VERSE, FOR A CHANGE

 

By Arthur H. Gunther III

ahgunther@hotmail.com

 

Though I am a newspaper writer — editorials and essays mostly — I do verse from time to time. So, this week, with not much else to ponder about, I’ll offer three pieces, the last of which  is song verse. Thanks for reading.

 

#1: A GLIMPSE

 

I saw a love

of long ago.

She moved swiftly

between my dreams

and reality, appearing

clearly, although

the facts were otherwise.

I reached out,

grasping for a moment

never realized.

She looked at me,

then left so quickly

that I knew she was

never there. Nor was

the moment.

 

#2: ARMCHAIR GENERALS

 

War drums begin, the old come alive.

Visions of battles never fought.

Now the chance to march

from the safety of a desk.

Young go to fight, marshaled

by the marshals of battle,

exacting in righteous allegiance

to what they insist is just.

Old men who pick up no weapon

beyond pen and phone

to issue this order or that.

Great destruction is their right,

these old men say, for the fight

is to save us all. Trust demanded.

Mistakes by command cannot

be undone. Limbs, psyches torn asunder,

continual dying for the lifetimes

of the once young.

 

 

#3: GONE

 

I locked the door last night, though it never had a key. You are gone, and I must forget.

Forget the soulful moments, the depth we reached without a word said.

Forget you in my arms, fitted like a glove, your heart in mine, my soul with yours, facing eternity.

Forget our plans together, though I never cared for detail as long as you were here.

Forget your eyes were blue and magnetic, that looking into them made me feel weak but so warm.

I locked the door last night, though it never had a key. You are gone, and I must forget.

Forget the calm we were at, our silence speaking for us.

Forget that being together was a book of understanding. Forget I came upon old doubt and could not trust real emotion. I left the embrace and could not return. Now I have locked the door, and there is no key.

You have gone away, and I must forget.

 

 

The writer is a retired newspaperman who can be reached at ahgunther@hotmail.com. His work can be republished at will, in any form, with credit given.

 

THE APPLE DROPS

By Arthur H. Gunther III

ahgunther@hotmail.com

About this time of year comes the memory of the apple smell, sweet fragrance that for me opened the door a bit to Heaven when I was a child at my grandmother’s house. She made apple pies, as many nanas did and do, from scratch as my friend Elaine does as well in the present. And she is a grandma, too. My grandfather would peel the apples, quite slowly and deftly, within a few millimeters of the skin so as not to waste anything. I never have had the patience for that, my own pared apples probably about two-thirds of the original product. My gramps sat on an upturned apple crate to do the job, outside, of course. And that is where the apple fragrance came from.

Making an apple pie brings its own wonderful, delicious smells, especially when the spices are added to the mix and, of course, when the pie is baking. And, then, oh then, when that pie just seems to sit forever on the windowsill awaiting our tasting. But the real eau d’apple came from the drops, those decaying, over-ripened, never-picked discards from my grandfather’s small tree. The drops always landed near his 1900s garage, its old, wooden floor soaked with the car oil of decades gone by. The garage, particularly when it was warmish, offered its own beckoning smell — of automobiles, wrenches, human labor, all a promise of what was to come for a future motorist, even at age 5.

When I visited my grandparents, a few miles from my own home, the whiff of the garage in fall made me feel extra welcome, not that it was difficult to achieve at that house, at that home. And when I also smelled the drops, all was extra sweet, and my fingers almost crossed that my grandmother was making a pie.

She usually was, and on those days, at that time of year, even without introduction to any of God’s religions, I knew there was a Heaven.

Contact this retired newspaperman at ahgunther@hotmail.com

SOWING THE FIELDS/2013

 

By Arthur H. Gunther III

ahgunther@hotmail.com

 

ANYWHERE, USA — It’s back-to-school, and while many cliches can be uttered about that, the fact is this is like spring planting. The renewed hope is there that the new field of fertile, young minds will see germination in gained knowledge, reasoning and a healthy outlook on life. Hope they have fun, too.

Teachers will tell you, and you will recall yourselves that each school year and each collected class is different. The feeling is not last year’s, the classroom is physically apart from others, the mix of students may have been altered and the teacher is probably new to the group.

And the world has changed, and the individual student’s self and environment, too. Likes, dislikes, friends, needs, desires, what has happened over the summer, how the community has morphed, and the state, the nation, the world — all this bears on the back-to-school moment of any particular year.

This means some students will fare better than others, and some will do very well, others not and probably the majority will be fine. The chemistry of the new school moment will help decide, though free will, as free as it may be, can turn the tide, too.

Nationwide, school budgets continue to be slammed. Inflation in supplies, health care and other benefits, utility charges and the costs of this program or that seems 50 to 100 percent against the  recorded U.S. rate (August) of 2 percent. Doing more with less is yet another challenge for teachers, students and parents in this back-to-school moment.

And then there are the tests, the push to have students meet some sort of standard, though those who set them do not seem to agree on what they should be. In-the-trenches teachers will cringe at lost time “teaching to the test” and will wonder why so many non-educators, or those so long out of the classroom, decide on the test. Yes, standards are required, goals must be in place, but the best teaching comes from teacher to student and  student to teacher. Too much gets in the way — parental over-managing, distracting environment at home and in the streets,  extra-curricular overload,  too hands-on administration. Teachers should be trusted more to teach and given the support to do so.

Good luck to those going  to school 2013, particularly the ones just beginning the journey in kindergarten. When you first get ready to sow a field, you till the soil well and then you fertilize. You don’t simply cast seed willy-nilly on hard pack. In this nation of the growing rich, the accumulating poor and the disappearing middle class, not enough attention has been paid to preparing schools and our young for the first years. Will the crop be what the children need, what the nation requires?

 

The writer is a retired newspaperman who can be e-mailed at ahgunther@hotmail.com