You Should Go Where You're Going (poem)

You Should Go Where You’re Going

         (A rap: all in a rush, breathless)

I met some other people –

The people that I thought were the same,

turned out to be different,

and the people that I thought were different,

turned out to be the same.

Which threw me for a loop,

‘cuz I was ready to join their troop.

But what troop was that?

The people who were the same

I wasn’t sure I liked ‘em anymore,

but the people who were different

instead of wanting to dislike ‘em,

now they were fourscore, yeah, fourscore.

They were cool. Turns out, we went to the same school.

I was all mixed up. What is this? Am I now grown-up?

Maybe it wasn’t so bad. But after all these years, I been had?

Still I wasn’t sure, so I turned to her, and if you can’t trust her

who can you trust? She said I was – that I was – 
well you know, that it was good, it was good, and besides,

you should trust what’s right, inside, outside,

listen to what’s right, don’t fight,

don’t fight what comes to you,

when you learn something new,

for you might learn something new

when you meet some other people.

 (Brakes on, full stop)

Yeah –

Yeah –

I met some other people.

North Andover  June 2018

A limerick

A limerick: A veggie or a fruit?

I once ate a veggie named “fruit”.
It was odd but also a hoot.
It was different than most,
And delicious on toast.
It was from the same planet as Groot!

Alternate finish:
It tasted like plum, berry and root!

A Good In-Land Town (poem)

A Good In-Land Town
       Read to the North Andover Selectmen on June 18, 2018

In August 1702, Judge Samuel Sewall wrote about his travels

to Andover – what is current day North Andover –  in his diary:

   “…rid with Mr. Woodhouse and Smith to Andover,

    a good In-land Town, and of a good Prospect.”

A good in-land town,

she shares her name with her British twin.

But no ruler here wears the crown,

for we are home of the citizen king.

Her citizens, now or years ago,

famous or not yet so,

share in her renown.

From strands of bell, bronze and maker,

from mother, muse and meter,

from wool and woven time,

from service made sublime,

from these we make our rhyme.

A.B. the poet, you know her name,

walked to the meetinghouse,

that first simple frame.

With words, her soul did search,

and thus made poetry her church.

Simon, the well-known man,

the Mass Bay governor, was her spouse.

Yet today, the greater fame, Anne commands.

In 1806, Revere and Son poured the bell.

Lifted high in the fourth steeple by Captains Johnson and Stevens,

in the new fifth meetinghouse soon it would dwell.

When the church was the town, it called from its tower.

These tones still carry over tree, town and common,

but for all people now, it keeps the same hours.

The 19th century mills were cut – whole cloth –

        from New England’s ingenious habit and spirit.

But it was the men of North Andover who made the Stevens mills,

        with Davis and Furber as the ratchet and sprocket.

In this yarn about wool,

        from the corner of Water and High Streets,

They sent machines to weave their twill

        to every state, and to the world.

In the rhythm and thrum of the mills,

        these men were the heartbeat.

To America and to the world,

women and men from this town went forth to serve.

Women and men heard freedom’s word.

They saw a common foe and risked their lives to fight it.

They saw a wrong and tried to right it.

And those who paid with limb or life,

their families and townspeople still observe.

What these men and women gave, may we honor it.

In a good in-land town,

history is not done,

Time offers more renown.

No final bell has rung,

her story is still young.

Those who serve the town,

in public place or private space,

serve it well if one must tell,

when History and common good are the guide.

Then we may go on to say

that in a good in-land town

and in America today,

the voice of the citizen has not died.

June 2018  North Andover, Mass.
Read at the North Andover Selectmen's meeting, June 18, 2018