Brothers,
First anniversary
issue - lucky 13! Many thanks to all of you for staying with this, and many
thanks for the encouragement and kind words. This issue has a special feature: Poetry
from subscribers. I hope you enjoy the poems.
Within a few
minutes of putting Menletter onto an AOL-sponsored Web site, Jim Marsh called
and offered to host Menletter and help me figure out domain names, etc. To read
the latest newsletter (#12 or this one will be the first), visit Menletter.org. [You’re here now.] The AOL
version will be retired soon. Watch for further developments: back issues,
links to other men's sites, etc.
Jim, a million
thanks!
Here they are,
men. Thanks to the contributors. [Two things to note: (1) Yes, there are a few
Baehrs here. They're subscribers just like the rest of you, and I'm putting in
everything I received. (2) Although I asked for just one poem from each of you,
the response was small enough to include a couple of poems
For those of you
from Men's Wisdom Council who are waiting for last year's poems, the word is:
Soon. Sorry about the delay.
++++++++++++++++++++++
By
Heavy rains wash
down the hills again,
Turning them a
bright, vivid green.
Brilliant poppies
spring into bloom.
The air is pure
and nourishing,
Redolent of pine
and eucalyptus.
A stiff ocean
breeze stirs
The leaves in the
trees.
The fabulous city
sparkles:
The desert sand
starts to drift
Over the upturned
palms of the dead.
++++++++++++++++++++++
By Alan Baehr
The museum
director
passes through
hall after hall
of her murdered
children:
earthenware made
in the cradle of
civilization
shattered in an
instant
cuneiform tablets
silenced in pieces
on the floor
and she herself
is shattered in an
instant
silenced in pieces
on the floor
a ghost mourning
her ghost children
In
that was her home
++++++++++++++++++++++
By Leo Horrigan
I don't care
About what you
wear
The color of you
The length or the
breadth of you
I don't care what hangs
between your legs ... or doesn't
What protrudes
from your chest ... or doesn't
I care about the
essence of you
And I don't mean
perfume
You are a pile of
matter
But that part of
you don't matter
The part of you
that matters has no matter
And that's the
part of you I have known forever
And will know
forevermore
You see, you and I
are only pretending to be strangers
Once we lift the
veil, you will see
That we have known
each other for so many lifetimes
There IS nothing
new under the sun
Except these
uniforms we wear
And it is but a
sea of superficiality
That keeps you
from me
Cross over it!
And we will dance
the dance we have danced so many times before
We will stare
deeply into each other's eyes
So deeply
Until we build us
a bridge to eternity.
++++++++++++++++++++++
By Tom Baehr
I Count Only The
Sunny Hours.
So the inscription
on
the garden sundial
reads,
discounting the
clouded times,
the dark moments
in our lives.
But snow falling
outside my window
lacks form until
it catches on
the black
calligraph of branches
on the nearby
trees, creating
a Yin and Yang of
wholeness.
And the window,
eye to the world by day,
darkens as the
light fails until all it can do
is mirror my room,
messy, cluttered,
but everything
important within reach;
my haven from that
very world.
There has to be a
darkness, you see;
even the sundial
relies on it, after all,
to mark the time
across its face,
its very relevance
depending on
the angled blade's
shadow.
++++++++++++++++++++++
By
Once, and only
once, as a small boy
I saw light flash
up from our small flesh,
mine and hers, the
neighbor girl and me
delighted with the
taut skin of our legs
tingling from toe
to crotch.
"I'll show
you if you show me"
carried our eyes
and hands to all the best places.
Finally I showed
her how mine worked,
peeing off the
running board,
careful to stay in
the car as we were told,
arcing my yellow
stream into the forbidden grass,
where rattlesnakes
worried our mothers.
Glorious and drunk
with delight, we rippled in our skin
until I saw two
heads rising from the creek
with my mother's
body attached to one of them.
Her eyes filled
with horror at sight of my beautiful arc.
A dark cloud
filled the open sky, went straight into my body,
stunned the wild
tingling still, as though a snake
had surely struck
and poisoned this great garden.
++++++++++++++++++++++
By
Run my son,
run my daughter,
toward what is
true,
toward what you
really want.
If you stop, let
it be
to look for what
is so,
for what says its
name
and shows its
face.
Then go on running
for your life
through all the
places you love.
Run through my
death,
a great door
that offers the
love
inside grief.
Run through your
own sorrow,
another door
that opens into
more of you.
Keep running until
your own happiness
surrounds you like
a swarm of bees
that keep tasting
your sweetness,
like a rainstorm
that feeds
the rivers and the
trees,
like a country
that you call
home.
++++++++++++++++++++++
By Tim Baehr
I've taken care of
my inner child--
Done the necessary
nurturing,
Made him feel safe
and validated,
All that stuff.
He's pretty much
On his own now,
doing OK.
My inner
20-year-old, on the other hand,
Is still kicking
around, causing trouble.
He's the one who
grabs the keys
And says,
"I'll drive." And then
Scares the shit
out of me with
Jackrabbit starts
and daring maneuvers.
Oh, and sometimes he
plays music
Really loud, with
the moon roof open.
My inner
20-year-old is the one
Who ogles the
girls and doesn't seem
To care that what
the girls see ogling them
Is a dirty old man
pushing sixty.
Damn if he doesn't
get the juices
Flowing, however.
Party on, dude.
He's also the guy
who thinks he can
Eat that fourth
slice of pizza and
Stay up half the
night and then
Try to sleep until
he can have
A leisurely late
brunch, eating
The leftover pizza
cold, standing
In front of an
open fridge.
Well, guess what,
young Bucko--
We still get up at
So we'll have food
in the belly,
A roof over our
heads, and
Gas for that
little sports car
I bought you. Up
and at 'em,
Big fella.
Playtime's over.
For now. I'll let you
out to play
About lunchtime.
++++++++++++++++++++++
By Tim Baehr
Ricardo Eliezer
Neftali Reyes Basoalto, boy with the kaleidoscopic name.
At thirteen you
published your first poem.
At sixteen you
became Pablo Neruda.
By the time you
were in college you had fallen in love
with poetry, and
dropped out to write more.
I dropped out for
a weekend to translate your Twenty Love Poems
and your dismally
affecting Song of Hopelessness.
Holy crap, you
were still a teenager when you wrote this stuff,
and your images
are as easy to follow as if you had traded in
your name for your
vision.
As if I were
reading an encyclopedia of love
through a
kaleidoscope.
For hours my brain
has spun with your words, your images,
your loves, your
anguish.
What did you see?
What did you feel?
What did I see?
What did I feel?
Boats and bilges;
pine trees, sails, nets; white and brown women,
naked and shining;
leaves, wheat ears, songbirds; waves, seafoam,
lighthouses,
shipwrecks; stars wheeling in the sky, clouds, mist;
hunger, thirst,
amazement, drunkenness; uprooted trees, lonely
castaways, the
grape harvest; long sea journeys carrying kisses;
abandoned piers.
There is a sweet
melancholy about all this, not only about your
lost loves but
about my total surrender to your vision, you
young anguished
boy-man, spinner of impossible multicolored
threads, weaver of
garments of language that shimmer
in the sun, glow
in the starlight.
Your servant,
lover of language, has tried to be both kind father
and midwife to the
rebirth of the soul of your thoughts,
swaddled in
foreign words.
If you can
recognize even a few features of your offspring,
I will be happy.
++++++++++++++++++++++
By Pablo Neruda
Translated by Tim
Baehr
11: Almost out of
the sky...
Almost out of the
sky, the half moon
drops anchor
between two mountains.
Spinning,
wandering night, excavator of eyes.
Let's see how many
shattered stars are in the pool.
She makes a cross
of mourning on my brow, and flees.
She forges nights
of silent struggle from blue metals;
my heart spins
like a flywheel out of control.
Girl from so far
away, sent from so far away,
her glance sometimes
flashes beneath the sky.
Grumbler, tempest,
raging maelstrom,
walk across my
heart without stopping.
Wind from the
tombs carries off, shatters, scatters your drowsy root.
It uproots great
trees on the other side of it.
Except for you,
fair maiden, misty question, tall flower.
It was she who was
fashioning the wind with illuminated leaves.
Behind the
mountains of the night, white fire-lily,
ah, I can't say!
She was made of everything.
Stabs of longing,
you have cut open my breast;
it is time to
follow another path, on which she doesn’t smile.
Tempest that
buried the bells, confused commotion of storms,
why touch her now,
why sadden her.
Oh, to follow the
path that leads away from everything,
where anguish, death,
winter do not lie in ambush,
peering out amidst
the dew.
It should be
obvious by now that I have a special fondness for the annual Men's Wisdom
Council held at the Rowe Camp and
Men's work of all
kinds, but especially the deeper work, is hard to talk or write about. For one
thing, some consider our work sacred, not to be lightly bandied about. For
another, most men don't talk much anyway (I know that's a stereotype, but it
comes from reality, and besides, not talking is sometimes a virtue).
But I think there
are some useful things to be said, by an ordinary participant. Not just useful,
but important. Men are in trouble, in many ways, and have been for many
decades. One crucial aspect of "men's work" is that it celebrates men
and manhood in a time when our life choices seem to be between irrelevant
buffoon and brute/abuser/corrupt tycoon, with a brief nod to the image of
superheroes (including soldiers and post-9/11 police and firefighers) that most
of us couldn't begin to live up to.
What is Wisdom
Council, and who is wise?
Wisdom Council is
an annual retreat for twenty to forty men and seven leaders. For five days
(Sunday evening to Friday
Most of us stay in
rustic, unheated cabins dotted around a hillside. Each cabin holds eight to
twelve men; however, there are enough cabins so that there are rarely more than
six men to a cabin. Bathroom facilities are in a central pavilion among the
cabins. More traditional, heated quarters are available for men who need more
privacy or comfort.
The meeting space,
called the Rug Room, is a large carpeted area in a huge barn-like conference
center up the hill from the cabins. We don't spend all our time in the Rug
Room, however; many of the activities take place outdoors, weather permitting.
There may also be field trips to other places for some of our work and play:
another camp, the magical and picturesque
As far as I can
tell, there are only a few "rules." Among them: No violence
(physical, psychological, or verbal); and "radical freedom" (all
activities are optional; no man is ostracized or ridiculed for sitting out).
Oh, and trying not to overload the septic system (with no women around it's no
big deal to take a leak in the woods).
But what do you
guys actually do -- run around naked and beat drums, do touchy-feely stuff and
cry a lot -- what?
Well, not exactly.
One of the main purposes of the week is to build a community of men based on
trust, humor, honesty. The week has what I've come to think of as a narrative
"trajectory" beginning with getting to know each other and at least a
small part of our stories. This may include trust-building exercises (nothing
frightening or gross) and simply sitting in a circle and sharing our thoughts.
The leaders almost always begin a story -- a myth or fable -- that will carry
us throughout the week and provide some language and concepts with which to
interpret our week's work and our lives in general.
From there the
week unfolds. I can't say what specific activities we do, partly because they
change from year to year and partly because it would be impossible to do them justice
out of context. If you've ever done any group work, however, some of the kinds
of things that happen may be familiar: blindfold trust walks, movement to
music, work with clay, writing poetry, and so forth.
But I can't
sugar-coat all this either: We do work on grief and sorrow in our lives. There
are tears. There is the potential, at least, for emotional intensity, including
rage. But this is done only after building a community to contain it all.
As we come to
trust each other, we are comfortable in going deeper into what it means to be a
father, a son, a husband or partner, a man in an often hostile society.
Although this is not a "therapeutic" camp, some men may find
themselves better able to confront their inner demons after having gotten acquainted
(or reacquainted) with them in the company of men who have, over the course of
a few days, become their brothers. I've seen, and experienced, real healing.
Again, all
activities are optional, and no man is required to act in a particular way or reveal
his feelings in a particular way, if at all. [At my first Council, I intended
to lay back, get some rest, and not participate much. I was heartsore and
discouraged about life and just happy to be away in the woods. Basically, I
wanted to be left alone. If I had followed that plan, it would have been OK
with everyone. But I felt drawn into the activities within hours of arriving
and had a blast for the rest of the week. It was the beginning of some
life-changing experiences, all of them good. Your mileage may vary.]
If I attend, this
will be my first experience. Will I feel out of place among the "old
hands" who've been here before?
No. Obviously,
some of us will remember each other from past years and greet each other
joyfully. But we were all first-timers once. And as "veterans," we
know that the week cannot possibly succeed unless everyone feels included and a
part of the community. In my four years of attending Wisdom Council, I have
never felt like an outsider.
So, what about the
wisdom part? You didn't answer "who is wise"?
I've seen several
kinds of wisdom at the Wisdom Council. The leaders have done men's work for
many years -- in some cases, decades. They may not have conquered all their
demons, but they know how to engage them in battle. The men attending are wise,
and become wiser -- knowing themselves better; gaining perspective on their
place in their family, community, and cosmos; learning how to help and be
helped by other men. And there is a sacred wisdom, a wisdom that transcends our
indidividual efforts, and our group efforts, and blesses them.
Sounds pretty
heavy.
Parts of it can be
"heavy," but one of the main things I've gotten out of Wisdom Council
is that it's just plain fun. We're outdoors. We're with other men. Someone is
feeding us. We can fart and belch, tell dirty jokes, talk about sex or anything
else, wear old clothes, sleep in a sleeping bag, run around at night with a
flashlight, go skinny-dipping, skip a shower. Shit, it's like being twelve
again.
Copyright notice
All original
materials are (c) Copyright 2002, 2003 by Tim Baehr. All rights reserved. All
signed materials are copyright by their respective authors.
Warranty
I am not
responsible for the contents of Web sites I list or recommend.
Personal
correspondence:
Tim Baehr
tbaehr@aol.com