Oddfellows Passage – Second Chapter

This is the second chapter of the first true epic poem that I wrote, Oddfellows Passage: A Maritime Tale. I mentioned that I’m starting work on a children’s novel, and that’s partly true, in the sense that I meant for it to be a children’s novel when I started, but my penchant for flowery prose and fancy words will make it a tough task for most kids to understand the fullness of. My hope is that it can capture what novels like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Richard Adams’ Watership Down were able to capture—that being the imagination of both younger and older readers. But I’ve got a long way to go with that yet, so to the backburner I’ll push that for now.

A year after I finished this poem, Oddfellows, and before I started working on what I’m writing now, I wrote a trilogy of narrative poems which follow the adventures of Mary and Norman Woodchuck, husband and wife groundhogs who, much in the way that Bilbo Baggins was dragged from the comfort of his hobbit hole into a world of intrigue, are taken from the ordinary to the extraordinary. These aren’t published yet, but that’s the next thing in the pipeline now that my first book is published. So, just something to keep an eye out for!

This is the second chapter of Oddfellows Passage, as I mentioned. If you read the first, you likely noticed that every line rhymes with another and that some lines play around with internal rhymes. If you didn’t read the first, well what are you doing with your life? Go back and read it! I’m too lazy to try and understand the complexities of things like meter and poetic feet, so I just try and emulate what I hear in the rhythm of other poets. If you read Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, you should notice the similarity in the cadences right off the bat. I should also mention that I love the challenge of rhyming things! It seems like the modern style of poetry in part plays a lot with free verse, but an interesting aspect of rhymes, I find, is that in order to make a rhyme truly work I sometimes have to pivot the entire direction of the story! And I love that, because I find myself not knowing how I arrived where I did, but somehow it works itself out to be interesting (at least I hope).

But I’ll stop babbling for now and leave you with the second chapter of Oddfellows Passage. I hope you love it, and that the tradition of epic poetry can be brought back to life! Things have a way of coming back around, I think…

Open Ocean

Spirits were high on the day we struck out, 

Our maritime band-on-the-float.

We knew not despair and we hadn’t a doubt 

That our challenge would soon have been smote.

The hare played a tune on a sunny day-two,

And we all laughed and sang arm-in-arm.

The crow’s nest was manned by the hawk, then, in lieu

Of her nestmate; a ready alarm.

The third-day brought clouds and a choppier surf

As the squirrel and I charted our course. 

It seemed I neglected to realize the turf 

Which we searched for was lost to our source.

A heart-rending dirge could be heard from the hare

By the tenth-day we traveled along. 

The hawk and the man (hawk) were quoting Voltaire

And his words about men led like pawns.

I discovered the squirrel standing near to the bow

And remarked with my heart in my hand,

“Begging forgiveness, my dear, I allowed 

For our trip to start sans any plan.

“Excitement can steal me at times, it’s a curse

For which I can’t likely atone.

This crew, by your rights, would not be so adverse

As to have me right overboard thrown.”

The squirrel, to her credit, did not seek to fashion

A plank for my feet to traverse.

Her tail didn’t wag and she spoke in compassion

With words which my blues would disperse.

“Oh captain, my captain, step back from the ledge

And remember your seafaring prowess.

It isn’t as if we’ve the whole deep to dredge.

We can help you, if you will allow us.”

Tears welled in my eyes which I couldn’t disguise

(Though an onion, I claimed, was at fault).

Then my ears caught a crumb of a string being strummed

And the tears which remained sprang their vault.

The jackalope sang in a voice clear as crystal,

“A day is a day is a day.

She passes, you see, for she knows her dismissal 

Is fixed when her hour gives way.”

I sat for a second, cross-legged, and listened 

To magic, recalling it best. 

The melody wove with the wood then and christened 

Our ship, thereby known as ‘The Blessed.’

“Hawk!” I called out, as I rose from a trance,

(For we didn’t have regular names)

“Could you lend me your mightiest ‘caw’ to advance 

As in spirit our plucky campaign?”

Two sets of eyes turned, with fire-for-pupils

And steel-coated strength of resolve.

I flung o’er the side of the ship any scruples

Our problem this group couldn’t solve.

Switching to something decidedly stirring,

The hare set a pace to delight

The crew while the “two” hawks then joined in, concurring

Our journey success would invite.

As darkness descended, by candle lit cabin

We five sat and set to the task.

I asked of the squirrel, “Did your granduncle happen

To mention the questions he asked? 

“What I mean to say is, if he heard of this story

From family close to the truth

Of wherefore the grove could be found, then the more he

Discovered, the more we can sleuth.”

“I recall,” said the squirrel, “there was something important

Regarding the bitter war’s end.

A hero emerged from the two sides discordant

With papers of treaty he penned.

“I reckon the chance that those papers remain

Is the best hope we have at this juncture:

In any case, odds are they still might contain

Information this puzzle can puncture.”

“Have you concept or inkling pertaining to where

We could find these, which still stand as lost?”

This question was posed by the yawn-stifling hare

Who to sleep’s welcome, almost had crossed.

“You raise a good point,” I said. “Albeit this at least 

Gives us a lead of a kind. 

Everyone knows that old papers released

To the public’s domain are enshrined.”

“The Isle of Archives!” the man said (in hawk)

Which the hawk rendered back into words. 

“Exactly,” I said, “if they’ve outpaced the clock

Then that’s likely where they were transferred.”

This crumb of a shot so a thrum then begot

In the crew this quest might still have legs. 

Hope pierced the room like a tightrope through gloom 

Which had crept to supplant with its dregs. 

“Our line, then, is plotted,” I said in relief,

“So to rest is my chiefest request:

A trip to the archives is naught to be brief, 

So my seaworthy senses confess.”

We all stumbled groggily, making our way back

To beds which could well-pass for clouds.

Except for the hare who, asleep in his chair,

I lent slack and to stay I allowed.

Before I was taken by dream’s consultation 

A thought sowed a seed which gave root

To doubt which would sprout in the form of alarm

That this all was a foolish pursuit.