POEM: ARDEN ALWEN JONES

Arden-Alwen Jones

Arden Alwen Jones came upon his way

late in his fifty-seventh year that May.

Birds chirped and with bright flowers in field

Time came around to see what’s revealed.

“Arden-Alwen! Arden-Alwen! Come in for dinner!

Grandma’s made meatloaf and latecomers are sinners!

Tomorrow, we’ve church and our weekly confession.

(I’m sure you’ll remember last week’s omission.)

Say goodbye to your friends—their parents are calling.

Don’t drag your heels! Young man, quit stalling!

Wash your hands before dinner. And wipe those shoes.

Hang your coat up quick, there’s no time to lose!

Put away your glove, your ball and your bat.

Don’t fight with your sister! Just sit were you sat.

And if your homework’s all done—then some Fibber McGee.

Now come in and greet grandma, your father, and me.”

...

“Arden-Alwen! Arden-Alwen! Come pick your shame.

The cows are in the corn, calling your name.

Don’t sleep under haystacks—soon you’re a man!

Your schooling’s near finished. What is your plan?

Why, when I was a boy as the bard once wrote,

I was true to myself, to bend the quote.

But there’s no pie in the sky, no lunch that’s free.

It’s settle for you as it settled for me.

It’s the way of the world, lad, to choose what’s known.

Straying too far is like a horn that’s blown

against the wind or in a peal of thunder.

We do what we know, not what we wonder.

I know you’re sorry to be so confused;

it’ll all be over after you’re used.

So take my advice, be it plastics or rice,

the ball’s in your court. See you don’t slice.”

...

“Arden-Alwen! Arden-Alwen! Where can you be?

There’s pudding on the table and colour TV!

And after you’re done we must pad our nest.

There’s a bun in my oven—you know the rest:

Like that blue car with tail-fins, all shiny and new;

that house in the tract with its breath-taking view.

And mothers for tea and dads on the lawns

talking their politics and other great yawns.

And children in cribs, children on bikes,

girls baking cookies and boys making dikes

while watering flowerbeds with new plastic hoses,

getting in scrapes and wiping their noses

on muddy sleeves wet with water that’s held

by newly built dams where wild rivers once swelled.

With isotopes of progress and chemical sprays,

Arden Alwen, we live in the best of new days!

O let me smother you with kisses and love you all up!

My sweet thing! My rose! My ever-full cup!

Arden-Alden! Arden-Alden! Where can you be?

They’re fishing for sharks in the deep blue sea!”

I HAD A RATHER FRUSTRATING DAY TODAY. I wanted to work on a blog post entitled, “Rock and Hawk”, which is a poem by the American poet Robinson Jeffers, and about which I wrote an essay at university, back in the day. I wanted to get a feel for his poem and my essay, and also to read another essay about RJ written by John Michael Greer, and discuss it a bit. But…of course that entails doing a bit of work—and even thinking—so instead, I went into my nostalgia cage and culled this poem (that I do kinda like, actually).

I had the image of someone being 'talked at' all his life. I thought it would be interesting to have a poem in which everyone except the main character has a voice. The poem traces the life of Arden-Alwen from childhood to adulthood. I wasn’t being nostalgic in opening the poem with a post-WWII setting. I mentioned in June’s 20/18 post about how, after the war, there was a gradual loss of innocence, as the relief of having that horror end gave way to other (some more subtle, some not so subtle) horrors of the 50s, 60s and onward. I wanted to describe or suggest that innocence and its loss, and the resulting anxiety and fear, as seen through the eyes of one individual, Arden-Alwen.
 The first stanza sets the stage with the obligations of family placed upon the boy; nothing particularly extraordinary or burdensome, but I was amused to write the list of ‘do’s and don’ts with which little Arden-Alwen has to live.

The second stanza takes up with Arden-Alwen at an age where he is about to enter the working world in some manner. And yes, I was thinking of the movie, The Graduate, and the scene where young Benjamin is getting advice from a family friend on career choices about how “plastics” was the wave of the future, and how the plastics industry was where the new university graduate should make his mark. I thought of parents shaping their children into clones of themselves, perhaps unintentionally, and 'dragging them' out from under childhood's haystacks, dusting them off, and sending them on their way into a future that's been chosen for them.

Another theme in the poem is change. Change today is so stupidly rapid and we’ve come to assume that’s just the way it is. We feel, for example, the much touted “digital age” that has metastasized over the last two decades is the base line for our learning curve, and what came before (previous technologies, processes and practices, traditional political and social structures, etc.) is passé and yesterday’s news. My point, of course, is we should be cautious about what we discard along the way to our imagined future. There are some things we still may need. 
 Perhaps the changes we see about us are more superficial than we imagine, maybe more of a smoke screen disguising the reality underneath all the razzmatazz, a reality we may soon trip over and face-plant in if we’re not careful. 

I think there is a suggestion in the poem that some things being passed along from parents to their children shouldn't be passed along. The speaker who gives young  Arden-Alwen advice seems jaded and cynical. And he seems determined to ensure what happened to him will happen to his young charge. I thought it was interesting where the second stanza ends with a bit of a threat. (“See you don’t slice," suggesting the image of a knife.) And I’m sorry for the mixed sports metaphors!

The third stanza covers Arden-Alwen’s early married life. I did have images of late 1950s and early-60s in mind—times which were full of hope and change, as well as threat and challenge. The image of little boys with new plastic hoses watering flowerbeds and daydreaming about raging rivers in the mud of their gardens is a memory of my own. I daydreamed away gallons of water carving the mud of the bushes and shrubs in front of our house. I probably washed away everything except the nutrient-poor, so-called ‘soil’ around their root balls that's standard fare for newly built suburbs, then and now.

I like the juxtaposition of the children’s activities with the adults, and that they all seem to be caught in a way of life that for the most part is devoid of living. That's why, at the poem’s end, our erst-while hero seems to be missing. Where, oh where can he be? Unlike Waldo, I don’t think you’ll find him in the picture anymore.

Cheers, Jake.