A Deep River Year
June 18  2014

For the first time in over sixty years, a graduation took place on the stage of our old Town Hall Auditorium.    The last previous crop of high school graduates who scrawled their signatures on the wall backstage  are mostly gone,  and these 54 sixth-graders still have a while to go before they march to Pomp and Circumstance to get their high school diplomas.    But last night's was a signal moment nonetheless.   Under the grand chandelier above them, wistful parents and grandparents leaned forward in their seats to watch their bright-eyed, suddenly grown-up looking young men and women march across the stage to receive their "certificates of promotion" to Middle School. 

One of them was my perfect twelve-year-old granddaughter.    There will be other rites of passage throughout her life, as there have been for most of us.   She will fixate over her outfit and peer out at a gathered audience to catch the eye of someone who loves her.   I know that most of the time, that person she looks for will be someone other than me.    Still, I hope to be there to add my applause and cheers, and sometimes my prayers, as she steps out to graduate, or perform in a concert or play, or get married, or deliver a speech, or have a baby.  And I hope I will be there, too, at some of those passages that happen quietly, unnoticed by the rest of the world.

These occasions allow us stop and remember how quickly it goes--this life.   We recall our own passages:   the day my voice cracked for the first time in Bill Coolidge's basement;  an unexpected kiss from sweet Norma on a science field trip;  riding down a country road in my first, oil-burning, car;  watching my grandmother slowly die.    And then I remember this:   Once, in 7th grade, we were asked to write something about an animal.   Most of the kids wrote about cats and dogs.  I wrote a poem about lemmings.   The teacher gave me a zero, because she didn't think it was possible that a 7th grade could come up with something that original.   I felt the sudden turning of the world, the road that veers into the heart of darkness. People hurt us, disbelieve in us.   We feel betrayed.  Pomp and Circumstance helps me come out of it again.

Pomp and Circumstance
 
Who is there watching

as we make such a crossing?
Not just the walk across the stage,
the hand stretched out to ours
in salute, or pride, or sympathy.
But the steps we take
into what we cannot know.
Who is there
who knows the price  we have paid for this,
who has seen us through
the tender losses
and dares to tell us that there is
some goodness yet to come?
And if we make some passage today or tomorrow,
if we leave a part of ourselves behind
as we seek a new place to be,
will someone be there
to give us a day of roses to remember?
Will there be a rustling in honeysuckle so sweet
that the world will stop and smile?
Will there be a kiss on the cheek, salted with tears?
And when we make the last of our crossings,
who will be there watching?
At the last, will there be someone
to call out our name,
leaving an echo of joy to linger in the air?

--Timothy Haut, June 18,  2014