March 19, 2005
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Topic: when poetry hits you
So…we did a 2-day canoe training on the Potamic River in Western Maryland, alongside the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The first day was long, awake at 4:45am, loading vans, loading canoes w/ my favorite knot, trucker’s hitches (also known as z-drags), a 2 1/2hr. van ride, practice teaching lessons on canoeing, paddlying 8 miles, having a floating lunch of pita and hummus, setting up camp.
After dinner, as it was then dark and growing cold even while wearing about 5 non-cotton layers on top, 3 on bottom, we had a traditional Outward Bound evening meeting. This involved debriefing or discussing the day, planning for the next day, and other assorted things.
We were fortunate to have a veteran instructor, named Tom, in our group of 16 other instructors. Tom is about 72 years old, but when the spotlight is on him, a youthful energy comes out. On this particular evening, he decided to receite the following poem, (which I just looked up thanks to the internet that i dearly love), from memory:
The Call of the Wild
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God’s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sagebrush desolation,
The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?
Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,
And learned to know the desert’s little ways?
Have you camped upon the foothills, have you galloped o’er the ranges,
Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?
Have you chummed up with the mesa? Do you know its moods and changes?
Then listen to the Wild — it’s calling you.
Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?
(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)
Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river,
Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?
Have you marked the map’s void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,
Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?
And though grim as hell the worst is, can you round it off with curses?
Then hearken to the Wild — it’s wanting you.
Have you suffered, starved and triumphed, groveled down, yet grasped at glory,
Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?
“Done things” just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,
Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?
Have you seen God in His splendors, heard the text that nature renders?
(You’ll never hear it in the family pew.)
The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things –
Then listen to the Wild — it’s calling you.
They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
They have put you in a showcase; you’re a credit to their teaching –
But can’t you hear the Wild? — it’s calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There’s a whisper on the night-wind, there’s a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling . . . let us go.
—Robert Service
I thought to myself…when’s the last time I heard somebody spontaneously recite a poem? When’s the last time I experienced being part of something abstractly “bigger than myself,” in this case, belonging to this circled up group of Outward Bound instructors, and belonging to a group of people who have answered the call of the wild? And…it reminded me of a poem I heard when I was on a summer program when I was 17, nearly 7 years ago now!!!
The Ambulance Down In The Valley
Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,
Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant;
But over its terrible edge there had slipped
A duke, and full many a peasant.
The people said something would have to be done,
But their projects did not at all tally.
Some said, “Put a fence ’round the edge of the cliff,”
Some, “An ambulance down in the valley.”
The lament of the crowd was profound and was loud,
As their hearts overflowed with their pity;
But the cry for the ambulance carried the day
As it spread through the neighboring city.
A collection was made, to accumulate aid,
And the dwellers in highway and alley
Gave dollars or cents – not to furnish a fence -
But an ambulance down in the valley.
“For the cliff is all right if you’re careful,” they said;
“And if folks ever slip and are dropping,
It isn’t the slipping that hurts them so much
As the shock down below – when they’re stopping.”
So for years (we have heard), as these mishaps occurred,
Quick forth would the rescuers sally,
To pick up the victims who fell from the cliff,
With the ambulance down in the valley.
Said one, to his peers, “It’s a marvel to me
That you’d give so much greater attention
To repairing results than to curing the cause;
You had much better aim at prevention.
For the mischief, of course, should be stopped at its source,
Come, neighbors and friends, let us rally.
It is far better sense to rely on a fence
Than an ambulance down in the valley.”
“He is wrong in his head,” the majority said;
“He would end all our earnest endeavor.
He’s a man who would shirk his responsible work,
But we will support it forever.
Aren’t we picking up all, just as fast as they fall,
And giving them care liberally?
A superfluous fence is of no consequence,
If the ambulance works in the valley.
The story looks queer as we’ve written it here,
But things oft occur that are stranger;
More humane, we assert, than to succor the hurt
Is the plan of removing the danger,
The best possible course is to safeguard the source;
Attend to things rationally.
Yes, build up the fence and let us dispense
With the ambulance down in the valley.
~ Author Unknown
