CAMPUS MEDITATIONS:
Poems for the Fiftieth Anniversary
of the C.W. Post Campus, Long Island University

Dr. Norbert Krapf, Poet Laureate for the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, was commissioned to create a collection of poems in honor of C.W. Post’s 50^th Anniversary.

DEDICATION

These poems are for

all the former students
who appreciated my passion
& shared in my meditations,

all the colleagues
who gave approval, laughed at my humor,
& came to listen to poetry in the Great Hall,

all the administrators
who let me go far away to renew myself
whenever I needed to & then welcomed me back,

& all the members of the L.I. poetry community
who contributed their talents to what was happening
on the C.W. Post Campus
of Long Island University during my 34 years here:

you do not need to be named
because you know so well who you are
& come with me as I move on to wherever I must go
 

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A STORY FOR OUR CAMPUS

in honor of the 50th anniversary of the
C.W. Post Campus, Long Island University

A girl with jet black hair and eyes and mocha
skin arrives on campus. She wonders why
nobody looks her in the eye, misses family
& friends, how everyone spoke to her
on the rez. She reads books. She learns how

to function in time. She practices volleyball
& shows white girls from the suburbs how
to hustle & scrap & win. She writes papers,
makes friends, & one day begins a memoir
about growing up as a Navajo. She feels

the power of the word surge through her
from beyond. Others begin to listen. She
receives prizes for the story she tells. Now
two famous universities want to pay her
to come to their campus to continue to tell

this story. Her family comes all the way
from the rez to see her stand on the stage
in a rug dress to receive the first diploma
in the family & they & others stand
& applaud & she walks in beauty

off our campus to one in the desert
& stands on the other side of the desk
& learns how to teach students not
much younger than herself how to
find & put their words on paper.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

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ANYONE’S SONG TO SING ON CAMPUS

I won’t say this place is paradise
but if you take a walk and look
carefully at the tulip next to your
foot and the tulip poplar above
your head you will find much
to make you feel you have come
into a world well worth loving

and if you give what you have
been bequeathed to develop
to the best of your abilities
and share it with others
in the finite time you have
been given to stay in a place
as good as this one surely is

then what you find and what
you give will carry you
and others farther than you
thought you could ever go.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

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CAMPUS VIGNETTES

In her backpack one student lugs
The Complete Plays of Shakespeare
as she sips morning coffee on her
way into the first class of the day.
Such a burden to carry tradition!

At her back chugs an ecstatic guy
listening to rap on the wire
as he scoots in from the rain.
His feet barely touch the ground.

A professor sits in his car
in the lot rehearsing the sad lines
he will deliver as he returns
the latest set of exams. "These
are the times," he begins, "that..."

All of a sudden in unison
every bud lurking on campus
decides to break open &
begin a riot of fresh blossom.

Be careful: You never know
what people will do when
riots begin. Some have
even been known to awaken
& start a whole new life.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

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WALT WHITMAN’S DAUGHTERS

On an eleventh-month afternoon
on Paumanok we trade impressions
of Walt nurturing a runaway slave
and juxtaposing that episode
with the incident of a well-to-do
woman hiding behind the curtains
of her fine house while in her fantasies
she gives herself to twenty-eight
young men splashing in the salt
water not far beyond her window

and I look up from my text
and see across the desk from me
two young women, one Puerto Rican,
one Navajo, their dark eyes ablaze,
one pair round as full moons,
the other parallel ripe almonds,
huddling together close as sisters
brought together by kindred spirits
and the distance from their homes

and I understand better than ever
before how a kelson of the creation
is indeed love and that all men
and women are brothers and sisters
and that a man is rich in proportion
to the number of daughters and sons
he can admit into his affection and
carry with him as he journeys forth
every day the rest of his life

and I, a native Midwesterner,
conclude that a country
that can produce a poet like
Walt Whitman from an Island
off the East Coast who brings us
together to share our perceptions
from different perspectives
and bloodlines and places
so far apart in so many ways
is richer than I ever imagined.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

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MEDITATION IN A FORMAL GARDEN

How this bud swells
& opens into blossom

when the light intensifies
in this bed so carefully

cultivated by a gardener
whose hands have just

the right touch is not
unlike the young mind

ripening with stimulation
from beyond and also from

the caretaker in the room
as it opens into insight

& ideas that unfold like
layer upon layer of petal.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

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MOCKINGBIRD MEMORY

After we finish talking about
Whitman’s poem of childhood
memory based on the story
of mockingbird lovers separated
by death on the shores of this Island
where the boy absorbs the tale
of love lost and is reborn
as the poet who now looks back
at the scene from his youth
and sees the mystical interplay
between life and death and finds
his mission is to put together
a musical arrangement of words
that survive the onslaught of time

there is a pause and I hear
a sliding song issuing from
the old black walnut tree
where I have seen generations
of the songbird with the white
wing bars and the musical
shuttle in their throats
near the corner of Humanities
Hall where we sit and reflect.

I ask if anyone knows
what that sound is and none
of the natives of Paumanok’s
suburbs recognizes it as
the music of the mockingbird

and I am brought back to memories
of walnut trees in southern Indiana
where as a boy I picked up the lobed
green fruits that turned dark brown
and carried them home in a burlap
bag slung over my shoulder.

The lyric of mimicry sliding
from the tree outside the hall
on this quiet day tallies with
the tale of the Long Island poet’s
revisitation of the mystical play
of moonlight and shadow on the shores
that he loved where he found the voice
that sings his poems of loss and rebirth

and I awaken as the boy I was
in the hills of southern Indiana
with a burlap bag of walnuts
over my shoulder and at the same
time remain the man that I have
become here on Whitman’s Long Island
a thousand miles away from the hills
where I haunted the woods and fields.

Now I see that song in trees
and in poems carries us beyond
where we come from and where
we go and takes us well beyond
ourselves and this world where
we live until we depart as spirit

that will one day shine back down
on a bird singing its song woven
from the songs of others while young
people sit at their desks yearning
to find the voice that carries them
beyond where they now are to
what they hope they shall become.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

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LOOKING FOR WALT WHITMAN
      AT C.W. POST

If you want me again look
for me under your boot-soles.
—"Song of Myself"

I went looking for you, Walt,
all over campus after we read
your Paumanok poems.

I found your boot prints
in the mulch of flower beds
in the formal garden beside
the administration building.

In the woods along
the arboretum walk I saw
those prints again and swear
I could hear your bardic voice
trill and catalogue the names
of American hardwoods
as if you were reciting
the names of the saints.

In the recesses of the library
stacks I spied your gray-bearded
presence peering into volumes
of experimental poems from
the heart of the continent.

Walking down the hall
where one class door was ajar
I saw a familiar colleague
with his mouth wide open
but heard you declaring
to his wide-eyed students
our independence from
Old World hegemony
and insisting we must open
our doors more to immigrants
and those the system despises
and let our instincts speak
more fully without check.

I was afraid, Walt, what kind
of revolution you might foment.
I opened my mouth to issue
a warning to the young about
the potential danger of your
influence but all that came out
were words I recognized as yours,

I bequeath myself to the dirt
to grow from the grass I love,

and I knew that wherever I stepped
on this campus and your Island
I would always be touching you.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

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THE NATIVE AMERICAN POET’S CIRCLE
—for Jeanetta Calhoun—

We sit in a circle
to talk about the oral
tradition in Native poetry

and our guest, whose
Delaware ancestors
lived in this region

ages before our families
arrived from other lands,
asks for volunteers

to read passages from
a Zuni narrative
in which the community

remembers the ancestors
and gives praise by
naming plants & animals

and soon she calls
her devotees by name
and they respond to

her questions and she
lowers her voice to
a near hush to make

a point about contrast
and emphasis and
everyone looks up

as her voice goes down.
I close my eyes and
imagine we are gathered

in a circle in a cave
around a campfire,
members of a religion

that has been around
since smoke rose from
the first flame ignited

by humans of their
own power, and we
listen to the words

of this woman
whose voice holds
us together in prayer.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

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ARBORETUM NAMING SONG

1.
We cannot remain
in love with what
we cannot name

and because on this
October day when air
is crisp & sunlight
so clear we do not
want to risk falling
out of love with this
world into which
we were born
no matter how
bruised it may be

we come from different
places and traditions
to stand, to see, to say:

Thundercloud Plum,
burgundy leaves
stirring in the breeze;

Tabletop Scotch Elm,
grainy bark climbing trunk,
smooth bark stretching
across tabletop branches
above a seam where
grafted skins touch;

Blue Atlas Cedar,
blue-gray needles
falling light
as snowflakes
to Paumanok ground
far from mountains
in African home.

We look, we read, we say,
we lay hands on ancient trunk;
what we feel lies beyond
palms, fingertips & words.

2.
We walk through a formal garden
where late roses bloom,
into a woods where chipmunks
chip & squirrels scamper.

What we see comes
to us so fast we step
outside ourselves, untie
our tongues & let them
sing praise to what stands
on either side of us like
familiar spirits happy
to have their names
on this earth invoked:

White Oak, Red Oak, you say.
Scarlet Oak, Black Oak, I reply.

Black Locust, Tulip Poplar, you sing.
Red Maple, Sugar Maple, I answer.

Sweet Gum, you chant.
Black Birch, I conclude.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

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ON THE STEPS IN A GARDEN

On this last day of term we gather
near a half-timbered building with
a slate roof in the formal garden
with magnolia and crab apple
blossoms wide open above.
We find places to sit on the steps
leading up from rosebushes
and boxwoods and take turns
reading poems of place from
different times and countries.
About how to connect and stay
connected with where we live.
How to draw nourishment
from what grows and breathes
beside and above us. How to
give ourselves to our place
so it can give back to us
and sustain us wherever we go.
Some of us keep our eyes closed
as someone else reads. Each voice
has a different tone and pitch
and speaks a different rhythm.
Some of us choose to add
a comment, some of us allow
nuance and innuendo to ripen
and blossom in silence.
The sunlight lies like the hand
of a deft mentor on heads
and shoulders. Pollen floats
in the air. I think to myself
my life has come to the right
place at just the right time.
I want to reach out and touch
the beautiful young plants
opening on these steps before
me as each new poem assumes
shape and texture but settle
for what I feel in what I hear
on these steps in this garden
on this campus on this island
in this state in this world
where I came to be born.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

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 DINÉ DEGREE
—for Christie Cooke & her family—

When you climb these Eastern
steps to the stage in buckskin
moccasins, woven black
and red dress, turquoise
and silver squash blossom
necklace that your grandmother
once wore and the sliver concha
belt that once wrapped around
the waist of another woman in your
family many come with you

and when you walk in such beauty
across the hardwood floor to
receive your certificate and have
your picture taken all those who
came before walk in beauty,
light shining in dark eyes

and although you are
the very first in your family
to take this particular walk
you know you shall
not be the last

for when one Navajo
walks in beauty all Navajos
past, present and future
walk with her and many
shall follow in your graceful
footsteps and you shall lead
sisters and brothers and daughters
and sons to walk in balance
up a series of steps

and one day you shall
turn to look back and see
a long line of Diné people
who descend from you
as well as your mother
and father and grandmother
and grandfather and their
ancestors walking in beauty

behind you and they
shall be looking up to you
and singing your name
in a hymn of praise
that will bless all who
follow in your footsteps.

(c) Norbert Krapf, 2004

About the Author

Dr. Norbert Krapf is a nationally regarded author of 12 volumes of poetry who serves as Poet Laureate for the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. Recently retired after 34 years of teaching English at C.W. Post, Dr. Krapf served as director of the C.W. Post Poetry Center for almost two decades. His collection of poems, "The Country I Come From," was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and his latest work, "Looking for God's Country," will be released in April 2005 by Time Being Books. He is the recipient of the David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Trustees Award for Scholarly Achievement from Long Island University for both a single work and lifetime achievement, and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. He has been a U.S. Exchange Teacher at West Oxon Technical College, England, and twice a Fulbright Professor of American Poetry in Germany, at the Universities of Freiburg and Erlangen/Nuremberg. Libraries across the country, including University of Rochester, house many of Dr. Krapf’s literary papers and correspondence.