already--18-wheel trucks & airplanes
compete with the trains,
& shuttles blast off from Florida,
building the space station--whether you like it or not.
The train keeps sounding its warning,
Hey! Hey! Notice me, notice or be crushed!
As it passes thru Wrightstown,
people stumble up out of bed to urinate,
& shuffle back to bed, to sleep.
Gradually, the low rumble subsides.
Pre-historic crickets & grasshoppers resume
their staticky telegraphy, like an ionospheric storm
brought down to the planet's soil, concrete, asphalt
corn-stalk, & grass-blade surface.
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MY FRIENDS
My friends some times get so dejected--
&, oh, how I understand that dejection!--
having lived dejected years I thought would last
my whole life!
My friends are careful to harm no one unnecessarily,
&, if possible, to be of use--
especially to those whose need is greatest.
Sure, some times, their tactics are unwise!
But they try to learn from their mistakes.
Yes, they get trapped in resentment, stubbornness, sorrow--
& can't see how to break out of downward spirals--
& leave the decisions & action
for people less considerate, less understanding,
people with less self-control than themselves.
I never said that my friends were perfect!
only that they were my friends.
(Tho many of them don't think of me as a friend,
& some others, whom I don't think of as friends,
consider me their friend.)
How I love to hear when events favor my friends!
I'm willing to listen when they are suffering--
because I know that, if they thrive,
everyone around them benefits--
& maybe if I listen to what it pains them to reveal,
they might begin to heal.
My friends are conscientious.
There's no guarantee that they'll succeed.
If I were a praying man,
I'd be praying for the complete fulfillment
of their potential.
I'm eager for them to find ways to fight
for their own success
without having to use the tactics
I know they'd never use.
If, without sacrificing my own fulfillment,
I can help them--with effort or with hard-won
resources--
helping them succeed is always high on my agenda.
It's rare I get a chance to do it:
they aren't too good at asking for help.
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I WONDER
I wonder what will happen.
I wonder how much longer I will be
as healthy & clear-thinking as I am now.
I wonder how much longer I will live.
I wonder whether there will be accelerating
inflation or deflation.
I wonder if there will be up & down fluctuations,
&, if so, what the amplitude will be.
I wonder if the nation will enter
a brief or long period of combat,
& I wonder if it will emerge whole, or broken up,
expanded, or shrunk.
I wonder if its precious liberties
will be strengthened or weakened.
I wonder how badly the air, water, animals, & soil
will be punished.
I wonder if my nation's people will ever manage
to escape from the myths they believe are our history.
I wonder if the people of the nations
my nation confronts
will manage to escape from the myths they believe
are THEIR history.
I wonder if many of my countrymen
will be killed or ruined--
& I wonder if many of those against whom my nation wars
will be killed or ruined.
I wonder if, when it's over,
the situation will be better or worse,
or if there will be, yet, fluctuations--
&, if so, I wonder what the amplitude will be.
I wonder if my wife & I will survive the winter--
&, if we do, how much heating our home will cost.
I wonder how long the car I drive
will continue to function.
I wonder how long
the plumbing & electrical systems of the old house
will continue to do what's necessary,
more or less.
I wonder if a drought or flood, epidemic, or famine
is over the horizon.
I wonder what kinds of opportunities
to earn resources I'll find,
& which of the seeds & sprouts I've planted
will flourish.
I wonder what kind of lucky or unlucky events--
beyond my control, even beyond my knowledge--
will intersect the trajectory I partly follow,
partly create.
I wonder who I am becoming, & what I am going to do,
& how,
& which of it I've already begun
& which of it I must find a way to begin.