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Concord
To stop the wheels of state, I made My life a kind of counter friction And went to jail, my tax unpaid, Until a friend with less conviction
Paid so its cogs might turn again To spit me out. And as I stood Behind those four thick walls of stone, That heavy door of iron and wood,
I saw how states and institutions Must be half-witted, thinking men Are merely flesh and blood and bones To be locked up at their discretion.
The night I spent in jail was novel And interesting enough: My cell Was clean and neat on my arrival— It might have been a small hotel
The way the inmates leaned to chat In doorways till the lockup call. Once learning where to hang my hat, I took my station at the wall
And gazed out through its grille, as pages Of history seemed to waft my town Backward to the Middle Ages, Turning our Concord to the Rhine.
Next morning, through an oblong slot, They passed our meal—brown hunks of bread And steaming pints of chocolate -- And after having breakfasted,
My roommate, who spent mornings haying In neighboring fields each day till noon, Bade me good-bye and parted, saying He doubted we'd be meeting soon.
Let out myself, I then proceeded Across the street to fetch the shoe I'd left to mend, then unimpeded Strolled slowly down an avenue
And past the square and when last seen On top a hill two miles from town, Was lost in huckleberrying, My conscience clear, my duty done.
Paul Lake
From Walking Backward, Story Line Press, © 1999. Reprinted
b y permission of the author and
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