"The Lulling"

"The Lulling"
Darrel Hammon

They made writing look easy–
Steinbeck, Guthrie, Fisher, Conrad,
Stafford, Hemingway, Twain, and the rest

all huddled around their rivers, drinking
their lines from the weeping willows,
tall cottonwoods, and the howl of coyotes

somewhere in the distant mountains.
At full moon, they stared deep into the orange
until the words rose like tides,

fell crashing onto their tablets.
At times, they drank deep from river bottoms,
sucking in verbs and adjectives,

spewing them upon the crowed page.
Sometimes, sitting among the big roots,
they gleaned periods and commas

so they fit just right like a fade pair of 501's
on a weathered saddle bronc rider.
Then, as morning dawned, their writings

climbed from the darkness of dusk,
settled in the last paragraph where
they lulled us into thinking we were there.

I still search for my river, my weeping willow
where I can sense the motion of the wind,
feel of their moaning and groaning, and then have them

brush up against me like my Siamese
lending me the words, the phrases
they had been hoarding for themselves.

The Confluence

The Confluence

Penning a few words may seem
easy as first, but as time wears
on you like an old coat,

other things get in the way
of writing, of flopping words
on the page or even napkins.

When the muse is around,
they sprint on to the page,
look around for their companions

to join them in sentences
and paragraphs and maybe
even poems, the good ones,

that seep metaphors and similes
and sometimes meanings
from the heart. Then again,

one needs only to breathe
more time into the schedule,
maybe understand that words

can be both intoxicating and soothing
simultaneously just like laughter and life,
confluencing like the Snake and the Clearwater.

Trapping

When I was younger, Tom R. and I trapped muskrats one winter on Spring Creek just behind my Uncle Milt's house. It was a very interesting winter. This poem emerged from those memories:

Trapping

When snows first whiten
the fall straw stubble
and barren potato fields,
I pull my muskrat traps
from the 16 penny nails, half buried
in the side of the old barn.
I place the traps side by side
on a 4" x 6" pine plank.
I turn them over and over,
fingering each one with leather-gloved hand,
like pictures in an album
until I remember where
I placed them last season:
under the tall cottonwood
in front of the half-hidden worn trail,
leading into the brush-covered mud bank.
I press each lever with my right heel,
holding tightly, and gently
locking the spring in place.
The jaws gape open at my feet
while I step back to test
their strength and quickness.
I reach into my goose-down jacket,
pull out a creek pebble,
the size of a cat-eyed marble.
From three feet above the trap,
I drop the pebble.
The jaws snap shut before I can
draw another breath.
I test the jaws twice more
until they are ready
for the murky waters
that run beneath the weeping willows,
through the giant cottonwoods
while the muskrats roam up and down
the creek like Titania dancing
under a full Moon,
not heeding where they step.

I'm Back: My Blog is Now Open....

I apologize to all of you who have been faithful viewers and readers of my blog. Last fall, I basically withdrew the reading of my Hammon blog from the general public because certain individuals used bits and pieces of my content, took them way out of context, and then wrote disparaging comments in their own pathetic writings.

While I am a believer in the free press, it would be nice--actually, professional--to see people actually do real research before writing. Taking snippets here and there and bits and pieces from uninformed people and then attempting to write factual material is not real reporting or writing. It is just plain creative fibbing with trappings of truthfulness. In fact, if people really want to know about me and what I think or what I do or what I have done or the choices I have made, they probably ought to visit with me personally, face-to-face, cara a cara.

Taking things out of context, twisting them for their own pleasure, visiting with people who really don't have a clue or don't see the truth if it is placed before them on a beautiful piece of china, and surmising what might be or what might have been without ever really getting to the facts create challenges all around. Literally, that type of writing lacks authenticity and truth and hovers on the abyss of very bad, even convoluted, writing. With a mere shove--or even a flick of one single finger--it should fall into that evil abyss, clinging to its morass of shoddy writing and shoddy research while crying forlornly until it crashes to the bottom, never to raise its ugly, vicious head again.

If you read something about me, and I did not write it, and if it doesn't sound like something I did or might have said or done, chances are that the writer did not ask me any questions before writing the essay or the article. Some people have a tendency to go off half cocked and not really have any of the facts straight.

Unfortunately, in our media-driven society, we sometimes want to believe those people and what they write when, in fact, they have no facts at all. Thus, beware of those wayward souls who feel inclined to write about things they know nothing about and then attempt to conjure up stuff to "enlighten" or "inform" their readers. Unfortunately, most of the time, what they write is mean and vicious and contains not one shred of truth.

I personally adhere to the LDS Church's 13th Article of Faith: "We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things" (Articles of Faith 1:13, Bold mine).

I will be posting writings, poems, reminiscences, essays, talks that I have recently given in various Sacrament meetings (these may be a bit long although I will insert snippets), thoughts on a variety of items, photos, etc. Many of my photos are on my Facebook page.

I truly appreciate your willingness to slog through a few of these writings. I think it is important to let people know who I am, how I am, why I am about, what I am about, and how I think. My writings are not to persuade you to do anything; rather, they are to inform.

So, I apologize for being off line. Now, read away. I do have one favor of those who read my posts: If you have a question about them or don't quite understand what I am saying or thinking, please do not hesitate to contact me. The only way to get to the bottom of a particular writing or posting is to contact the source. I am the source; so, please contact me.

Dawn Comes Early…

This poem just won first place in the recent 2010 BYU-Idaho Spirit Week poetry contest.


Dawn Comes Early…

Dawn comes early in the west.
Often, the sun gathers large at first
and then shrinks behind huge purple,
gray clouds until it succumbs while the clouds pass,
and it rises further than the clouds.
Streaming rays, oranges and reds
on the horizon, speak softness
to the new day, always moving in one steady,
upward course, somewhere around the world.

With some trepidation, I walk out
into the dark morning, notice
the oranges and the reds in the east,
trying desperately to show themselves,
maybe even heave themselves
toward the west, where later in the day,
they again succumb to the night
and slip away further into the west.

Yet, I walk on, speculating why the sun creeps
along so tenuously at first, then boldly
during the day. It is like I am—
tenuous at first, and then boldly
although not overbearingly.

Perhaps, I should walk early, try to catch
the sun, learn from its steadiness and how it works
to make the world brighter, happier, consistent.

Perhaps, I should sit on the hill
and just watch the sun, just watch
it grow big and round and bright.

Perhaps, I should just close my eyes,
think of those mornings when I walk
boldly out into the rain, the snow,
the heavy winds, head down, not thinking
of anything in particular—just the mere thought
of trudging forward, into the early morning,
thinking of home, a hot bath, and Cheerios—
all one steady upward course, now and forever.