| Poems from Fargo, 1957 |
On June 20, 1957, an F5 tornado hit the city of Fargo, North Dakota. In its
wake, it left twelve people dead, a city devastated and thousands of lives
affected forever. In his elegiac commemoration of the event, poet Jamie Parsley
commemorates not only the victims of the storm, but also the resilience and
determination of the survivors. Most of all, he celebrates this northern city and
all it represents.
wake, it left twelve people dead, a city devastated and thousands of lives
affected forever. In his elegiac commemoration of the event, poet Jamie Parsley
commemorates not only the victims of the storm, but also the resilience and
determination of the survivors. Most of all, he celebrates this northern city and
all it represents.
Every day
Maria Sanderson (1908-1964) was the first person injured by
the tornado. She lived on the outskirts of Fargo on Highway
10. After a year in the hospital she was released but never
fully recovered from her injuries. She died of a stroke in
Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 24, 1964.
1.
“No one knows
what ghost you feed.”
—Joel Oppenheimer
Even with the photocopied township map
printed in 1951, the homestead is nearly impossible to
find.
These are streets now, not backroads.
And the highway has become a four-laned artery.
Finally, finding the mile line
and County Drain 40, we can almost make it out.
There, behind those quonsets
a line of oak stand, older than
anything else here, older too,
than the storm. And from them,
we can almost see how it was—
a rebuilt house at the end of a gravel driveway
hidden—white walled—
between the hulking girth of commercial buildings.
It was here she lived and
it was here she lay that night
after the storm came rolling through
from the northwest.
It was here she struggled
in the wreckage and shattered glass
until Theofil her husband
came and found her.
It’s Industrial Park now—
huge metal-walled complexes
on main streets and back streets.
Metal building complexes
cover what was then a clover field,
a wheat field, a field of corn.
And in the distance, where the city
glowed into the sky at night, there is no night.
The glow surrounds this place now,
nudging the night sky further
toward some even more obscure distance.
There, where the funnel first stomped the ground,
twirling and twisting into itself
there is cement. And where it came through here
at an angle before turning into the city—
parking lots and semi trucks.
There where the telephone lines stood
and were knocked to the ground,
a water tower—
ballooning into the sky
in red and white swirls.
And where the fence leaned to the ground in the wind,
identical storage units
as uniform as the niches in a columbarium.
Look here for her—
look in the cement and plowed over lawn,
pace out the distance from those trees
and there are only ghosts—
rebuilt remnants of lives
gone fumy and cloudy
by each decade.
And when you think to yourself
of the sadness of this complete disappearance,
remind yourself that this too awaits you,
and even less than this.
Who, one day, will walk the paved over
remnants of your homestead,
following the heel-to-toe pattern
of your house? Who, in some impossible-to-imagine
hazy future, will look for the place you were when
you looked up and saw your darkest fear
staring you down from the sky above you?
2. February 24, 1964
after Olav H. Hauge
The storm is gone now—
it is behind you
in some other place
on good days
you can barely remember.
Not once
in all this time since
have you ever asked
why?
why was it I was there?
why there?
and why now? and not then?
Why was my leg—
shattered to pieces
and embedded with grass, dirt
and everything else
the wind gave me—
taken from me?
You were just there—
in the storm,
in the churning wind.
See, it is possible
to live every day.
It is possible to get up,
to go feed birds in the cold morning
and to watch
as they choose between
bread and snow.
The whole day is there to think about
and there aren’t enough hours in it
or in one’s whole lifetime to consider it all.
And when it’s done, you can sit down
and listen as a wind softer and more exotic
than the one you hear in your nightmares
comes to you, touching your face
and whispering to you in a language
as strange, yet beautiful
as Chinese
or Norwegian.
Maria Sanderson (1908-1964) was the first person injured by
the tornado. She lived on the outskirts of Fargo on Highway
10. After a year in the hospital she was released but never
fully recovered from her injuries. She died of a stroke in
Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 24, 1964.
1.
“No one knows
what ghost you feed.”
—Joel Oppenheimer
Even with the photocopied township map
printed in 1951, the homestead is nearly impossible to
find.
These are streets now, not backroads.
And the highway has become a four-laned artery.
Finally, finding the mile line
and County Drain 40, we can almost make it out.
There, behind those quonsets
a line of oak stand, older than
anything else here, older too,
than the storm. And from them,
we can almost see how it was—
a rebuilt house at the end of a gravel driveway
hidden—white walled—
between the hulking girth of commercial buildings.
It was here she lived and
it was here she lay that night
after the storm came rolling through
from the northwest.
It was here she struggled
in the wreckage and shattered glass
until Theofil her husband
came and found her.
It’s Industrial Park now—
huge metal-walled complexes
on main streets and back streets.
Metal building complexes
cover what was then a clover field,
a wheat field, a field of corn.
And in the distance, where the city
glowed into the sky at night, there is no night.
The glow surrounds this place now,
nudging the night sky further
toward some even more obscure distance.
There, where the funnel first stomped the ground,
twirling and twisting into itself
there is cement. And where it came through here
at an angle before turning into the city—
parking lots and semi trucks.
There where the telephone lines stood
and were knocked to the ground,
a water tower—
ballooning into the sky
in red and white swirls.
And where the fence leaned to the ground in the wind,
identical storage units
as uniform as the niches in a columbarium.
Look here for her—
look in the cement and plowed over lawn,
pace out the distance from those trees
and there are only ghosts—
rebuilt remnants of lives
gone fumy and cloudy
by each decade.
And when you think to yourself
of the sadness of this complete disappearance,
remind yourself that this too awaits you,
and even less than this.
Who, one day, will walk the paved over
remnants of your homestead,
following the heel-to-toe pattern
of your house? Who, in some impossible-to-imagine
hazy future, will look for the place you were when
you looked up and saw your darkest fear
staring you down from the sky above you?
2. February 24, 1964
after Olav H. Hauge
The storm is gone now—
it is behind you
in some other place
on good days
you can barely remember.
Not once
in all this time since
have you ever asked
why?
why was it I was there?
why there?
and why now? and not then?
Why was my leg—
shattered to pieces
and embedded with grass, dirt
and everything else
the wind gave me—
taken from me?
You were just there—
in the storm,
in the churning wind.
See, it is possible
to live every day.
It is possible to get up,
to go feed birds in the cold morning
and to watch
as they choose between
bread and snow.
The whole day is there to think about
and there aren’t enough hours in it
or in one’s whole lifetime to consider it all.
And when it’s done, you can sit down
and listen as a wind softer and more exotic
than the one you hear in your nightmares
comes to you, touching your face
and whispering to you in a language
as strange, yet beautiful
as Chinese
or Norwegian.
Sirens
Ah, so this
is what it will sound like!
This is that last
terrible sound.
This is the tune
the angel
will know
on that last unending Day
when he puts the
trumpet to his lips
and blows.
And today
like that awful last day
when we hear it
we scatter.
We stumble over each other
searching for shelter—
for safety—
from the wrath.
Let this not be
the last sound we hear!
Let this not be
what our ears hold fast
as we go up into the winds.
Rather,
let it be a whisper.
Let it be the quiet hush
of a warm breeze
at the end of the sweetest day.
Let it be the gentle
thud
of our pulsing life
gasping in our ears.
Ah, so this
is what it will sound like!
This is that last
terrible sound.
This is the tune
the angel
will know
on that last unending Day
when he puts the
trumpet to his lips
and blows.
And today
like that awful last day
when we hear it
we scatter.
We stumble over each other
searching for shelter—
for safety—
from the wrath.
Let this not be
the last sound we hear!
Let this not be
what our ears hold fast
as we go up into the winds.
Rather,
let it be a whisper.
Let it be the quiet hush
of a warm breeze
at the end of the sweetest day.
Let it be the gentle
thud
of our pulsing life
gasping in our ears.
Poems copyright (c) 2009 by Jamie Parsley
Betty&Don
1.
When our dead
die like that
we—
uncomfortable as we are to do it—
tend to canonize.
We make
saints
of our own.
We learn
to forget scandals
and failings. We convince
ourselves that
to speak ill
of our dead
is a sin.
Even in the cemetery,
we never walk
on their graves.
We step lightly
hopping and skipping
about
not because we’re superstitious.
We do it
because it’s disrespectful.
And when we do say their names,
we whisper them,
just as we do the Sacred Names
we use in our prayers.
We whisper their names
because, for us,
they are sacred—
they are precious
and holy
in ways they would
find uncomfortable.
2.
For years afterward,
that was how we said their name.
Betty&Don.
One word,
one incident
in some family past,
like the great-uncle who died
homeless and alcoholic
buried in the Pauper’s Cemetery
or the crazy cousin
sent to the loony bin
in Jamestown, where she died
of Parkinson’s.
They were names only
and a violent end. By the time
I heard, no one would even
call it unfair anymore.
They simply talked about it—
always in June—
and even then as though
it was a disgrace.
Betty&Don—
just that one word,
that one event
in some strange 1950s past
I could barely even imagine.
And, for me, not even that.
Only later would they
become more real—
a grainy yellowing newspaper photo,
from their wedding—
their death certificates which revealed
only the gruesome details,
the story of a first child
who died at birth.
Even later
they became
a pair of gravestones—
his in the Catholic Cemetery
a slab of military gray
set into the encroaching sod
with its inscription—
DONALD ELROY TITGEN
NORTH DAKOTA
CPL 9213 TECH-SVC UNIT
OCT 12 1930 JUNE 20 1957
The stone was almost lost
to the grass
until one hot day
I sawed away the thick earth
and edged the stone,
revealing its inscription
for the cemetery workers
who would place there a flag
each Memorial Day.
And hers—
a name and date
between two engraved roses—
MRS. BETTY LOU TITGEN
1936 - 1960
molded from a bronze plate
turning green as cemetery grass,
on the south side of Moorhead.
Betty&Don—
that one word—
and yet, it was ultimately
all about separation.
Two deaths in two different years,
as it is normally
when old people die.
Not people in their twenties.
And even then, two graves
in two separate cemeteries,
kept apart by something
vaguely religious, though no
one would admit it.
If it would happen now, the rules
would be relaxed, we say.
Then, it was different. Then…
we didn’t know what to do.
Who was there to tell us?
Who’d ever been through this?
Who’d ever lost their families
like this?
And we, in the long clear days
in the middle of June, find ourselves
wondering: what if?
What if the storm went north.
Or south.
What if is had never happened?
What if
Betty&Don had just stayed put,
instead rushing home
from wherever they were
to get to the kids?
What if?
They would be facing now
what they looked upon that day,
only now they’d be better prepared.
They’d have went to their final days
as we all should—
aching and complaining,
mourned by children and grandchildren
who would feel guilt for not visiting as
often,
who would seethe secretly for parental
faults
who would move on to face their own
ends
in due course.
In those long June afternoons
we ask the same questions,
we shake our heads,
we make the trek from
one side of the cities to the other,
laying our silk flowers there.
Then we turn away for our cars,
glancing up at the skies which
spew storms quickly on these hot days
and stiffen a bit
when we hear thunder.
1.
When our dead
die like that
we—
uncomfortable as we are to do it—
tend to canonize.
We make
saints
of our own.
We learn
to forget scandals
and failings. We convince
ourselves that
to speak ill
of our dead
is a sin.
Even in the cemetery,
we never walk
on their graves.
We step lightly
hopping and skipping
about
not because we’re superstitious.
We do it
because it’s disrespectful.
And when we do say their names,
we whisper them,
just as we do the Sacred Names
we use in our prayers.
We whisper their names
because, for us,
they are sacred—
they are precious
and holy
in ways they would
find uncomfortable.
2.
For years afterward,
that was how we said their name.
Betty&Don.
One word,
one incident
in some family past,
like the great-uncle who died
homeless and alcoholic
buried in the Pauper’s Cemetery
or the crazy cousin
sent to the loony bin
in Jamestown, where she died
of Parkinson’s.
They were names only
and a violent end. By the time
I heard, no one would even
call it unfair anymore.
They simply talked about it—
always in June—
and even then as though
it was a disgrace.
Betty&Don—
just that one word,
that one event
in some strange 1950s past
I could barely even imagine.
And, for me, not even that.
Only later would they
become more real—
a grainy yellowing newspaper photo,
from their wedding—
their death certificates which revealed
only the gruesome details,
the story of a first child
who died at birth.
Even later
they became
a pair of gravestones—
his in the Catholic Cemetery
a slab of military gray
set into the encroaching sod
with its inscription—
DONALD ELROY TITGEN
NORTH DAKOTA
CPL 9213 TECH-SVC UNIT
OCT 12 1930 JUNE 20 1957
The stone was almost lost
to the grass
until one hot day
I sawed away the thick earth
and edged the stone,
revealing its inscription
for the cemetery workers
who would place there a flag
each Memorial Day.
And hers—
a name and date
between two engraved roses—
MRS. BETTY LOU TITGEN
1936 - 1960
molded from a bronze plate
turning green as cemetery grass,
on the south side of Moorhead.
Betty&Don—
that one word—
and yet, it was ultimately
all about separation.
Two deaths in two different years,
as it is normally
when old people die.
Not people in their twenties.
And even then, two graves
in two separate cemeteries,
kept apart by something
vaguely religious, though no
one would admit it.
If it would happen now, the rules
would be relaxed, we say.
Then, it was different. Then…
we didn’t know what to do.
Who was there to tell us?
Who’d ever been through this?
Who’d ever lost their families
like this?
And we, in the long clear days
in the middle of June, find ourselves
wondering: what if?
What if the storm went north.
Or south.
What if is had never happened?
What if
Betty&Don had just stayed put,
instead rushing home
from wherever they were
to get to the kids?
What if?
They would be facing now
what they looked upon that day,
only now they’d be better prepared.
They’d have went to their final days
as we all should—
aching and complaining,
mourned by children and grandchildren
who would feel guilt for not visiting as
often,
who would seethe secretly for parental
faults
who would move on to face their own
ends
in due course.
In those long June afternoons
we ask the same questions,
we shake our heads,
we make the trek from
one side of the cities to the other,
laying our silk flowers there.
Then we turn away for our cars,
glancing up at the skies which
spew storms quickly on these hot days
and stiffen a bit
when we hear thunder.
Fraction
We don’t make it through life
without our bodies
being broken
and shattered.
This is
quite simply
the way it is.
It’s our nature—
to lie here
like this holy bread.
To be truly who we are
we need to break ourselves
open, cracking
ourselves
into pieces
to emerge
fully
into a wonderful
wholeness
we have—
until that moment—
found so elusive.
We don’t make it through life
without our bodies
being broken
and shattered.
This is
quite simply
the way it is.
It’s our nature—
to lie here
like this holy bread.
To be truly who we are
we need to break ourselves
open, cracking
ourselves
into pieces
to emerge
fully
into a wonderful
wholeness
we have—
until that moment—
found so elusive.
The Absolution of the Dead
Absolve them
of whatever they took with them
into the winds.
Of youthful failings
or the bitter ranting of old age
Of the heady pride
we all exulted in
at twenty-one or thirty
or the stone-set
stubbornness of fifty.
Erase it,
as one would erase
the pencil marks
of a drawing.
Erase their unfinished lines
and let what they had
grow beautiful
in your sight
as a dawn does
for us who sit up
all night
waiting for it.
Absolve them
of whatever they took with them
into the winds.
Of youthful failings
or the bitter ranting of old age
Of the heady pride
we all exulted in
at twenty-one or thirty
or the stone-set
stubbornness of fifty.
Erase it,
as one would erase
the pencil marks
of a drawing.
Erase their unfinished lines
and let what they had
grow beautiful
in your sight
as a dawn does
for us who sit up
all night
waiting for it.