From: "Karl Duerner" To: johnny at charm.net Subject: This is about Mr. Kendricks's poem about the Liberty Tree Date sent: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 15:16:01 EDT Send reply to: johnny at charm.net Hello, people of the list. My name is Karl Duerner and I am writing to contribute my response to Mr. Philip Kendricks's poem about the Liberty Tree. I felt strongly about his poem, since I met my the woman who would become my wife beneath the Liberty Tree when I was a sophomore in the New Program. As soon as the weather became warm enough in the spring I would sit every afternoon beneath the tree, reading and translating. I was very unhappy at the time, unsure about being in college at such a time. I thought that perhaps I would be better served by trying to get a job with the government, a position with some security, but at the time it was so hard to get hired anywhere. This day I came out of my language tutorial and walked across the lawn towards the tree. As I walked I could see that somebody was already sitting in my spot. As I walked closer I could see that it was a girl, no older than 18, and she couldn't have looked more beautiful. Of course I knew that she wasn't a student, since this was before the College admitted women as students. I didn't know what to do, whether to walk away or whether to sit down beside her. I never was comfortable meeting women, unlike some of my friends. I was filled with resentment, however, that she who wasn't even a student would keep me from what I had come to think of as my spot, so I boldly walked over and sat down beside her. I opened my books and began to pretend that I was engrossed in my work. "You're late." she said to me. I looked over at her. Her eyes were green. I remember noticing that at once. "You're usually here by three o'clock" she said to me. I didn't know what to say. I think I may have apologized. She went back to reading her book and I looked back at my Latin. Even to this day I can remember staring at a single sentence to be translated the whole time that we sat next to one another. It's the only sentence of Latin that I can still remember. "Carthago deleta est." I stared at that sentence and read it over and over to myself while we sat for what must have been half an hour. Finally she spoke again. "What do you think of this?" she asked me. She read to me from her book, the poem by Wordsworth that begins "Sing ye birds, sing a joyous song." The only exposure to poetry that I'd had before this was sitting around a St. John's table discussing it with eight other men, and believe me, this was a different experience altogether. So when Mr. Kendricks wrote a poem about sitting beneath the Liberty Tree that included a reference to the destruction of Carthage, you can imagine how it took me back to that half hour I spent staring at "Carthago deleta est." I know that this isn't a very philosophical letter, but I thought it was important to let Mr. Kendricks know how his poem had affected me. Sincerely, Karl Duerner ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com