Music House

After an unthinkable calamity befell him
the forest closed in.
Animals stared through his windows.
Turkey, woodchuck, raccoon, squirrels, deer.
A bear.

To avoid their black-eyed gaze
he shifted every inside wall.
He spread the hidden space—
the house's vacant shell.
He boxed the windows,
made a hatch,
installed a ladder.
His headlamp darted
as he scrambled up and down.

Between the walls he wired a squad of speakers
to fill the place with Berlioz and Bach
On the outside of the inner wall
he penciled a chronology of fire, fuel, physics—
a labyrinth in cursive,
vine-like strands of science,
weapons, transportation.

His branching maze of technological advance
reached the time in which he wrote
and proceeded on past digital
into a holographic future he foresaw
in which meaning is set down in patterns
like vast arrays of crescent shadows on a pebble beach
or galaxies of stars.


As music floated that idea
he painted, on the inner surface of the outer wall,
hungry people at an endless table—
it went all around the house and joined itself.
His characters compared their histories of love—
the strongest agitations of their hearts
                crushes and rejections,
                lust and fear.
He drew, year after year,
gestures and expressions
and laid on color
until, somehow, he found his labor done.

He returned the inner walls to their original positions.
He looked out his windows
                addressed the animals
                repelled the forest
                invited visitors
                listened to them talk
                listened to music
                listened to rain.
As visitors talked, he watched and listened.


-Ron McAdow

Introducing: Ron McAdow

I went to a Montessori Junior High school, and Ron McAdow was my teacher. I remember him as a guy who liked nature, wrote and was generally friendly. Back then, I read this novel he wrote/was writing, called "Good Medicine". The only thing I recall about it now is that there was the discovery of popcorn in it.

These days Ron is a poet, and conserving land via the Sudbury Valley Trustees. I learned those things through the internet. Also, we are friends on Facebook.

I think it's funny how time and life work, like these streams that divide and sometimes come back together and sometimes don't, but it's really hard to say where they will or won't end up. And one day a piece of the past comes flowing back to you, and the thing that was hard to realize until that moment is that the piece has been on its own adventure, and moving forward, just as you have.

Links:
Ron McAdow Poems
Sudbury Valley Trustees

In the Winter, I Saw Ducks

I hear the unceasing hum
of the traffic in the distance;

Everyone is rushing to get somewhere
and not spending much time
being anywhere.

In the winter, I saw ducks
swimming on an icy stream,
dipping their heads down into the water
to eat, like they always do.

I imagine the people turning off their cars
and placidly floating along like ducks
on the currents of life,
not controlled by those currents
and not resisting them either.


-Jim DuBois