136. Poetry Series: Harlem On My Mind: 4. Theft
Shepard Hall, The City College of New York
4th in the series, Harlem On My Mind
It was spring, it was warm, the weather was kind; events were not.
Theft
April 1968
Someone stole the gold Cross pen
from atop my notebook. It was the beginning
of a period of suffering and transition.
Soon after,
it was announced that
The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King
had been killed;
we filled the mazes of corridors of Shepard Hall;
it crowns the North Campus,
the building that looks like
a huge, regal, fortress of
dark-bricked, chocolate cake, adorned
with drips of hard white icing.
A place that would feed thousands
of immigrants, and their children, the sweetness of knowledge
and the promise of wisdom;
the poor and their progeny commuted
to this promise daily through catacomb-tunnels,
from all the hungry places of the city.
We lined the floors with our bodies, books, and jackets;
our legs curled under us and
our shoulders defeated.
We were ants in tunnels with no work to do
no leader to follow, no Queen, no King.
When the announcement was finished and the
address system quieted to the static in our heads,
we dispersed from the winding hallways
lined with door after door of mahogany and frosty-glass;
you didn’t have to press your face
and squint against the translucent light,
to see,
all chairs were vacant.
It was right after someone took my gold Cross pen.
The one I got for my birthday.
Yahoo comments from the parallel blog universe:
- Tee B…
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This one I really like…interesting how we remember a little detail, like a pen… As usual I can almost feel, smell, touch the time/memory you are writing about.
Tuesday January 15, 2008 – 01:51pm (EST) Remove Comment
Tuesday January 15, 2008 – 03:26pm (EST) Remove Comment
- Steve P
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It is easy to see how this period of time had such an enourmous influence on your life, even more so than for many of us who lived through the events. The imagery you use of the cake feeding masses of children starving for knowledge is wonderful. Congratulations on another wonderful poem shared, and thank you.
“When the announcement was finished and the address system quieted to the static in our heads,” Another beautiful poem. Your words always transport me to where you are writing about. It’s always interesting how the brain remembers the trivial along with the momentous.
This almost makes me feel like the pen went with him! 🙂 I don’t have any actual memories of this point in history, but your elegant description puts me right there. My parents have never spoken of it, so thank you for sharing!
Tuesday January 15, 2008 – 05:54pm (PST) Remove Comment
really strange days and still very vivid, methinks – it is obvious today as all people are concerned – well, interesting times we all live in; thanks for posting this; surely needed that today
Wednesday January 16, 2008 – 08:58am (CET) Remove Comment
Wonderful poem. I was in New York when Martin Luther King was killed. My grandparents and I were having dinner when their nephew came banging on the door — I think he had run most of the way from Flushing Meadows. He was pale and he said, *Martin Luther King has been shot!* My grandfather had such a look of horror. My grandmother put down her fork and left the room (she was such a lady). We all grieved. My grandfather (an artist) painted a quick portrait to hang in the window of the AWVS where my grandmother did volunteer work, as they would be closed for the funeral. They had a very close friend who my grandfather had met in Central Park years and years before – he was a black man, Charles Marshall, and a brilliant photographer. My grandparents didn’t drive, so they rented a limo to drive them to Harlem to the church for the service so they could be with Charles for the memorial service. They were the only white people in the church (or so it was told to me). So many beautiful souls we have lost – and yes, they are irreplaceable. My uncle (who I have told you about) participated in the First March to Washington .. someone took a picture of him handing a black man a cup of water and it was put in the paper .. along with his name. He received a lot of harrassing phone calls due to that (again, a story I was told). Thank you for a wonderful poem and blog.
Wednesday January 16, 2008 – 10:19pm (EST) Remove Comment
- Tee B…
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From the A.T. Cross pen website: America’s oldest manufacturer of fine writing instruments was established in 1846. Manufacturing in the Providence, RI, facility first was limited to elegantly tooled gold and silver casings for wooden pencils. The headquarters are still outside of Prov. here in RI…think I have a Cross pen somewhere in my drawer(an achievement “award” when I was 13 in Greek schol)
You are doing something great with this series. You are making it to where even my generation, a generation void of wonderful people like Dr. Martin L. King, can see the splendor of the man. Even in his death you have made him larger than life. What a beautiful job!
Wednesday January 16, 2008 – 09:58am (CST) Remove Comment
- Just …
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You have done it again..you have taken me on a journey to a place I could never be but now I have been there. Thank you Sue. You are amazing
Great post and I love the metaphors especially “ants in a tunnel”. Packed in school hallways and herded like cattle to the auditorium, we heard the breaking news. It was a time we were young impressionable and strongly changed by the tragic loss of the leaders. Thanks for sharing.
- Jacqu…
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Great word picture. Oddly while I can tell you every minute of the day JFK was shot and later exactly where I was when he brother was shot. The pain of the day of Kent State. The day Martin Luther King was shot is a complete blank in my mind. I remember only the fear of the riots.
Wednesday January 16, 2008 – 06:36pm (MST) Remove Comment
Amazing picture you paint with your words. I love the way you write. I always look forward to your poetry! Such talent………..
- Wes
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Thank you for posting this and the speech. Today I have only read two blogs and both were negative. Both sought to kill the messenger not understanding his message. It seems we have a portion of our population who are more interested in tarnishing the image of Dr. King than trying to understand the times he lived in and what he and others accomplished. Who knows, maybe someone stole their pen that day too. Beautiful poem and imagery.
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believemenot wrote on Jan 15, ’08
I enjoyed reading it! Hugs..
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A pen stolen, a life stolen, nice parallel to express the loss of freedom of expression, temporary however… Both have found a way to keep on expressing their message, you through this blog, Dr. Martin Luther King through these archives. His message is still alive. Thank you for sharing Sue.
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lauritasita wrote on Jan 15, ’08
That was great. Thanks. A personal loss, and a national loss at the same time…
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redheadgirl4 wrote on Jan 15, ’08
I came to your page and got caught up in listening to Dr. King’s speech. That man was utterly brilliant. I have heard this speech a million times, and I still can’t hear it without crying at its eloquence. He had a dream for something that should have been so simple … he is honestly my hero.
If he affects me this way today, so many years after he died, I can only imagine the effect he must have had on people at the time. And if I feel grief at his loss, I can only imagine what you felt that day. I think you vividly describe the shock and sense of loss. When something huge and horrible happens, I think it’s a survival skill to focus on smaller, every-day things. I remember, after 9/11, a friend of mine, who was in the Towers just before the first plane hit, and had a horrifying experience of the events after that, said the strangest thing to me. She was in shock, and under a doctor’s care, and she kept saying that her favourite restaurant was in one of the Towers, and wondering where she was going to meet her friend for lunch when they got back to work, because they always met there. I’ve never forgotten that. She lost many friends that day, thought she had lost her brother at one point, saw things no person should ever see, and at one point thought she too was going to die. And yet she focused, when we spoke, on the loss of the restaurant, not talking about the bigger losses until much later. I understood later that the way her mind and heart were processing such an unimaginable loss — and the unspeakable horrors that she saw — was to focus on a much smaller, more manageable loss, in a way to avoid thinking about the unthinkable. I wonder if that is what you were doing with your pen, and why the two events are so linked in your mind. If Dr. King had not been killed that day, I wonder if you would have long since forgotten about the pen. But when there is such a terrible sense of shock and loss, the details that go along with it become permanently imprinted in our minds. This is a rich, thought-provoking poem. You’ve captured a piece of history here, and not the way the history books do, but through a very personal, subjective experience of it. Really brilliant and moving my friend. Many hugs! Sorry if this comment is incoherent and too long! But I hope you know what I mean. |
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eccentricmare wrote on Jan 15, ’08
Similar thoughts have been going through my mind of late, as is the theme of this post. In fact yesterday I posted Gibran’s prose poetry on Freedom from The Prophet. I too had revisited this particular speech yesterday.
I have to wonder if humanity itself is cashing checks it just cannot honour, some days it just seems that dreams are continuing to be dashed in so many ways and for so many people….all over the world. |
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I would imagine that at the time many people, particularly younger people, didn’t fully realise the relevance of the loss of King, or Kennedy and others.. it seems to me you express that in describing the building, a place to further education, but not neccesarily by news of such current events. Your description of the surroundings by are vivid, and compelling.. I’m anxious to read the next if there is one.
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sanssouciblogs wrote on Jan 15, ’08
Hmmmm, the next….well I actually wrote just these 4 in 2002, and have been revisiting all of my writing from that time on the blog since March. Now I have to think. Firs the visual mind movie has to come to me….
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sweetpotatoqueen wrote on Jan 16, ’08
What a wonderful treat to sit and read the tone of your words with the speech of MLK….your memoirs via poetry is a glimpse into the feeling of those times long ago. A treat to sit and reflect on how far we have come. As always, a pleasure.
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philsgal7759 wrote on Jan 16, ’08, edited on Jan 16, ’08
What a wonderful where were you poem It’s funny but it did seem that the tide turned that day and we began to see each other differently My Theater Thursday Theme is I Have a Dream Hope you and your friends will join me.
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‘…the sweetness of knowledge and the promise of wisdom;”
“We lined the floors with our bodies, books, and jackets; our legs curled under us and our shoulders defeated. We were ants in tunnels with no work to do no leader to follow, no Queen, no King.” Your words are so powerful, I like the way you use them to create emotions and take us with you!… Thank you!!! |
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sanssouciblogs wrote on Jan 16, ’08
Well, surely I was annoyed that someone took it from me, and it wasn’t the same day of the event, but my mind connected the two, usually does subconsciously, and the events melded. My soon to be fiance had given it to me. The story continues. I just wrote a 5th part–wasn’t really planning to, but I’ve been in a writing dry spell–this series was done in 2002–and I had an idea
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sanssouciblogs wrote on Jan 16, ’08, edited on Jan 16, ’08
Addendum: I find it interesting that a couple of people concentrated on the pen. I was 18 at the time; I wonder if at that time I really understood the ramifications of the big picture. What does an 18 year old really know? The pen brought it down to scale; it was something one’s brain could wrap around. These are the way we personalize the world, by linking it to what we could comprehend. To adapt the world to us.
The loss of an object is far more concrete and intrinsically meaningful than the loss of a person. I thank everyone for the wonderful comments. Let the tour continue! |
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A sad day in American history for sure. Sometimes it seems all the best things are taken from us. I remember my father being very angry that it happened in Memphis, seeing it as another Dallas, marked in a way that is not removable. So interesting to hear Dr. King talk as we contemplate Mr. Obama as President…I cannot help but fear that security needs to be tight this summer…
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sunaisarah wrote on Jan 16, ’08
WONDERFUL MESSAGE POEM by stolen birthday present golden pen!!! April 1968, i was 11 years old then. i think it was surly Cruel April. thanks for sharing!
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aimlessjoys wrote on Jan 17, ’08
I remember those days, too, vividly. Then Bobby K was shot soon after that, it seems, Marilyn found dead at some point in between (?) Time fades memories, but a thing like that pen marks a turning point in learning how the world really works. I once dropped my H’s anniversary present to me, a Cross pen (“You’re naked without one,” he once said, but THAT was along time ago, too.) & it bounced under a huge pallet of something or other in a proto-Sam’s Club. They had to call in some guy from shipping with a forklift to pick up the pallet, & another guy was brave enough to stick his foot under the pile of heavy stuff & slide my pen out from under it. There was such a to-do about that pen, I put it away where it still lies, probably dry as a cinder by now. Wonderfully evocative work from you, as always!
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asolotraveler wrote on Jan 17, ’08
i like martin…
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sanssouciblogs wrote on Jan 21, ’08
A fitting poem for the day. We remember.
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starfishred wrote on Jan 21, ’08
great poem but my memory of 1968 are a lot different than what all of a sudden is being written sad I think if people really believed in what he said he never would have gotten murdered and america would have progressed differently since then-
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