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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.
The Sounds of Childhood
~ Tom Medland
When you were just a tiny
little bean in your mama's
belly, you heard words all
around you, bathing you in
their nourishment. Covering
you with the sounds you would
learn to feel on the outside of
that first nest you owned.
Tones that were your papa,
your mama, all your grands,
and the long line of your family
encircled you outside that womb;
encircled you on this earth-place.
The thrum of their timbre and
the silence of their rests found
their way into you; a comfort from
them that love you deeply. An
alarm to avoid them who do not.
There were sounds beckoning
you to meals or to grab your red
galoshes on your way out the door.
Sounds that made you giggle and
a few that made you cringe.
Sounds from people and still
more sounds from the far off spaces
of the whole, big, wide world.
Carefully sounded-out sounds were
seriously-shaped for you. They
were given you by people who
knew children grow sweetly and
tenderly from being read books –
lots and lots of books.
The sounds from the books told
you all about honey, and the Hundred
Acre Wood. About Peter Cottontail
and his tiny little jacket. About
Heffalumps and Mr. McGregor.
About the sun, and the moon, and the
silver spoon, and about things that
go bump in the night. About a
young girl that steals a view of life
in a cottage of three bears. And, about
pigs that built their own houses.
The words are rich, and the sounds
are many. But the thing that keeps
them strung so near your heart,
are the people who have loved you
and have held you so closely.
The ones who have helped you to
grow sweetly and tenderly with tales
and wanderings of the bunnies and
bears, of the gardens and honey, of
the pigs and full-moons.
Sleep tight, little one. The best is yet
to be. You will see. You will see.
“It Comes of Late” or, “The Forbearance of Words”
~ Tom Medland
It comes of late
I find myself
turning words over
onto their sides
a whole lot more
than I have before.
Mostly to let their
meanings drip out
from their depths -
all their cadences and
timbres, their syncopations
and accents, all their
connotations and denotations
like honey rolling out
and onto all of the
surfaces of life. It’s
an even-tempered
forbearance and
serenity built on hope.
I’ll turn them again
sometimes
so their tops are
upside down like
ice cube trays in
the warming air
releasing all they
have left to give -
getting out every
last drop.
A life like this takes
some time to live. I
can only hope God is
big enough
to understand and
patient enough to
wait for my meanings
slowly to escape.
“Men as Trees Walking - About Sons that Have Grown and What Comes to Bear”
~ Tom Medland
I - Coaxing out the Soul
In the days
of summer listening,
and hearing what
is turning over
and over within
the stillness of
the soul -
the soul slowly
being coaxed from
out of its abode
in the great
hiding;
I heard these words,
laid out gently
next to each other
and a true sound
they did make. A
sound that became
a song.
A song about my
two boys;
boys who have crawled
themselves out of youth
and into manhood.
II - The Growing Down and Up
In the listening
and in the knowing
a small and simple
sound has echoed
in my days -
the sound of
their roots growing
in the dirt,
the sound of them
putting down more
and more into the
soil of their lives.
The trunk of their
selves, singular
in their risings. Their
space in the forest, one
each among the
many.
Today, this one learns
how to leave a job;
tomorrow he weds.
Today, that one learns
to prepare his own meals,
tomorrow he must set out.
All of the putting down of
our own roots that we have
done, comes to bear
in the way they too
shall draw nourishment
from the earth, from their
own separate place
on it - upon the place on
which they stand and from
which they stretch out to grow.
May they always
tap into springs
of fresh, cool droughts
of crystalline waters.
May they always
face into the sun
in the course of her
wanderings across
the sky.
May the wind
in the tops of
their branches and
in the tangle of
their leaves tickle
their souls and fill
them with the great
lullaby of wonder.
This day.
Now and
forever.
~ Thomas Johnson-Medland, Poet & Outdoorsman, has had over fifty articles and poems published across a variety of journals and magazines. He has also had twenty-six books published to date - fourteen of these are volumes of poetry. The most recent volumes RIVER BENDING: Poems of the Delaware River and Her Tributaries, and WAYFARING Stranger: Poems of the Nomad Soul published with Wipf and Stock Publishers. You can read more about Tom and his works at tomjohnsonmedland.com
More News from Boyertown
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- New Hanover Church Brings 325 Years of History to Life in Cemetery Tour To celebrate its 325th anniversary, a local church will host a Living History Cemetery Tour on September 27; stories of past community members will be brought to life.
