Author: Curtis L. Mattson

On the Passing of My Sister

And grief swings around to pay visit once more
Its unwelcome steps an affront at my door
Why does it return again day after day
as if it belonged here in some other way?

I’d rather stay locked up behind my bright wall
and pretend that it never had knocked here at all
And still its odd face seems to glare in the glass
Its ugliness worse than its brutish trespass.

But powerless I must unlock the way free
and let it sweep in with its shameless debris
And sit all accursed at the foot of my bed
to mock at my hope of new life for the dead

A Robin in the Mulch

Was spreading some mulch today
A bird walked up from behind a bush
A robin.
He stood. Silently. Peacefully. Waiting.
He hadn’t gotten the message perhaps
That birds were afraid of humans

He stood and watched. Watched me working.
Another load, spread still further
Was he waiting for a worm?
There were no worms I wanted to say.
The mulch was dry.

He just watched. Another load I bring
He had climbed up onto the pile.
His eyes were closed.
I need to spread it, bird, I said.
I nudged him gently with a finger
He opened his eyes. He turned his head.
He moved to the left, stumbling on a clod.
Birds don’t stumble. Birds don’t trip. This wasn’t right.
He moved a few feet off. And watched.

Later, the job done and I rested.
A light rain had fallen.
The mulch dark with new moisture.
I ventured out once again.
Beside the path close to the house I saw him
Lying lifeless on his side, his sight all gone.

I wept. What could I say?
He had come. To watch?
Perhaps to say goodbye?
Farewell. My old friend.

The House on the Hill – A Poem for My Sister

When I was a child I ne’er knew it was there
Too busy with play and too little to care
But as I grew older became part of learning
The facts and the rumors, the fears and the yearnings

Around me the young and around me the old
All thought it was haunted, it ought to be sold
Its owner a monster, a creature unclean
Would come out at night and would wander unseen

Still everyone gawked at it one time or other
Young girls and old women and somebody’s mother
The children made stories, old ladies dreamed dreams
Men mostly ignored it, going on with their schemes

’Twas always just there, was the house on the hill

Some said it was charming, kept up with such care
It added such grandeur, it added some flair
But others more practical would take their stand
And question what else could be done with that land

Some said that the style was well done, but of late
Opinion swings both ways, some love and some hate
What had it imbued on the neighborhood ’round it
It sits there an eyesore, its beauty unfounded

The entry walk was just a path, such a pity
But others said that part belonged to the city
I’d never seen anyone go up that way
Unless it was well before I had my day

’Twas always just there, was the house on the hill

Some say they’d heard music or seen lights at night
I must admit I would have taken a fright
Yet there was a time on late walks of my own
I’d swear a strange glow through the forest had shown

When on a night weary while trudging towards home
I thought I heard faintly a strange heav’nly  tone
and wondered from whence the sound came and what for
But quickly I passed and recalled it no more

And life went on ’round it, cars, buses flow by
It lay mostly hidden and trees block the eye
Most said to ignore it, they wished it torn down
An oddity sure yet a fixture in town

’Twas always just there, was the house on the hill

They thought that a rich man must live there alone
He’d been there forever aloof and unknown
He could do some good for those ’round him residing
Instead of just sitting estranged and in hiding

How queer that a house can cause such consternation
and spin round the thoughts in such public fixation
But be such a comfort to some who look up there
Dependable always as if in answer to prayer

Perhaps one day I will step through that feared gateway
Through mysteries great and walk up that long pathway
And see just what lies beyond leaves and thick arbors
In hopes to find solace and longed-for safe harbor

And always just there is my house on the hill

Mending Lawn (with apologies to Robert Frost)

Something there is that doesn’t love my lawn,
That sends the racing snowplow cross the front of it,
And scrapes the front-edge soil into the street and drive,
Making gouges that the rain can further grow.

The work of parkers is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair,
Where they have left huge holes tire-deep and long.
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I walk the line and scrape and set the soil once again,
using a spell to make it stay:
“Until the next car parks or rain doth wash away.”

When this house was built then bought by me,
No funds were found for edges poured.
But years of pacing to and fro,
glove, broom, and shovel moving land,
I can only say, with strain-ed back and sweated brow,
Good curbstones make good neighborhoods.

Storming the Stainless Gates


I’ve ridden on a lot of trains in my life. No, I’m no hobo. These were passenger trains.

Most were very functional. Some were quite comfortable. But one feature of riding on a train has always had a strange attraction for me. That ‘feature’ has been the terrifying yet exhilarating few moments of crossing from one car to another (over the couplings) while the train is moving at full speed.

The interior of the train is, of course, built for safety and the comfort of the human body—at least as far as the train line’s budget allows.

The outside of the train, on the contrary, is designed for safety, weather-tightness, identification, etc.

But what about that in-between space? That place between the cars. That place where the exterior intrudes on the interior—or is it the interior extruding on the exterior? It is, in reality, a half-way place, a nether-worldly place. A place where human bodies don’t belong (there’s even a sign to that effect!) And yet, it is a place those bodies, at least occasionally, must traverse.

I suppose that is why that moment in time and space thrills me. The smell of heavy grease, the clash of the steel, the rattle of the wheels, the burst of frigid or super-heated air. In my otherwise very safe life, those crossing moments are my rare glimpses of danger. Those moments of hanging in the balance, surfing the steel above those barely hidden yet deadly mechanisms and the rough roadbed below. Like some real-life video game, jumping between slicing blades or collapsing rocks, I am inches from instantaneous death, moments from being mangled meat.

I suppose on a more cerebral level, it is also the movement from one sphere to another. Spheres overwhelmingly larger than ourselves. Is it like stepping into space, stepping from life into death, death into life? Of course, my lesser mind knows that through that heavy metal door is just another train car.

But who knows? What if, this time, it isn’t? …

So, there are those who sit safely, sleepily, in the same car for the entire trip. Is it out of complacency? Or is it fear?

But I’m of a different sort. I’m an adventurer! Look at me, the mighty Sir Edmund Hilary, the intrepid Ferdinand Magellan. Follow me! I will show you a new way. A new world. Just on the other side of these stainless steel gates!

On second thought, maybe tomorrow … my stop’s coming up.

The Writer as Body Snatcher

Perhaps an author is like a body snatcher. He has to move into someone else’s skin. But, contrary to the old movies, that someone is still the one in control. The author is the one at the disadvantage here. He’s along for the ride. He can’t just jump out at the next red light. He’s the one paying the fare, and he can’t exit “until he’s paid the last farthing.”

And what a farthing it is. Normal people, as individuals, experience their due amount of trouble and pain. But the writer has double the grief, double the turmoil, double the silly lists of I-have-to-do-this-today.

Or, is he like an actor? Well, no. An actor plays a part, yes. But an actor doesn’t live the part, doesn’t give birth to the part. But the writer has gone through the gestation, has poured his or her blood and bone into the role, has ‘lost the tooth’ for each child, as the old wives’ tale holds.

Then there are the late nights, the misunderstanding, the rebellion, the infidelities, the ingratitudes. The characters are simply not what you would have them be, not what you expect. And all this effort for what? There is no family history left behind, there is no inheritance to be passed, no reputation to maintain, no legacy to grow. The reader closes the book and, presto, the characters vanish.

Oh, some characters are lucky enough to be remembered—fondly or not—in the readers’ minds, for a time. Some may, astoundingly, go on to become cultural icons of a sort. But even they are nothing but snow-topped statues in the public square. Perhaps they strut their hour upon the stage. Most of them simply slumber between the pages, awaiting their occasional re-awakening.

But it is still worth it. Though the world doesn’t actually need more people, it needs more understanding. And if the author aids in that process, by creating either deep or shallow players, heroic or stereotypical actors, perhaps he has done his race a service. Perhaps in the safety of the written page, love may come. Or at least a quiet compromise. Or at least not hatred and rejection. Or, if hatred must come, then defused hated. Hatred that will not erupt some other place.

—CM