In case you haven’t heard, April is National Poetry Month. I’m no poet (see proof below), but at times over the last 75 years I’ve scribbled verses, usually on special occasions, to entertain myself and friends.

I’ve also found attempting to commit poetry to be therapeutic, particularly in coping with grief. The discipline of writing in even loose forms provides this prose writer with a distraction, and maybe a clarification.

Reading verse written years ago can be satisfying because of the memories it brings back. I’m sharing some from my years (1962-1964) as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Dessie, Ethiopia, the capital of Wollo and home of the province’s only high school. Dessie looked like a giant village, but the setting amid the mountains is gorgeous, as is most of Ethiopia.

This poem I wrote when I realized what had been exotic had become routine.

 

After One Year Abroad

When first you come you clearly see

The peaks and depths: the beauty, poverty,

Potential wealth amidst the casual filth.

Your eyes are wide, revealing thoughts you wish

To leave unknown. Reflections shine of hills

So steep and green they seem unreal, a dream.

The dots of goats and sheep and shepherd boys

Ascend just as they’ve done since time began.

You see the past as real; the present comes

And goes; the future fades from sight at times.

The city’s pride was built with skills unknown

Among the people gazing now in awe

Outside, and fearing what it is, and they

Are not. The time is ever. Centuries may pass

Between the vales and highland city’s streets.

The time is in the minds, the minds that try

To close the door—the door to now or to

The past. And so the sons regard the old

With scorn, and in return are viewed with shame.

The stranger looks and sees and yet is blind

Because she thinks of other lands and lives.

She moves about until she notes no more

The violent shades; her open eyes are closed

To much; she, too, is lost in time and place.

We lived at 8,000 feet under beautiful skies. Nights were cold, dark, and quiet. If we drove anywhere, we’d see packs of hyenas, their teeth gleaming in the headlights as they collected garbage, including dead donkeys.

One night I woke to the sound of insane laughter. I rarely heard that. Hyenas usually whooped rather than laughed.

 

The Hyena’s Howl

The hyena’s howl

Comes to a point;

Starting at an uncertain bass,

It travels up

The tenor scale,

Ending abruptly.

My town had electricity around the clock, for those who could afford it. Occasionally the power went off, which meant grading papers by candlelight. Frustrating, but I had fun writing this.

Lines by Candlelight

Candlelight is charming;

Candlelight is fine;

Candlelight’s disarming;

But I can’t see to rhyme.

Lamplight is a blessing

When other light is gone;

But writing is just messing

If I can’t see what’s done.

Edison is my hero,

A man of brain and might.

Why, I’ll bet that Nero

Burned Rome to get a light.

My summer assignment was building a school for lepers being treated at the Sudan Interior Mission in a valley outside Dessie. After teaching for nine months, we enjoyed a few weeks of hammering and sawing.

Summer is the rainy season, and rain interrupted our work for an hour or two every afternoon. I wrote about one memorable storm.

 

Mountain Mist

A finger points. A voice is raised in awe.

Along the mountain ridge a massive form

Is swiftly moving. No sounds precede its march;

But darkness moves before it, blotting out

The midday sun. Then down the ridge and toward

The valley where we pause to gaze and thrill

At natures’ rarest sight. Impish wisps

Escape the bulk and twist between the trees

And huts that cluster on the mountain’s side

Before the mystic vapor swallows them.

“It’s like a bomb”—“It’s just a fog.” But all

Alike have turned to watch it come. The day

Becomes as dusk, and mist is all around

The staring, dazzled crew who grasp at beauty,

Banish fear. Encouraged by the rising wind,

Mist moves across the valley with a surge

And lids the walls. A crash, a roar, a boom—

And down the rain descends in gentle drops.

Then, gathering force, it plummets down in pails.

The watchers bolt for home. The spell is gone.

Happy National Poetry Month!

—Carolyn Mulford