First Poem: Longfellow's Window [1959; Donkeyland]

First Poem: Longfellow’s Window [1959]

It was perhaps May, the year was 1959; I was sitting on the top level of the attic steps, somewhat motionless, looking out the window into the backyard, we had a long hilly backyard, very green in the summer, grandpa cared for it like it was a treasure, proud, he even fenced it in after a number of years, after people trampled through it, as if it was a highway. The sunlight hit my face, it was a weekend and mother was downstairs doing something, perhaps housework, she was always busy. I had found some paper in a drawer and I slowly went to write, drawing my pen to paper, a word came forth, then writing again, a few more words, without looking at the paper my thoughts flowed through my mind, and my body was full of emotions. I slid the paper in front of my pen again, and noticed I had a stanza of some kind, then heard Grandpa’s old black mantel clock strike twice, it was 2:00 PM, next I went back into my silence, more like scratching with my pen now, words and syllables, rime and accents, trying to dance and sing with the pen, as words flowed onto the paper.
I re-read my first stanza, it would be, or become my first poem. I had listened to an old record [78] my mother had given me, by Jimmy Boyd, and so I came up with the name, “Who.” I think the song was named that, and it was a simple poem that needed a simple name, like the song. I had no idea of course I’d study poetry in the future, write 1400-poems, produce nine poetry books, and so forth and on. But that was the beginning, as all things must have a beginning, that is, all things must have its first step.
I found a second sheet of paper and copied the poem, and made the corrections I needed, it was now 4:00 PM, and dinnertime. (I had folded the poem, and put it into my pocket, asked my mother in her bedroom later if I could read it for her, and I did, and she liked it—of course, and then back into my pocket it went).
Next I went upstairs to the attic bedroom, where my brother and I slept, him on one side of the attic, myself on the other, a window in-between, this was on the opposite side of where the steps were, and the reason being the beds were there, was because the chimney stretched from the basement all the way through the attic, through the roof: too close to the window to put beds.
For the following week, I’d look out that window and figure poem two would have to be coming soon, and it would have to come out of that window, and it did. I was consumed, to realize I could express my emotions this way, instead of being crushed with them, holding them inside like excessive water.

It would be years later I’d venture out to see Henry W. Longfellow’s House, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and gaze through his window; then after that, I’d purchase an expense signature of his (original), singed “Yours Truly Henry W. Longfellow…. 1877” a great poet indeed.

Written 7/25/2006; El Parquetito, Café, Lima Peru