dps.

i'm going to divulge a secret that perhaps my friends from high school will resent me for exposing. i and my closest friends from high school, were once the makings of our own chapter of the Dead Poets Society. we met weekly beneath Creekside road where Aliso Creek runs through the cement drains below El Toro. we made our little home in those drains where we could sit in the darkness and hear our own voices ring back at us as we read our favorite poetry to one another through the heavy acoustics the tunnels provided. there were five of us: quivering possum, wise fish, flirtatious macaw, awkward squirrel, and oblivious seagull. we were also known as (in respective order) professor autobahnsnitchelvonkrikendisheikmeier, wanda woman, neya the nasty, beaver girl, and the riddle thief. i leave it to you to see if you can figure out which of each i was. we were pretty serious about this. we had a logo and stationery and even books to collect our poems and notes in (right. i never said we were cool). and at the end of each meeting, we would sing (if we could get through it without laughing) what remains to be one of my very favorite poems by Robert Frost. it was, to us, the anthem of exactly what we existed to be - the uninviting thrush. i was thinking of it today and it brought back fond memories of half-sliding/half-falling down the steep grade to the tunnel, stepping over slimy stones knowing we would fall into the creek at any moment, and making our clumsy way to that silly tunnel where we would freeze our asses off and worry about flash floods as we pretended to listen to whoever was reading their poem at the moment. some of those poems were really stupid, but this one is worth noting. good poetry will make you feel every movement of emotion it intends. this one does just that, even after all this time.

Come In
-Robert Frost-

As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music -- hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.

Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.

The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.

Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went --
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.

But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.