I Miss Bill Kloefkorn

You know who I could use right about now? Nebraska's State Poet (and Grandpa) William (Bill) Kloefkorn. I was reading through the old interviews I did with Bill shortly before he passed, and was once again taken with his patient wisdom. I miss Bill!

I remember at one of his last readings, he read a poem which triggered the one below. I'll have to go through his books and see if I can't find it. But, you know, wanting Bill back would come with a price: one of the kindest men this world has ever seen would have had to live through this Trump thing we have going on, and that may have broken his heart.

For more on Bill Kloefkorn, poet, teacher, woodworker and Gentleman Husband, visit your local backyard with someone you love. Bring a cold tea. For a humble attempt at copying one of the greatest lyrical voices American Poetics has ever heard, read on.

It’s Quite Calm Under This Log

                        or

                 Mushrooms

 – for Bill K

Its gills are unassuming and do not

apologize for their fanlike advance. 

Whatever you have in your

head right now?  Not the mushroom’s fault.

The Portabella wasn’t there when it happened, it didn’t

see the result.  Maitake is not the chained dog’s

slobbering bite, or the yellowjacket’s

sharp sting.  It is not your father.  The mushroom

didn’t make you late for class,

or for your menses.  The Oyster didn’t

forget to turn on the dish washer, or throw

the clothes in the dryer.  Look at this one.

It looks like a discus, thrown by mighty Zeus

at the rotting crotch of an old oak.  It is not

your unwashed hubcap, it is not the DVD

sticking half out of your laptop computer’s “F” drive. 

In fact, it has no idea what a computer is, and could not

afford one if it did.  The morel can’t quote Aristotle

from its low vantage to the moon’s reflected sunlight.

Not even On Generation and Corruption,

the part no person knows

but, presumably, the part every mushroom should.

The Veiled Lady was not admitted to Brown.  No one took

its calls at Ball State.  It could not clear

the strict background check to gain admittance

to the FBI.  The puffball, while entertaining,

has never even seen Springer and has no chance

of winning the lottery.  It would have sat silent

during the age of Whites Only; it is Mushroom

non Grata.  It will, if poked, not presume it is

being picked on.  The puffball will not picket

the upcoming Presidential election.  The Enoki

is not a Red mushroom and it does not, strictly speaking,

care if it is in China at all.  It wasn’t present in Tienanmen

Square.  Mushrooms bore silent witness to Berlin’s

conjoining.  Mushrooms were nestled in the veins of the Cross,

and were in stasis when Washington crossed the Delaware.

They will mock our histories through consumption,

will not capitulate when we do, blinking under bright pink

atomic skies.