Backbone > Frankly Speaking

A Delirium of Concord
by Frank Crocitto

Yes I was there once or twice I can't be sure but I remember brown
leaves red leaves swirling with a wind which was no wind gasping
and gusting all over the day Fall was named after and only the black trees held fast the maples and oaks creaking shuddering as the cold hand stripped them of their pride yes I was there in the succulence of summer once too seeking meaning in the heat for this was Concord as the signs say and here is where it happened though I thought it was only a figment ingrown on a mental tree surprise and surprise even worse is the traffic racing through this literary shrine oh but in passing I see phantoms on the branches here an Emerson there a Thoreau here an Alcott there a Hawthorne there a Louisa May her skirts puffed up with the breeze and all her little women and her little men here goes Margie Fuller swinging tomboy that she is and mad Jones Very on the tree tip top and Ellery Channing and Brownson and whimsical Cranch I mean Christopher Pearse Cranch and George Ripley and Theo Parker and even Ol' John Brown who made a flaming appearance here once his eyes bright coals in a black cave and oh there and low everywhere goes the underground railway black folk spirited away to Canaan land here's where it was with Ralph Waldo and Henry David helping to stuff them in the nighttrain

I'm driving and looking wildly at the houses and the front yards flying by a house that one the Old Manse I think somebody lived there Hawthorne wasn't it a Scarlet Letter in one arm and a Marble Faun in the other a solitary sourgum soul drinking wormwood and munching on his own heart didn't Emerson's grandfather own that house didn't Thoreau live in it a time a reserved brahminical house a musty old moss of a house with upright beams and a sagging roofbeam I saw Hester displaying her marvelous bosom out the upper window I saw the preacher whatever his name was no, no not Chillingworth lurking round the house corner but the traffic keeps pushing me along past some staid houses past civic buildings was that the place where was that the jail Thoreau went in and Emerson stayed out refusing to pay a polecat a poll tax what are you doing in there he says what are you doing out here he says and so the story goes oh but this is the town at least in America where something happened an old inn new prices I need a place to stay and be still to commune with history but the road curves and off I go out of town I go past new saltboxes and old salt hay river meadows and a sloggish river Musket-tid or Musky-quid but musky is the smell of the swamp grass and the failing banners of the cornfields and there a whole swab of purple loosestrife spreading its heart-wrenching purple to the wood's edge then finding help in a dry gray store stacked with honey jars and maple butter and the scent of lavender candles help and direction as the sickening smell of commerce candle scents seeps into the wood of the rafters and barn siding and the wood of its customers

Round this-a-way I go to the center to the center is this a fool's errand is there anything here is there any thing to find wait this bridge is this the one that arched the flood where the minutemen made their stand and a Concord Hymn sang out yes history is real though it seems so much like a dream and again into town traffic honking behind me that was Emerson's house I saw the sign I'm going back let them honk before it closes before it's too late to feel the walls that closed in around the Sage wait there goes Alcott's house Amos Bronson Alcott the chatterbox the idealist who couldn't hold a job the inspiration of Fruitlands the Utopia where they wore linen and no animal things and Emerson saw how happy they all were in July but remarked he'd like to see them in December Alcotts Alcotts a houseful of girls and a wife who was a pillar I don't have time to do it all a minute to look at the tables and the chairs and pictures on the wall lamps and candlesticks beds with linsey-woolsey coverlets where did all the girls go they adored the old man blabberer or not he made Emerson a rustic summer house and he moved here to be near the Sage and he hammered out the School of Philosophy and he got children to speak deeply of the gospels of all things

Now with minutes to spare I'm in Emerson's house what did he read that hawk-faced old bird everything the Gita Goethe Hafiz Ali I mean the Caliph Ali everything science Carlyle he knew it all he read and he remembered and he did more than scholars admit he held Lydian around her waist and kissed little Waldo goodnight his beloved boy who died at six oh all the ache in his shining heart is still here in the big old house museum it is and sleepy it is with old ladies bustling about but from this study came the flow of thoughts that went into notebooks that went into amazing words that branded the minds of his listeners here in Concord is where it happened the town his grandfather came from the town he moved back to after Harvard and after agonies and struggles and grief a quiet town where admirers came to stay or visit where a resourceful young man already lived how odd how could it be like the Renaissance how could it be so many great minds so many great talents all in one Florence ah like that is Concord

All at once I'm bobbing down the bloodstream of Henry David no don't die now you're too young fight the cough fight don't die with all you might do your other lives need living don't just fade away gazing out the window at life and all the graceful seasons dancing on the streets of Concord nature can't go on without you Henry what did he say something about Indians and that's it is it over there's the books now there's a lyceum and a replica of the cabin out back boards not old boards from the irish shanty and windows and a narrow door how narrow a door and inside one chair for himself and one for company who dares to live so truly so truthfully so confidently I shall betake myself to Walden water I shall listen for the loon are you listening Willie Yeats and I shall toss a stone on the cairn that marks the site his cabin is in our minds and when the sap runs and the ice cracks and wildflowers appear I shall remember you Henry

Time to park the car and walk the town and look at the light in the windows oh so many people live in Concord eating breakfast and lunch and supper and sleeping and snoring and going about their business expensive or not I'll stay in the old inn absorbing something of this old town kicking the crisp leaves tripping over the uneven sidewalk making my rounds of celebrated houses all in walking distance so I walk the damp cold working its way through my jacket I can't stay long

outside like this I need warm soup warm coffee I walk briskly I run I stop outside Ralph Waldo's house now empty a light left on in his study a nice touch like he's in there in his favorite chair, the one with the arms and the plush head slightly tilted a half smile on his face thinking thinking late into the night thinking of what is to be of this America this rolling planet and me and all the rest of us who stand around on the sidewalk outside his house wondering when he'll come out and what he'll say when he comes

NEXTMONTH: In celebration of the bicentennial of his birth: A Close-Up of the Man-Ralph Waldo Emerson, with examples of long-lost jewels from his journals!