New Harmony, Disrupted

New Harmony is located in the southern most part of Indiana on the Wabash River. It is a town that was originated by two utopian societies, the New Harmonists and the Owenists. To be brief, an understatement, the Harmonist was your typical Puritan-like sect, in my mind, who were bought out, perhaps in more ways than one, by secular humanists and suffragists, among others.
Today, the retreat town bears the fruit of both heritages.

The town radiates a kind of justice to the eye in its beauty. Everywhere one looks there is either a piece of sculpture, a beautiful quote to read, a sanctuary garden, a fountain, or a bench to sit on. Not to mention the town's period buildings, such as the Granary; or the Roofless Church, the Labyrinths, the Workmen's Institute and the modern architectural prize, the Antheneum. And yet there is something "Steppherd Wivesy" about the place. There are only 700 or so denizens, who get around in gold carts, and wave and smile like the inhabitants of the village in the 1960s TV series The Prisoner.

Some of the writer's wondered where all the children were. The absence of laughter or the sound of dogs, made it seem as all the boys and girls and pets were secreted away, only allowed out at night. After poking around, I did locate a child friendly street. I walked to the very southernmost block in the town, before the cornrows begin. In a town the size of New Harmony, it isn't hard to do. However, I did notice the gardens in the front yards were not so nearly as meticulous as in the blocks before. Three bikes were tossed carelessly on the ground in front of a trailer house. Furthermore, two middle school boys, one pudgy specimen with a falsetto voice, walked up the street towards me. Obvious nerds, I longed to join in their smart sounding conversation that belied their John Deer hats and wife beater t-shirts (don't blame me for the sobriquet). Continuing up the street, one young girl about 11 in a flurry of pink shorts passed me. As I turned to head back to the Red Geranium for supper with several adults, I spied a blue, plastic, swimming pool with fishes on the side, tucked reassuringly on the lawn of a backyard.

The interesting thing about the workshop--it seemed to be a proving ground for student writers to fawn on established luminaries. Children after all. (Perhaps a misplaced modifier.) Even so, three different young people said to me that I reminded them of their mothers. I remain deeply touched. One lent me three of his own poetry books for three years. I am not kidding about the three's. Inside one of the books was a typed, but personal letter of encouraging words. No one has ever favored me in this way. Again, I felt moved.

Ironically, I left the retreat a day and a half early. My own daughter needed me. And as always there is so much more to tell.

Sharp

by Amy K. Genova

Thirteen hawks fly
with their hawk hearts
over the crepuscular river
where dormouse is all
breast & shivers like
Mahler’s woodwinds

Their hawk eyes say much
while ragweed rags
& maples hum—
the dormouse should
be feldspar
should be wings

should be civility

But dormouse is dormouse
and hawks are hawks
all eye & muscle,
with hearts in their beaks

Even if there were pencils
and thirteen hawks idled
over musical arguments
or notes of clouds,
dormice are syllables

& hawks have so much to sing

Some Soldiers Are Heroes (Inspired by Jack Gilbert's "The Abnormal Is Not Courage"

Amy K. Genova

The boys roll out to Iraq. Most anxious, ready to get it over.
They wear their dress uniforms and white gloves to church,
inspire awe, admiration, and say goodbye. Little girls in pink
Sunday dresses and patent leather shoes, cross their hearts
and promise to grow-up by the time they come home. Old
women with the same helmets of hair commit to memory
grandsons' faces with their worn fingers. Veterans of all the
antecedent wars sit in pews, uniformly silent, wearing
the same invisible hats. The boys’ beauty stuns, like
March roses with imprudent blossoms. Blooms to pour
from planes in Baghdad’s bunkered streets. Red against
black. Say they are not heroes. Say they are falling stars.
Soldiers weep. Soldiers laugh. Some are heroes, some are
cowards, and others simply die under the white sky. Heroism
is not enlisting or the number of kills from Audie Murphy’s
gun. Heroism in not a Hiroshima bomb, that swaps a million
deaths for a million lives. Heroism resides in individuals, but
rarely nations. Heroism is the genius of saving lives, without
spilling blood. Heroism lies between the skinny ribs of doctors,
diplomats, teachers, mothers, and wise young girls who know
death, yet fast for others. Sip watery tea, instead of gorging on
the ends of soldier boys.