A Walk in the Woods

efore the school bus lodged on Rockingham, panting,grumbling like the woman in the store last night who neededreal junket, Like what you get from a kosher deli. She mincednot a word about her kids demanding puddingthen wheeled backto cathect to Bird’s Custard, closer in colors to whatshe had on anyway than to the quinceof my footstool. Did Mother say disgusting?FOR YELLOW DRAB: Take three quarters of a pound of fustick,two ounces madder, two ounces logwood, boil well; add one quarterpound of alum, run your cloth one hour; sadden with two ouncescopperas and handle till your colour pleases.That not my color nor the footstool’swill ever please Mother, no madder how much handling,could sadden me but I’ve dropped the momentthrough the attic stairsnear where the twelve-foot light chainmy kid hung last time he visited dangles.Bemiss.Somecompanion he turned out to be. A manwho could promise Good CiderEasily Made as Bad never had kids. But. My sunhas returned with crushed, soaked weeds andflowerheads more brown than fulvous yellow.I don’t knowwhat else I can ask from this life.© Susan Holahan. First published in the High Plains LiteraryReview. From Sister Betty Reads the Whole You.W . D . E H R H A R T ’ 7 3W.D. Ehrhart is the author of seven books of poetry, the mostrecent of which is Beautiful Wreckage: New & Selected Poems(Adastra Press, 1999) as well as six books of prose essays and memoirs.His poems have been widely published in American PoetryReview, The Christian Science Monitor, Poetry International, Poet Lore,Long Shot, Poetry Wales, and many others.He has edited or co-edited fourbooks of poetry about the Vietnamand Korean wars. A U.S. Marine Corps Vietnamveteran, he has worked as a merchant seaman, laborer, journalist,and teacher; visiting professor of war and social consequences atthe University of Massachusetts–Boston; and writer-in-residencefor the YMCA’s National Writer’s Voice Project. The recipient of aPew Fellowship in poetry and grants in both poetry and prose fromJEFF HURWITZWATERGATEFULVOUSYELLOWthe Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, he is currently a research fellowin American Studies for the University of Wales–Swansea andlives in Philadelphia with his wife, Anne, and daughter Leela. Whilemaintaining his research fellowship and a busy speaking schedule,this spring, he's also teaching high school English at the HaverfordSchool.O n t h e E v e o f D e s t r u c t i o nThe weekend Watts went up in flames,we drove from Fullerton to Newport Beachand down the coast as far as Oceanside,four restless teenaged boys three thousand milesfrom home, Bob Dylan’s rolling stonesin search of waves and girls and anyonewho’d buy us beer or point us toward the fun.California. What a high. The Beach Boys,freeways twelve lanes wide, palm trees everywhere.And all the girls were blonde and wore bikinis.I’d swear to that, and even if it wasn’t true,who cared? A smalltown kid from Perkasie,I spent that whole long summer with my eyeswide open and the world unfoldinglike an open road, the toll booths closed,service stations giving gas away.What did riots in a Negro ghettohave to do with me? What could causesuch savage rage? I didn’t knowand didn’t think about it much.The Eve of Destruction was just a song.Surf was up at Pendleton. The war in Vietnamwas still a sideshow half a world away,a world that hadn’t heard of Ia Drang or Tet,James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, Black Panthers,Spiro Agnew, Sandy Scheuer, Watergate.We rode the waves ’til two MPswith rifles chased us off the beach:military land. “Fuck you!” we shoutedas we roared up Highway One, windows open,surfboards sticking out in three directions,thinking it was all just laughs, just kicks,just a way to kill another weekend,thinking we could pull this off forever.© W.D. EhrhartFREEWAYSM A R C H 2 0 0 113