Blasts from the Past

 Smitty: [Working on crossword puzzle] Did you know that April is National poetry month?

Me: No, I didn't.

A little further explanation. As I have mentioned previously our family spent 1959 - 1961 in Vienna, Austria. While there I attended, with my siblings Margaret Akerstrom nee Schrag and Jim [1943 - 1984]. Brother Jim served as editor of the school newspaper, The Gladiator . I have no idea how the name evolved, but Jim's editorship may explain how these two of my early efforts at poetry came to grace its pages in 1961:

The Voice of Nature

Listen to the lone wolf,

As he howls at the moon;

Listen to the lone wolf,

As he circles the lagoon;

Listen to the lone wolf,

As he gives his hunting call;

Listen to the lone wolf,

The cruelest of them all.

Listen to the wind,

Wailing in the pine;

Listen to the wind,

In the wild night time;

Listen to the wind,

As it screams to the plain;

"Listen to me!

Or I ne'er shall blow again!"

This is the sound

Of Nature with her own;

The wind and the lone wolf

Which used to we have grown.

Go away from nature,

Put away your hunting knife,

Grow away from nature

And you'll throw away your life!

[I believe this was written the year I took one of those tests that are supposed to plot your interests and possible future employment. I was tagged as a forest ranger. Which is sort of like a college professor.]

March

Spring cleaning strikes the terror deep

In every masculine heart,

Good-bye the beefsteak roasted rare,

Good-bye the cherry tart,

For in this time of cleaning up

A female has no heart.

Men and boys alike are plunged

To dust and sweeping toil;

'Til walls and floor alike are free

Of any trace of soil.

From attic trunk to cellar floor,

Down each hallway through each door,

The dust rag does its endless chore.

So if you hear some blackguard sing

About those wondrous days of spring

The weeks that pass all full of fun

And filled with joy for everyone,

Please tell him in a voice quite strong

You really think that he is wrong!

[I really have no idea what prompted this rather unenlightened paean - perhaps the normative sexist perceptions of 1960. It certainly did not spring my home life where neither cooking nor cleaning took precedence over reading novels. But then I was only 12.]