I am not the man I was before I am not that man Thank God for that. I am not the boy That turned an easy path Escaping fear Of things that ought not be confessed On paper. That is no longer Me, but is. If I was still the boy Escaping fear Running home Always running home Then life would be despair If I was still the man That failed at work That failed at love Then hope Would linger just a little while. A withered vine can cling Leafless and twisted round the bark. Linger with me by the shaded line Beneath the hemlock tree And watch the open field With only pollen drifting on. Of all the tensions that confront That time both is and is We can forget The coward in the past Who is no longer me But is With a little less life. The sun like black tea Steeping in the ocean And thank God every day I am not me. The cobble of Benefit Street,  [1]             Aged, uneven, Checkered with moss and loose,             With corkscrew trees Uprooting sidewalks in front of houses, Old, colonial, small windowed. Uprooting memories that once walked. John Brown the privateer, the African merchant, [2] His ship the Hope, the last great trafficker Of molasses and Africans. His elms are mighty now And vast, a canopy of past walks, Of leisure talks in China trade             The West Indies,             Rum. Did you walk to Sabin’s Tavern, Or carriage drawn In a rattle of hoof and wheel Over cobbled streets at night? When did talk of trade turn To leaning closer over empty glasses With the merchants and the captains? John Brown’s mansion up the hill, With a few curators now, Overlooking Benefit. The Ivy League that bears the weight Of his name Etched in stone, A legacy Of heft and respectability. [3] And to the south of Providence, Stillhouse Cove,  a corner  [4] Of the rum-for-slaves Triangle. The schooner bound with immigrants, Laden with the enterprising spirits That made Rhode Island rich. The ship no longer docks at Stillhouse In the tangle of the tide: The docking now a bird refuge Of thick mud and high thickets of cattail grass. The salt marsh air With summer’s black biting specs; Placid ripples follow duck And stalking heron Near the yacht club docks, As neighbors wonder how to save Indigenous weeds From the onslaught Of the foreign vegetation. [5] Do the elms remember early days? Do the shores of Stillhouse feel The dragging chains             Linking slaves and             Bobbing hogsheads                 To civilization? Do the neighborhoods remember? Walking on the cobbled patterns, Following the traffic             Now of math majors late to class             Or the half-assed sculptor             Biking up to Prospect Park.             Or Thayer Street intellects             In the thick of the semester. These streets bequeath their guilt to me. City on the Hill,  by the shoreline, [6] Thy Laws provide the bounty of my being,  [7] Thy ways provide the limits of my eye. City on the Hill, by the shore, Thy walls and towers guard erosion, Guard against the losing of my self Thy hands are my hands Thy Laws provide the bounty of my being. I am no more nor less than what the past Has set: Stone. Stone and cobbled walkways; A living part of the past. The counting of the moments, ages yawn As dull doubloons are tossed, stretching with ease The dying of millennia, the frost Of all past moments clinging to our feet. The abacus clicks with money changing In the hallway, dim, fettered from the sun, Counting off the moments with the pennies Changing hands, grubbed and pocketed To buy a little bit more life, more life             In the boarding and un-boarding, In the slivers of events that never Cease to ripple; if I linger looking back In stormy measured moments of the past

I am the sum of moments Black hole bending time                     That is self. That must be self.                     Or soul: The globe of past gathered moments Balled up in the pages of a first draft. The self a connotation of the past. I can't escape the world I first confront. I walk the cobbles of both slave and trader. All that is no longer is the same. All that is no longer is the same. But let it pass With muted pleas for Providence, And for the cove that stirs With lazy pictures in the salt grass Of the humans owning humans Disembarking from the Hope In the coolness of the evening Wet links pulled taut And brought to shore. Thank God that every day Is not chained To the past, But undefined, And let it pass In paradox, A blessing of confusion That time is Not the stagnant pool of rot, Nor the flowing stream of lost identity. Thank God every day I am not me. Looking further south of Stillhouse Cove, Beyond the harsh grass of the marshlands, And the speckled violet bramble Of blossoms growing in the sand: In the brack of river and sea Starting on South Main Street A drum beat in the night, Of bone-white ships that lift with the tide, Pulling on oar and thole, to war, to war The Gaspee burning in the bay;  [8] Longboats in the secret night unleashing Fire and burning, a pyre in the dark, Striking first in Revolution, Gaining new distinction from the crown. “Always catch a man before you hang him.” [9] Old names in language lost, Slipped By the tongue Of sea and wind, Old places on the shore built Into the clearing of the land, With slabs of pavement blackening The surf around Pawtuxet Village — [10] Free from British law But named by native Indians. The old survives, Transmogrified To new identity. New England land not meant for easy farming, Rock in every spade and turn of earth, Rock to drag with hunching back and horses Pulling, pulling out from under working feet. The earth barred from prying pick and shovel, Guarded by these scattered fists of stone, Buried in meadow and glen. With rope and sinew, From the soil hefted and stacked Along the edges of the field, Stone walls emerging from the earth. The forest edge eventually attacks The cultivation, Pulling down the corn, the squash, The new seed, But the stone drug out from below the roots, From deep down under every step: These walls are left, Unmoved in shifting boundaries, As the seasons of New England Walk through garden and meadow In the passing of the lives Of the farmers and the rebels. Amid the felling of the forest, Amid formation of law and justice, Amid the culturing of children In the schoolhouse and the church, Amid the dripping days of spring That rinse the winter from the fields, Amid the mossy rock and oak, Amid the colonies that fought For independence and new life, Amid the ox with the harness And the parson in the wilderness, The land remains unchanged. New England land is bone and axe, And splendid green in summer, Singing with bucolic cadence, Unbreakable and beautiful, Embraced by the sea, who is fickle And filled with impulse. Those who love New England first must learn to thole. [11] The soul: Like ship’s wood for a pyre gathering, Or stone walls unearthed in farming, Living on the borders of both land and sea, The soul Forms its unity in time, Through present moments taken and stacked, With the weight of time and ground of being. [12] I am only whole when dwelling on the shore, Living on the borders of both land and sea. The old is gone; the new is coming. Thy Laws provide the bounty of my being. On these pages I am gathered. Thrumming on through nights in Sabin’s Tavern With the merry Sons of Liberty, [13] Or off the coast and sailing home The jib full-borne, my boots are placed in prints I traced an age ago. My eye can see Ahead the smooth sand where my walk will end.

Notes: [use your BACK button of your browser to return] 1 Benefit Street is on the East Side of Providence, Rhode Island. It is an historic section lined with colonial houses, overlooking the city. Situated in the midst of Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University, it is a hub for the arts, history and culture. 2 Of all New England, Rhode Island was perhaps the most involved in the slave trade. The Browns, an extremely successful mercantile family in colonial times, began trading in 1736 when James Brown launched the slave ship, Mary. They were among the most successful slave traders in colonial America.  John Brown followed in these familial footsteps, with his own vessel, Hope, as well as also serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. His house on Benefit Street is now a museum, and in the summer, concerts are held on his lawn, under his elm trees. 3 Rhode Island College changed its name to Brown University because the family donated exorbitant amounts of money. [There is today another Rhode Island College; but this ought not be confused with the Rhode Island College of a few hundred years ago.] 4 In Cranston, Rhode Island, perhaps five miles from the John Brown House, is Stillhouse Cove, which was a central location for the trading of rum and slaves. The Triangle (it was called the ‘notorious triangle’) refers to the selling of Rhode Island rum for slaves, who were then sold in exchange for molasses and sugar from the Caribbean. These goods were then sold to the Rhode Island distillers—and hence the name, “Stillhouse Cove.” 5 In 2002 a petition circled the neighborhood around Stillhouse Cove to save the cove from erosion, and to deracinate the shore from vegetation that “did not belong.” The plan involved beautifying the shoreline with a retaining wall, ripping out the insurgent grass and trees, and replanting indigenous flora. 6 This is in reference to what was first introduced by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, which was then taken up by St. Augustine. For Augustine, there are spiritual dimensions—that is, principles beyond what we simply learn or adopt from society—that go beyond the immediate community. To these other communities we also can belong. In fact, there is a war between the City of God and the City of Man. The phrase was also used by Ronald Reagan when he was President, to express his optimism of what the United States represents in the world (or what it could for Reagan represent). 7  Society is quite effectual in defining a person. The community to which a person belongs—whether the City of God or Stillhouse Cove—defines that person. The laws and traditions of a community, as nontemporal as they are, form identity, much more than physical constitution. 8 In the latter part of the 1700s, Rhode Island became known throughout colonial America for its cleverness and success at smuggling. Since it was a colony of the British Empire, law forbade all trade with any other country—meaning that trade was restricted to the British Empire, and trading with the French or Spanish was illegal. This is known as the mercantile system, which was designed to primarily benefit the mother country. Since Rhode Island had gained such a reputation for smuggling (i.e., the illegal trade with countries other than Britain), in March 1772, the British schooner Gaspee was permanently stationed in Rhode Island waters, to seize cargos and ships. The Gaspee, commissioned in 1764 (it was first a sloop and later turned into a two-masted schooner) was chosen for the job. The ship had earned a reputation, under Lieutenant William Dudingston, for being extremely effective. In fact, prior to assignment in Rhode Island waters, Dudingston captured so many ships that British authorities thought riots would erupt. With the Gaspee patrolling Rhode Island waterways, trade/smuggling was severely dampened; and Dudingston’s penchant for cruelty and harassment quickly earned him the hatred of colonial Rhode Island. On June 9, 1772, the Gaspee ran aground on Namquid Point when pursuing the Hannah, a packet ship with a wily captain who intimately knew the shoreline and tides. Word spread of the stranded schooner, beginning at Sabin’s Tavern, from whence a boy began beating a drum up and down South Main Street. A company of 64 men, lead by John Brown—who instantly put his sea captain, Abraham Whipple, in charge of the assault—gathered in the night, and set out in longboats for what is now referred to as the burning of the Gaspee. Explosions and fire could be seen throughout the coastal areas. After the fighting, Gaspee crewmembers were taken ashore just south of Stillhouse Cove. No one had been killed, though Dudingston had been severely wounded, and the Gaspee burned through the night. This act of violent defiance against British control predates the Boston Tea Party (December 15, 1773), which is commonly hailed as the beginning of the American Revolution. But the burning of the Gaspee was the first organized military action towards independence and separate identity. 9 Four years after the burning of the Gaspee, when it became known that Abraham Whipple led the attack, British Commander Sir James Wallace sent him a letter with the following: 'You, Abraham Whipple on the 9th of June 1772 burned his Majesty's vessel, the Gaspee and you will hang by the yard-arm.' Abraham Whipple replied, “Sir, always catch a man before you hang him.” 10 Pawtuxet Village is one of the oldest villages in New England, and was established on the coast, at the mouth of the Pawtuxet River. It is next to Stillhouse Cove and is the site where the crew from the Gaspee was brought ashore. ‘Pawtuxet,’ meaning ‘little falls,’ is named after the Pawtuxet tribe, which in turn belonged to the larger Narragansett Indian tribe. 11 According to Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary there are two usages for the word ‘thole,’ and both are implied in the poem. As a noun: a wooden or metal pin set in pairs in the gunwale of a boat to serve in place of an oarlock. As a verb: to endure especially in patience or in silence: suffer, bear (hence our word ‘tolerate’.). 12 The ‘Ground of Being’ was the phrase 20th century theologian Paul Tillich used to define God. God is not, for Tillich, a being alongside other beings. Neither is God Being-Itself, as other theologians and philosophers claimed (such as Thomas Aquinas). Rather, through God all things subsist and are defined, for he is the Ground of Being. 13 The “Sons of Liberty” was an important movement begun in New York and Boston in the mid-1760s (Samuel Adams and Paul Revere led the Boston group). On South Main Street in Providence is a tablet inscribed with the following: “Sons of Liberty—Upon this corner stood the Sabin Tavern in which in the evening of June 9th in 1772 the party met and organized to destroy HRM schooner Gaspee in the destruction of which was shed the first blood of the American Revolution.”

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