Dan Erdman's Hero Bears Multiple Challenges Before Baring It All

"4 Seasons" acrylic & spray paint by Tim Kamerdz

Editor’s Note: Area writers were invited to submit poetry and/or prose to Studio B Art Gallery’s summer project “The Three Bears.” Writers were challenged to respond to the meanings of the words “bear” and “bare,” the Bear Fever sculptures or an aspect or theme from the fairy tale “Goldilocks & the Three Bears.” Their poetry and prose responses have been published in The Boyertown Area Expression. We hope you enjoy the wide-ranging responses to the challenging theme.

Samuel Stepped on a Dead Fish
   ~Dan Erdman

On the shoreline of a crowded beach,
young Samuel, overweight and awkward,
stepped on a dead fish
and in his pre-pubescent voice screamed
sonafabitch;
the bluegill lying on the water’s edge,
decomposed
slippery, slimy, soft guts
squeezed from the carcass
between young Samuel’s toes.

He wasn’t sure if it was the loud laughter
of the beach crowd
reacting to his high-pitched scream,
or that he had fallen
sideways and sloppily into the lake,
or that his mother ran to his rescue
with his sister’s Little Princess towel
to dry him off that embarrassed
him the most, but he felt
some kind of new uneasiness inside
as he listened to the belly-laughing onlookers.

Perhaps I should not have cursed or screamed so loud,
he thought.
and perhaps I could have faked
an elegant dive into the water when I slipped.
Maybe I could have emerged
from the water like Rambo
with a machine gun,
shooting randomly into the mocking crowd.

But Samuel did not have a machine gun,
and he was not a mean kid;
he was just immature and clumsy.
He didn’t have many friends, no hobbies,
and had never spent a cent of his allowance.
So, he took all his money that afternoon
and hired a busload of out-of-work Mummers
to come onto the beach and play “Oh, Those Golden Slippers”
out of tune
over and over and over again
until all the belly laughers became agitated
and went home.

And then, young Samuel had the beach
all to himself,
except for the girl he could not see
who sat far away beneath a tree,
as young Samuel practiced diving into the water
over and over and over again
for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.
And he actually became quite good!

Jill, the deaf and depressed teenager
beneath the distant tree,
was not bothered by the out-of-tune Mummers.
She could not swim
but had been contemplating a long walk
into the lake that day after dark.
However, after watching young Samuel practice
and perfect his diving skills,
she decided that she would become
an accomplished ballet teacher instead.
And so, she did.

And years later,
Jill bought a huge deserted building
to turn into a dance studio.
She purchased all her hardwood flooring
from a slouched and paunchy
salesman named Samuel
at the nearby building supply store.
She sighed and said “thank you” as he took her order,
and something in her voice
made Samuel stand upright, smile, and suck in his gut.
Something in his reaction made Jill feel
some kind of new uneasiness inside,
and for some reason she didn’t understand
she reached into her bag
and handed Samuel two tickets
to her ballet show for that evening.

They didn’t recognize each other, of course,
and, no, they didn’t get married
and live happily ever after, either.
Samuel was already married, haplessly but not miserably--
a pair of couch potatoes who watched the same movies
over and over and over again,
and had not been out on a date in years.

But that evening, Samuel took his wife to the ballet
and when the troupe was dancing
to “Oh, Those Golden Slippers”
Samuel, without knowing what had gotten into him,
jumped up and started dancing in the aisle,
all by himself until the ushers
escorted him out.
His wife, feeling some kind of new uneasiness inside,
started laughing for the first time in years;
she followed Samuel out, dancing up the aisle herself
and told him when they got outside
and the usher closed the door
that they should go skinny-dipping at the beach.
And, so, they did.

It's Okay, She Said
  ~ Dan Erdman

It’s okay, she said, as the slow sheet of clear water
flowed quietly across the intertidal flat,
like an open hand across a table.
Leave your briefcase of iron shrapnel
and jagged glass here on the shore,
she said, and walk along this beach,
through the grove that bends around the coast;
there will be boulders along the bulkhead
on the path into the village
and there Mayan ladies in the early morning market
and their bright colors
will smile and feed your soul
and sell you fresh fruit and bread
for the family’s morning breakfast.
It’s okay, she said.

And at the grove by the bend,
I looked back at the flat reach along the shoreline
and watched as a gentle wave, like a Mother’s hand,
cupped the glass and shrapnelon the sand and pulled it into the ocean.

At the end of the grove,
a tall Creole man sliced coconuts,
and he sang with a breeze off the ocean
“Oh, what a lady, what a night!”
Beyond him, at the bulkhead,
swells rolled in and stroked the boulders,
energy dissipated,
water flowed into and behind the matrix of rocks,
then surrendered back to the sea.
These rocks and the ocean have played like this forever,
I thought, like puppies, and neither ever tires.

At the market, I filled a bag with gold-toothed smiles
from the Mayan ladies,
round, bright fruit, and sweet fresh bread,
and started my walk back to the grove.
And again, the Creole man,
with a fresh breeze from the ocean,
was singing “Oh what a lady, what a night!”
Hey, I said to him,
now I remember that song from the 70’s,
though I never cared for it too much back then.
But he did not understand my words,
as mine was not his language.
He just listened and recited
what he heard from the breeze,
and handed me a slice of coconut.

On the soft sand footpath
through the shady cool almond grove,
I thought of the thickets
I had struggled through recently, in another land,
the iron shrapnel and broken glass
I had collected there,
the stress, deadlines, and decisions
which in a thousand years
would not change the way the ocean
plays with the rocks along the bulkhead,
and I walked back out onto the flat gentle beach.

May I stay here forevermore,
I asked the ocean?
Or had I stayed too long in the cold thickets
of another land, with sharp-edged iron
and jagged glass, deadlines and decisions?
Did I stay there too long?
But the ocean is never judgmental
and she did not answer,

And so I walked on
to where I had laid down the iron shrapnel,
but there was just rust stains in the sand,
a long orange-brown trail
which faded into the water.
And as the next wave tumbled in,
the sand was cleaned,
rust stains washed away,
and rounded colorful sea glass
was laid at my feet.

I picked up the rounded sea glass
from the intertidal flat,
walked on to share their beauty
with my family over morning breakfast.
It’s okay, she said.

Morning Walk Blues
  ~Dan Erdman

Let’s walk this morning, she said, 
on the trail along the ridge to the top of the mountain
and I said, let’s wait until it’s warmer.

Why, she asked, don’t you like walking?
The day will get warmer as we walk.

Okay, I said, but then she said
we can wait until the fog rises,
so that we may see across the valley as we ascend.

Why, I asked, don’t you like the mysteries within the mist?
The fog will rise when we reach the top of the mountain,
and we will be able to see across the valley
on the way back;
and the walk will seem
as if we journeyed two paths.

Let’s walk.

Seldom Struck by Lightening (Inspiration from a Natural Lands Preserve)
  ~Dan Erdman

I. Winter

Brook babbles the blues
beneath thin ice; willow branch
brushes the earth’s drum.

Stood still aside the beech tree;
never been here before-
chilled brown leaves twirl.

Feet shuffle across ice patches,
down cold mud slopes.
Still, but still moving.

II. Spring

Stones raised up
through the mud by ice;
welcomed traction, warm to feel the earth.

Snow melts, curled ferns exposed,
swollen buds on red maples-
slow striptease of Spring.

Stood still aside the beech tree;
never been here before-
new breeze and bees.

III. Summer

Early summer, oft-walked trail;
never been here before-
new leaves on beech.

Stream drifts in the key of C,
as reeds on the bank
sway in harmony.

The beech tree seldom
is stuck by lightning;
shelter in a summer storm.

IV. Autumn

Stood still aside the beech tree;
never been here before-
new chill, new clouds.

Off-trail in the woods;
condom on soft pine needles.
I hope it was love.

Red drips from purple sunset,
slips below earth’s surface,
leaves me dark blue.

~ Dan Erdman is Vice President, Director of Construction Lending Administration, at Truist Bank.

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