Blog Prompt #6: In the Glories of the Heights

The experience of emotion is always the most powerful when the experience is new, unfamiliar, gloriously original. The place that has most recently evoked a strong sense of emotion from me is Chimney Rocks. The rocks are geological feature on the ridge overlooking Hollidaysburg from the south, the limestone pillars provide a broad view of the town and the countryside. Historically, or perhaps prehistorically, it has functioned as an observation point for Indians and a place for council meetings.

Chimney Rocks is a towering, intimidating, and awe-inspiring part of central Pennsylvania’s landscape. To get to the top of the lookout you have to trek up the steep incline of a path on the back of the hillside equipped with rest areas, handrails, and a water fountain. This not to say that this climb is to be compared to a hike that many mountaineers would make with hesitation (the actual trail to the top only lakes 20 minutes), but for me, it was an experience unlike one I had ever had.

The context for this statement is found in my somewhat crazy medical history. Without getting into an excessive amount of details, I lived the last 12 years of my life with a certain physical limitations.  When I was 13 years old I had open heart surgery; as a result of the surgery scar tissue formed where my heart valves had either been replaced or moved. When my brain sent the electronic signals to my heart (in order for it to beat) some of the electrons would have to pass over the scar tissue, thus arriving at my heart different times. This caused me to develop arrhythmia (and irregularity in the rhythm of my heartbeat). As a consequence my resting heart for the past 10 years was over 140bpm, double the typical rate for a male my age. Because my heart rate was so high, if I so much as walked up more than 1 flight of stairs I would be forced to sit down or pass out. I never really had the opportunity to work long enough to sweat because my heart rate would so quickly climb above 200bpm. In the simplest of terms, there were certain things, activities, or place that I just could not do or go.

 

This July I went through a procedure called a cardio ablation, where they literally burnt off the scar tissue that inhibited a regular rhythm and restarted my heart. I am so happy to say that today my heart beats in a regular rhythm and I am afforded the ability to run, jump, and climb to the views and heights that nature has to offer. This is a draft of a poem to the experience and my emotions toward climbing Chimney Rocks for the first time.

In the Glories of the Heights

My heartbeat has kept me

from all the glories nature’s heights hold.

Kept me from the cliffs,

the jumps and the echoes that scream

down from the ridge, and the tops

of the tallest trees,

 tops too high for me to climb.

Before my surgery I could not

scale more than a flight of stairs

without my head revolving, my heart

banging against the walls of my skull,

Slow down! Slow down! Slow down!

But today—today I march this mountain,

stand at the crown of Chimney rocks, and plant

my feet firmly atop these limestone pillars.

Today, I walk above Hollidaysburg barefooted,

tipping and toeing from bell tower, to steeple, to courthouse.

Landing quietly, the most vulnerable arches of my feet

trusting your pointed tops.

From these rocks, this cliff, I throw my arms

wide and open, I embrace you, town,

hold you close to my chest.

Feel my heart beat, beautifully even against your belly.

Here, at this lookout I can jazz the clouds,

sing the sun, surf the blue of a sky I can finally live in,

smiling at the ants and angels,

all below me today.

Place Entry #6: The Poet and the Gardener

Today in the cemetery it is warm, sixty-six degrees in the sun. All of my apprehension toward the manifestation of spring dissipates in the balmy, bright sun. In just five minutes I have seen more people in the cemetery today than I have all winter, seven. It is nice to have some “human” company in this place, company outside of the frozen shells underground.

There is an older gentleman working in a flowerbed maybe fifty feet away from me. I am not sure what kind of work you can do in a flower bed in the middle of March? But then again, I am wearing a pair of shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt in the middle of March, so who am I to judge?  It’s funny how the warmth of today (or the first noticeable changes we see in any situation) leads us to great acts of over-anticipation.

The male gardener is on his knees, trading the blue of his jeans for the pale color of worn denim. With his hands he moves stoned blocks into attractive and consistent curves and bends, making an arena for the jungles of April. I start to think about the “institution” of flowerbeds. This is going to sound presumptuous (and please know that I do admire a well crafted flowerbed), but aren’t flowerbeds a conceited things? Ultimately they are (even if in a small and “harmless way) an act of human command over nature. Flowerbeds are realistic manifestations/actions of control and preference. They are another opportunity for us to decide what in nature works best together, where, and how they should be arraigned/contained.

As I am watching the gardener, and all of these thoughts of “human oppression” are flooding my brain I am aware that I may be taking this a little too far. I pinch myself, and any sense of anger or tension towards flowerbeds quickly leaves me. But I am still intrigued by the cultivation, design, and materialization of “natural” flowers that are “managed” in these manmade flowerbeds.

Specifically, I am engaged by this man, the old gardener working with his hands on this flowerbed in the cemetery. I wonder how many late winters and early springs he has done this (garden)? And even more specifically, how many years he has tended this flowerbed? I like to think that he has lived with this flowerbed since his twenties, since he was a young man, since he was my age. Did he sit in the cemetery in the early warmth of March and smile at the promise that this plot had? Did he find a new promise in the dirt every spring? Like a poem, the beautiful thing about a flowerbed is that it is always open to revision if you are willing to stick with it. With every April the gardener has the chance to tweak, develop, and color the flowerbed.

I have become endeared to this man. I have been starring at him for quite some time now. Sitting back on his heels he uses his forearm to wipe off his brow. He turns and looks back at me (still starring and wielding a pen and journal). I hesitate, feeling like I just got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I make an awkward gripping face with my lips and jitter my right hand in a waving motion toward him. It is too late for him to see, he turned back to his work. That’s okay though, I still feel like a bond has been formed between us; the poet and the gardener, the artists of the cemetery.

Place Entry #5: Looking for Spring on the 1st Day of March

I brought some of my peer’s poems from workshop with me to the cemetery today. It is not cold, so I am in no rush. The chilling gray of January and February this winter has worn on me. The early darkness and the semester’s workload has throw me into a bit of seasonal depression (something that I’m not sure I have experienced before). When friends from home and family have called over the past few months, they always ask the same question, “How are you doing Cory?” I have found that I have a standard answer, “I’m okay. Just get me to March.” Well, March is here, and today the skies are blue (for the 3^rd time since November) and the sun feels as warm as June.

I throw my bag on the ground and have a seat in my “go-to” spot in the cemetery. In reading a piece by my classmate Jess Server, I am stuck staring, circling, and muttering aloud the final sentence of the poem,

Out there/spring is imminent/and nothing is blooming.

I become even more aware of the physical sensations that I am feeling: the gentle warmth of a sun that keeps making my eyes blink in slow comfort, the songs of the birds that chorus as if they all have just returned today, and the fact that my toes still can move independently (even after 30 minutes).

Looking out from myself, I want to see more evidence of spring. However, there are no buds on the trees, no petals in the flower beds, and the grass is missing its green skin.

The dead patches of brown and tan grass outweigh the minority of the living blades. The rolling slopes of the cemetery remind me of a sepia photograph today. The grass is overwhelmingly short, like a militaryesque buzz cut, and feels coarse against the palms of my hands. If I had some soap and water I would clean my dishes with it.

I breathe in deeply, wanting to smell lilacs. The smell of their candied purple perfume always informs me that spring is official and that summer is not far behind (usually in the first week of May). I cannot smell them; instead I smell a “warm day” in winter. Temperate March air smells like: a wet t-shirt, stale November apple cider, and soggy saltines in chicken noodle soup.

I understand that there are still 21 days left of winter, but damn if my expectations are not aroused by this day. What a vicious temptress March can be. We are told that patience is a virtue, but I have no want for it. And even if I did, waiting for spring is not an act of patience; it is an act of no choice. I know that spring is imminent, but that will not help me tomorrow when it drops back to the thirties. Inevitably today is just a tease but it is still sublime. I smile in this moment.

Blog Prompt #5: The Hill is Starving

Pittsburgh’s Hill District is one of the most notable neighborhoods in the city. Unfortunately today the Hill’s reputation is far from the thriving cultural hotspot that it was in the past. In the early to mid 20^th century Wylie Ave and the Hill as a whole, was thriving African American community that could rival Harlem. It was a community full of bodegas, jazz clubs, movie theaters, and social clubs. In the 1960’s after the Martin Luther King riots and the demolition of over 12 city blocks the Hill began to lose itself and the environment began to transform. The bulldozers took over 400 businesses and displaced over 8,000 members of the community.

Today the Hill is most known for the environment it lacks. It is not defined by what it has but the simple attributes that are missing. Aside from the music and cultural relevance, the environment has lost its social sense of community. It is hard to imagine that in an area that holds of 17,000 residents there is not a single grocery or market (which the Hill has lacked for over 30 years) or even a drugstore.

Yesterday I went to the Hill for the first time. I would be lying if I said I had zero concerns or apprehensions about doing this. Being a 25 year old “outsider” (who just happens to be a 5’8, 140lb white man), I was told by a friend, “Don’t really expect to be welcomed. They all know each other up there, and well, yeah. They don’t know you.” I appreciated my friends warning, but I reminded myself that it was: first, noon on a very sunny Wednesday, and secondly, I was not inside of a Scorsese. I figured I would be fine.

I stood on Wylie Ave and pictured the hustle and bustle that famed “son of Hill” August Wilson depicted. I did not find what Wilson described (I knew I wouldn’t), but I also didn’t find an atmosphere that didn’t necessarily want me there (which I thought I would). In the neighborhood, I primarily felt a level of indifference. I parked my car and walked down the street. Aside from maybe the two cars that past by (the divers of both vehicles seemingly in the act of texting), I don’t think anyone even noticed I had come to see the reputed area.

 

The Hill District now acts as primarily a boarding house or extremely large dormitory. With over 40% of its residents living below the poverty line, and 9% unemployed, the people of the Hill have become as dilapidated as the condemned buildings. We like to believe the old adage, that it is what is on the inside of the soul that will be reflected on out. However, in regards to the Hill, there have been outside forces pressing against and tearing down the neighborhood for decade. Now, the Hill is a malnourished frame of a soul that seems to be beyond salvation. I am sorry to say this, but the Hill is a place where people simply sleep