Rolling tubes of grass
To light on fire
Tired from class (zoom university, a subsidiary of The Great University)
Showing a new friend
The “little university on the green sod” where hundreds gathered then tens, then a handful
To debate and gesticulate, banter and bash, shoot the shit, pontificate, proliferate, organize, mourn, entertain, enthrall, just pass through, or pass the time.
Dance, laugh, play jazz, play games.
I’m sure they did other stuff we haven’t even learned about yet.
The stage has a hole, precariously patched—be careful, don’t fall in—we’re cautious compulsives
We sit in silence and try to summon the spirits.
A man walks up, “hey, what’s this place?” “it’s The Forum,” we say (excitedly)
“It’s a place where people have been getting together for discussion and debate, counter-cultural social life, and political organizing for many years!”
“But you’re just smoking weed?” he asks, with a smile, “…I’ll keep an eye out for the cops”
[Did he not understand what we meant by “free, democratic, and counter-cultural”?]
Perhaps we said too much. Or maybe he did understand—he did say he’d look out for the cops [‘we keep us safe’—echoes of summer]
How to show, not tell? We want this neighbor, and his neighbors, to join us when we return to hold court proper.
Not too far away, there’s a playground where a young dad was shot by the cops. His mom has been trying to get it re-named in his honor for years. The jungle gym and swings are shabby compared to the fancy German playgrounds on the other side of the park (though none compare to ein echter Deutscher Spielplatz, of course)
In any case. Our neighbor clears out, and we pass the grass (or actually, we don’t and say we did, pandemic)
We share some cookies—a little snack
A streak of sunshine, a crooked tree
A tattered flag (which we prefer, if there must be a flag—it’s more honest)
And then
A bird of prey swoops down (from out of nowhere) and snatches a squirrel
Magnificent! It only takes a second.
Wild applause!
Is it a Hawk? A Falcon? Probably a Hawk. Red tailed? Cooper? Regrettably, we don’t know our birds. (Something The Forum should teach, so we can learn, of course.)
We spot Monsieur Bird with his little snack
Perched in the tree
We whoop and holler, warm and giddy.
The photo does it no justice.
“Fucking amazing.” “Better than TV.” “More real than school.” “Enlivening, Invigorating.” “Sublime.” “Unheimlich.” “High On Life.”
I say I hate poetry, but it was poetic.
Nibble another cookie from the pack.
“Where two or more are gathered, I’m there with them”
-Studs Terkel
Dear Mr. Chronicler, thou art in heaven, please grant us strength,
Or, at least, some ease—better calibration
[To think and speak less of the illiterarti and the artsy fartsies,
with less neurotic concern for the posts at Great Universities (that, for us, will not exist)]
And instead, to know and concern for our neighbors, the workers
With whom we SOON hope to gather
Under the banner of democratic education and spirited recreation
With intimacy, and warmth, good humour, and sovereign disagreement
in more than twos, or threes,
(or four, if you count the Hawk)
With the Mice and the Bugs
The babies and elders
At our little university, under the trees.
At our little university, under the trees.
