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The Sixty Seven Percent Solution to the Problem On a Sunday in early April – If you wind your way down to Whale Tail Pond You would smell the wood smoke from the sugar shack; It would fill your head with the sweet redolence of boiling sap; You could watch the viscous brown syrup run steaming hot as it Is drawn off into stainless steel pails; cringe as the dogs lick the drippings Off the cool concrete floor Don would tell you the whole story while his aching uncle Archie Refills the furnace with the chainsaw’s harvest, the fuel for the furnace That allows them to boil down four hundred gallons of sweet water Into the liquid gold that graces your waffles and pancakes Into the syrup that defies logic, into the subtle blessed sweetness For a cold winter morning Mary will walk you through the storeroom under the garage Where the soldiers stand empty waiting their orders: Quarts, pints, half-pints, decorator-gift-bottles with a fancy handle, The choice of the name, the design of the label, the wind in the air, How son Peter tarred an early pan when she forced him to vacuum His room while on his watch You’d smile as the leaks in the filter drop the gooey warm sweetness Into the waiting dogs’ mouths, and “ooh” and “aah” as Don hands you The day’s first product in a medicine cup you hold like a chalice From which you pour the bold golden wine onto your tongue And taste the sun, feel the warmth of the oak-log fire in your mouth, Pay homage to the maple If you wind your way down from the fence at the fork in the road You could smell a New England of four hundred years past as settlers Borrowed the knowledge the natives had given up with their land Feel the flow of time, of sap, of men and women who every spring Make a pilgrimage into the woods with taps and bags to gather The nectar of the maple-gods Or you could go to the store and buy a bottle of Aunt Jemima with the butter Already mixed in and save yourself the hassle of driving all the way Out there into the woods, down the soft gravel road from the police station To the end of the road deep in the midst of the sugar bush with its Blue tubing running tree to tree like telephone lines that you know, when You see them standing tall, Took them hours of hard work, a labor of love; you’d sense the logic And planning required to be prepared to collect, store, boil down; You’d see the concentration gradient in the boiling liquid, You’d hear the roar of the fire, feel the humidity in the shack As the forty-to-one reduction roils and boils beneath the shiny Stainless steel hoods Feel the cold northwest wind whip in through the big sliding door As Archie brings in another red wheelbarrow full of cord-wood, The heat when he opens the doors to the furnace lined with The heat-tolerant bricks from the kiln in Shakopee, perhaps You’d take a knee as Don showed you where the syrup’s Hot journey ends And say a small prayer to your god as the sap in the tank is slowly Delivered into the oven where a gallon a minute – the fire’s not Too hot today – is boiled away, the wind pulling the steam from The window in the cupola designed specifically to allow the Venturi Effect to cleanse the room of its steamy head, in which you revel As the sun shines overhead … if the plate runs with sweet maple syrup something is right in the world today for a moment it all seems to be okay for a moment you forget hunger and war for a moment you forget hate, violence, even manners - and clean your plate with your tongue |
This Poem was Critiqued By: Erzahl Leo M. Espino On Date: 2004-04-28 21:51:22
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.05000
Hi Thomas,
Another fascinating story to tell!
“The Sixty Seven Percent Solution To The Problem”
– The title itself is already a storyteller! This ear-catching title sure brings headlines to us who are looking for poems to critique. I can’t help not to be attracted by the title. This is very interesting and clever! Makes one to ponder, “what’s the story behind?”
Your poem here summarized your experience with war, with business, with “syrup” making, with the word “hardwork” which you perfectly define as “a labor of love”, with extraordinary family, and many more of life to reflect in…
You have introduced us with such extraordinary family…”Don”, “Uncle Archie”, “Mary” but the most famous “Aunt Jemima” is whose I’m familiar with…:)
“if the plate runs with sweet maple syrup
something is right in the world today
for a moment it all seems to be okay
for a moment you forget hunger and war
for a moment you forget hate, violence, even manners -
and clean your plate with your tongue”
--- Putting a “…” before this stanza is a clever move. It pauses us to focus on the real message of this piece. And such striking words and lines that leave this reader in awe. Yes, we are always living in the “moment”…and to live that “moment” with the syrup is what a moment you captured. How could I expand for you already completed that “moment”. To associate that “sweet maple syrup” as that perfect moment is so clever! This delirious experience of forgetting “hunger and war”, “hate, violence and even manners” is truly an intelligent writing. Ending it with this line “and clean your plate with your tongue” is just perfect! Playful but deep!
In summary, it says how we should cherish every moment that is a blessing. Savor that “moment” for it might not happened again and count it as a "blessing". As what you always said, “Cherish it ee. It don't last forever.”
Thanks for another splendid performance!
As always,
Erzahl :)
P.S. Just curious, why “The Sixty Seven Percent Solution To The Problem”? Is the remaining 33% the “vinyl 33 on the spindle” from your other poem “Talking About It with My Dad”? :)