Poetry by Dan Erdman

One Rock At A Time By Dan Erdman

Moses was a scientist- not the bespectacled, white lab coat and test tube type, but the scraggly-haired, sandaled, field geologist kind who enjoyed traversing sand dunes with large slabs of slate in his arms and hauling them up a granitic mountain. And I get it.

But that thing about the Red Sea, which really made him famous, well, I just don’t know... I made a career understanding how water can, essentially, flow uphill- confined bedrock aquifers, differential head pressure, fracture flow, artesian conditions, and the like; but the parting of a surface water body under atmospheric pressure… well, it just isn’t natural.

So, before I retire, I think I may take my collection of Neanderthal bones and carefully cement them into some pre-Cambrian rocks, and scatter my collection of Paleozoic trilobite fossils among the sea shells on the Jersey shore, just to test the younger scientists, and see if they attempt to rewrite the stories of evolution and the geologic time table.

Then, I will visit with Moses at whatever retirement community he has moved into, and I will bring along a jug of wine, and we will drink and talk about all the fun we had re-arranging the earth one rock at a time. And, if he wants me to tell him how to make fresh water flow freely from a hole in the ground, I will, if he shares with me the secrets of the Red Sea.

Woodchuck In The Penthouse By Dan Erdman

I shot a woodchuck once, upon a time when I was young, because I could- in a distant wide open meadow that I strolled with my .22. Had I a shotgun, he would have exploded into pieces- a feast for fox and vulture, but with the .22 he imploded and was sucked into the barrel of my rifle before I could even lower it from my shoulder.

Now, there’s a woodchuck in my penthouse, gnaws on the wooden frame of my bed at night; probably hid in a box of old clothes when I moved in. I leave pizza crust in a bowl on the floor in the hall only to finds his notes there in the morning- demands for fresh carrots, arugula, and broccoli.

The woodchuck in my penthouse chews a wooden leg off every chair in the kitchen, shreds the bottom of towels hanging low to the floor, and fouls the rug in the living room. I have never seen him here for certain, but sometimes, as I doze in my recliner, I hear his high whistle beneath and awake to see something scurry fast from under the recliner to behind the couch.

I often leave the door ajar at night, and hope he will sneak out, take the back stairs or the elevator to ground level and find his way to the park across town to live happily ever after. But in the morning, I find the door shut and a note by the sill- cabbage, apples, and new kitchen chairs.

I asked an exterminator to trap him and to free the woodchuck in some far away meadow. But the exterminator told me it would be cheaper and easier to just poison him here, or lure him with strawberries to the balcony and kick him from the 22 nd floor… No.

THE HYDROLOGIST By Dan Erdman

I heard Mrs. Rosaldi, our neighbor, tell my Grandmother that she was going away all summer and so she had hired a lawn care company to take care of the yard and garden. She was very worried though, she said, that the workers may be Puerto Ricans or gypsies speaking god-knows- what languages to her roses. And so the child wrote:

Cool, calm, and clammy, drool drips slow and deliberate from a corner of my mouth- and the Ladies of the Most Delicate Plant Society scorn me in righteous horror.

But I have come only to help, I tell them, as I have heard about the drought- it has been hot and dry for weeks; it will be hotter and dryer tomorrow.

And, if it remains this hot and dry, I tell them, their most delicate prized plants will certainly wilt and die;

the sun will steal the moisture and the flowers will wither- and then, oh how the Ladies of Most Delicate Plant Society will cry.

But scorned, I shall now wait for the Ladies of the Most Delicate Plant Society to plead: “Who here in this drought-stricken land can help save our precious garden?”

Then they will ask me to dribble and drool on their dying prized delicate plants, and they will humbly beg for my pardon.

Decades later, I revisited the old neighborhood, which they now call “Little Asia”, and I stood on the sidewalk looking through Mrs. Rosaldi’s wrought iron fence and spoke with a Mr. Liu, who now lives there, and I told him that the garden looked just as impeccable as I remembered from my childhood. He told me he taught environmental science at the local community college, and I told him that I became a consulting hydrogeologist. And, as the conversation of our common interests evolved, we spoke of the many countries I’ve worked in throughout my career and that I was presently overseeing an in-situ bioremediation program of chlorinated solvent contamination in groundwater, which he genuinely found intriguing. Mr. Liu’s wife stepped out the front door as we chatted about these things, and he introduced me to her as a “fellow scientist” and someone who had long ago lived next door. And in response to her somewhat curious and skeptical look, he proceeded to further tell her my story, I guess, in what I think was Korean or maybe Chinese. And after some seemingly argumentative discussion between the two of them, she turned to me with a polite but concerned expression and said “Oh, a hydroologist… a gypsy boy” as she picked up her watering can and walked off toward the roses.

Cans of WD-40 By Dan Erdman

A man can’t possibly need more than one large can of WD-40 in a lifetime. There just aren’t those many rusty bolts, fishing reels, or other metallic do-hickeys in need of a dose of the lubricant in one’s lifetime.

Why then do I possess five, maybe six or seven, cans of WD-40, some in closets, one or two in the garage, one rolling around in the trunk of the car? All partially emptied, some cans so rusty they could use a good shot of WD-40 to clean them up, some missing caps and at least one without that push button nozzle on the top of the can.

I don’t know how many friends I really have. I do know that there is a handful who I have been meaning to call for quite a while. You know, just to ask them what condition they’ve been in the last few years. You been fishing? Get that creaky joint in your knee fixed yet? You been rolling around in the trunk of your car lately? You still alive?

I could invite them over for a barbeque- just the living ones, of course. I have this rusty old grill that needs fixing first, though. There’s probably enough WD-40 left in the can on the shelf in the garage to get the rusted bolts on the grill loose so I can replace that broken leg.

I could empty all the WD-40 from all the cans I can find into one mason jar, just to have it all together in one place and then throw away the cans. And I could have all those old friends over for a barbeque also, all of them at one time. But, I probably won’t do either.

Olives By Dan Erdman

On the third early morning away at a beach house, alone on the balcony with a warm and quiet mug of coffee, while the two young grandchildren remained asleep inside, I allowed myself to honestly list and prioritize the things in life that had brought me the most substantial pleasures. Among the firsts scribbled onto my list: fishing, sex, good alcohol, and the rising sun playing with the rising steam from the coffee mug then in my hand.

Grandchildren, I thought, should rank in the top one hundred, and I loved them even then for certain. But I could not rank them then, at that age or with their wicked behavior for those three long tortuous days, above the peace of a new sunrise from the ocean, that long-ago weekend girlfriend whose name I can’t remember, a striped bass on the line, a glass of single malt scotch around a campfire, the anesthesia they give you before a colonoscopy, or olives. Ah, olives!

Now, at my age, I know that the ranking of pleasures will continue to change with time, maturity, and/or senility, as will the ability to enjoy those things deemed that day at the beach house to be my life’s most substantial pleasures; and I know that the grandchildren will eventually rise toward the top of the chart. But I always have, probably always will, rank in the top ten the taste of a good honest olive.

Dan Erdman is currently working on publishing his first collection of poetry. He performs his poems at Steel City Coffeehouse in Phoenixville, PA and is a member of the Just Write Meet-Up.