1.

The spring had found its restless way

Into the cobbled alleys of the city, where

It would have been more kind to men

If winter had remained. There is

No proper way to make reply to spring

When it arises, who knows how,

From yellow paper and the street dust, underneath

The dingy smokiness of old brick walls.

Spring stirred in Hjalsen's dusty heart as well.

The open door of Pete's Place let spring in.

It came in a thin bar of half warm sunshine

On the floor, a bar that ended just in front

Of Hjalsen's feet. All winter long he'd found

Pete's Place as good as any other. Too much life

Had walked on him in a few years for him to care

What door was shut between him and the world.

But now the door was open. Hjalsen shifted in

His creaking chair. The tin piano, which

Had been unheard for months,

Dropping its rusty discords in among

The living discords of the place, suddenly jangled on

The bar of sunlight on the floor.

He pushed his glass away, half full, and knocked

The live coals from his pipe into

A calloused palm. Desire for the reason of

His restlessness troubled him more than the

Dissatisfaction in itself More springs than one

Had passed above him in Pete's Place,

Or others like it, and he had not cared

Because the old piano jangled, or because

Men talked as men will talk, and women laughed.

He had come back from watching youth

Torn on the wheel of selfishness. His mind

Had been a screen on which

Two years had passed review of nights and (lays

And men who shrieked for death

And could not die. Shells screamed, dirt flew,

Men crumpled and souls fled, and quiet,

When it fell upon the muddy ruts across torn fields,

Ruts filled with frightened boys, had left

As many walking bodies without souls as quiet ones.

His soul had gone. Perhaps a soul,

Being far less within man's small control,

Died or deserted, though the body still remained

To serve as lodging place for lead and steel

That other soulless bodies hurled across.

Souls had a greater wisdom, and, when men

Forgot them, would not stay. Quiet had been

The thing he could not stand. Men had become

Matters for laughter. The great scheme,

Which had seemed clear to him before the guns began,

Had strength enough to show him only that

Man's small ability to choose what he would do

Was the one error in that scheme.

Pity had stayed a while, but watching death

Had taught him that it was akin to fear, and he

Had pinned it in the mud with a thin bayonet

Through a man's throat. The mockery of peace

I lad seemed a dropping into unreality. Mankind

Had sought to laugh, and the hard hands

Of war had been so hot and crude

That only something just as hot and crude

And unakin to skulking souls, could gain a laugh.

So he had found a place, and lived

By writing hot, crude things

Which others hoarsely shouted to the world,

Which laughed. He had been sure that some

High bursting shell had scattered his scared soul

So far that it could not be found. But now

This sun bar on the floor was real, and spring

Was here, and it was real. Strangely enough

The shells burst far, and sounds he had forgotten,

As unreal, returned; the sound of cold, wind driven surf

Breaking on lonesome rocks,

The sound of mountain pines bending before

The breath of snow packed peaks, and the high sound

Of wild geese winging south, a pencil line across

An autumn sky. That was the reason for

His restlessness. The soul of Viking fathers was as strong

As Viking blood, and had returned to make

Him discontented with waiting for death

By laughing at what war had left of life.

That too was why those voices made him wish

To fling things at the mouths that let them go.

That soul returning made it clear, as well,

That other souls were creeping back, and souls

Could not be laughed at. Men with souls

Were things to be avoided. He must go.

Yes, that was it; go, by himself, and find

A place where men were not, where he could make

His peace with the returning inner self,

Or drive it out. When bodies only had

Opened the door or closed it, he could drink,

And watch the foolish things they did as one would watch

A puppet show, because he was too bored to seek

For something more. But now it seemed. again,

They made their dirty fingerprints on something which

The easily forgiving earth could not conceal

When bodies ceased to move.

Bodies and souls and broken songs were all

One mixed up thought to trouble him, and he

Must take the time to set them straight.

Women had been another good excuse for putting off

Ideas that bothered him, but now they had become,

Themselves, somewhat of thought again, existences

Of more than legs and scanty clothes which could

Be taken off with drinks enough.

They were no longer good to have around.

And yet, the one thing that he feared, remained.

He was afraid to be alone. Afraid

To be alone but more afraid to be with men,

Because the sunlight on the floor had brought them souls.

And then he knew, as suddenly as he had known

That spring had come, what he would do.

He would go out into the hills and make his peace

With life, or find the certainty that he had lived enough.

The sea and mountains both had come to make

Pete's Place, with its one alley door, a place to leave,

But he would seek the mountains, for

The unrimmed sea was full of restlessness

As great as his, and ever surged in on the land

As though, for all its vastness, it was insufficient

In itself And as for lonesomeness, he knew;

He'd get a dog. Men used dogs for their needs,

Yet dogs held place far more secure

In the creation's workings, and, saving when men

Dragged them apart, stayed well in line.

Besides, a dog had all he dared to think about

In life, a body and a certain length of time to be.

A dog would serve as model for himself.

The mountains, and a (log, and what was left of Hjalsen,

That was good. He rose

And flipped a coin onto the table, by the glass,

And heard it clink against the bottle, and went out

Along the sun bar to the cobbled alley with

Its restlessness of spring

And sudden little eddyings of dust.

II.

The summer months had passed, and the long days

When sun filled skies seemed very close to earth

Had slipped into the keenness of the autumn.

The aspens in the canyon glowed with fuller gold

Than the rest seeking sun could hold. The nights came down

From the still peak without their former hesitation,

And the stars were very clear and very cold.

Hjalsen had been here long enough to know

Which ridges lay about him, and what trees

Marked guiding points along his ways.

The little lake beneath the granite cliff

Was now familiar in its every mood, and he could tell

At any time, without his eyes, what it reflected

And which way the ripples ran upon its surface

If any breeze stirred in the valley underneath

The peak. He'd even been here long enough to make

Especial friends, the peak, the lake, and one tall pine

That stood out on the point of the grey granite cliff,

The peak because it never changed, the lake because

It always changed, the pine because

It stood alone and strangely straight although

It sought no shelter from the wind. Its branches were

A little shorter on the windy side, but that was all.

They had worked hard all through

Those summer months, he and Bernard, the dog

With the sad drooping face. A Saint Bernard

He really was, and Hjalsen knew no reason for

Seeking another name for him. He was more close

A saint than any man he'd ever known, and anyhow,

He seemed so constantly reflecting on saint's thoughts;

He must have been, his face had drooped so far.

But he had worked, and carried Hjalsen's lunch

When they went out along the trails, and helped him when

He brought in firewood, dragging a bundle on

A rope that Hjalsen said could be his own.

Hjalsen himself had spent wearisome hours with

A heavy axe, driving the white chips out ,

About the blade, until the two neat slots were cut,

And then stepping aside to breathe and watch

The trembling tree lean slowly out,

Then gather speed, and crashing through the underbrush,

Settle to stillness, while the echo seemed to drive

Small ripples out across the lake, from the resounding cliff.

The trees, in time, were logs, and these,

With a painstaking labor and a crudest lever of his own invention

Formed the walls, and, split, the rafters of a cabin set beneath

The single largest pine the valley held, scarce thirty steps

From the lake's edge. When this was done,

And many trips completed to and from

The closest village, twenty miles away, to bring in stores,

And things a single man and one big dog would want,

The axe had come to feel so good in the hard hands,

Its glittering edge and the white chips so well prevented

Undesired thinking that he sought excuses to

Continue felling trees along the canyon walls.

When finally he knew that there was nothing more to do,

That he had all the wood to burn for years,

And had completed all the things he'd use,

He still went out a little time each day

And, stripped sun open to the waist,

With long arms drove the heavy head exultantly,

And joyed to hear the conquered trees crash down the slopes.

He wandered too, along the ridges, miles

To North and South, and strode with heavy boots

Down into countless valleys, and explored

Along their nameless streams. He climbed to all

The highest peaks along the range, and shouted at

The wideness of the world that lay beneath him, where

His outstretched hand could cover lakes and lesser peaks.

And hidden valleys and the mounting foothills with

The marching trees advancing down their bulk

Upon the unsuspecting giant valley, which was sprawled

Between his range and the great blue one which lay

East. He learned to sing again because he found

A high walled, narrow canyon, where his voice

Came back as though a three-fold he

Stood high upon its headwall and called down.

He swam in all the takes and came out splashing

For the joy of splashing, then he freed

His body to the sun and wind, and became sure

That his new strength was half due to

The pine breath and snow cold that hung

So heavy in the air. He ate again for joy

Of the food's taste, and never had enough.

He picked up rocks and carried them because

They felt good in his hands, and dropped them from

Cliff tops to hear them banging down the sides

Until they came to rest down somewhere out of sight.

Sometimes he brought them down to weight his cabin roof

Against the winter wind.

When the sun set and the sky flamed behind the peak,

He brought his food out to the bench beside the door,

And ate, and smoked his pipe and watched

The shadows creeping down the upper canyon to his valley,

While the sky's light died more slowly in the take.

Life was a purpose in itself

His thoughts of men were few. They left

A soft streak in the hardness of a day, and were to be avoided.

Men became dim images of an unpleasant past,

Except the few in the small village where he went.

They seemed more real, less to be put aside,

Because they were a part of the new thoughts

Which were of mountains and of wind, and less

Of thought than feeling. Even these

He saw as little of as he could well devise,

And brought up all that he and his Bernard

Could carry on each trip, and never talked

Enough to find their thoughts and so know how they lived.

He saw enough of moving life beyond himself

In the few deer he startled in the sheltered canyon meadows

And the very few low pacing, tawny mountain lions

Which he saw at distance in the rocks and twisted fir trees

Of the timber line, whence jagged peaks thrust up

To breathe more freely in the sky.

The dog was all he needed as a friend.

He did not use unnecessary words to make

His wants explicit, and his thoughts did not

Insist on taking inward turns.

If sitting on the bench beside the door too long,

When evening calm was dominant,

Brought mind thoughts over sight and feeling thoughts,

He merely knocked the ashes from his pipe, stood up

And stretched and looked a moment longer at

The silver-green of moonlight on the granite cliff,

Said good-night to Bernard by pulling his long ears,

And went to bed, for sleep was easy too,

And came down with the swiftness of a miracle

Before his heavy eyes had fully lost

The paleness of the moonlight on the wall.

Thus swift weeks passed. Men dropped

Still more from thought, with sights and sounds of war.

The cabin, peak, and lake, and pine, and Bernard, and himself

Were all the world.

Autumn was gone. The wind was cold and pushed

With heavy hands. Ice formed upon the lake's edge

And the stream that fed it from the snow bank

Made no further sound. The ground was hard,

And Hjalsen went about all day in a great hairy shirt,

And built a fire in the cabin with the dark.

The peak loomed higher, and at last

Thrust its bleak head into the clouds

And thought grey thoughts for days, and then

The storm came down, and whistled in the canyons,

And loud roared with joy of its first freedom in the big tree

Over Hjalsen's cabin in the valley. It brought snow,

And blotted out in swirling white

The granite cliffs, the lake and everything a few steps past

The creaking cabin door. The world was smaller than before.

One room, a fire, a few books, Bernard and Hjalsen;

Winter boisterously took the rest.

III.

The winter Hjalsen feared; not this

First strong young winter with its too loud voice,

But older winter, when the snow was deep,

And silence such that a small pebble dropping

Along the cliff resounded startlingly.

When the wind came the pines sang, but the wind

Often came down no farther than the peak, from which

It drove the powdered snow in a fine cloud of white

Which seemed to move in silence, from where Hjalsen watched.

Those hours were so very quiet, a tense quiet,

And there were few things to do, and thoughts would come

In spite of eyes and ears and hands. Sometimes he plunged

Out in the snow; sometimes on snowshoes he would pad

His way where he believed the paths had been.

But even so he could not go too far because

Bernard struggled so hard, and floundered in the drifts.

The snow was still too soft for even his broad feet.

Thus thoughts grew, and a discontent

Because he found himself seeking again

The purpose of his troubled soul, and now was sure

That inward mulling of its being could not be so good

As doing things and letting it exist

In unmolested solitude. Short days dragged by

More slowly than the longest of the summer,

And sleep was much more hesitant of coming. Then

An evening came when, sitting by his fire, book tossed aside,

Pipe out, thoughts dancing in the flames, he realized

That Christmas was the morrow. It was an idle realizing, come

Of seeking harmless occupations to escape the flame thoughts.

He had counted time, to find the date, easily lost

When one's sole obligation is to self. Yes,

Christmas eve. The time of times when all his kind

Laid hate aside, or played at laying hate aside,

And all was of a joyful peace for which he knew

No counterpart. And yet it was an idle thing.

He was a man, as much as any other, and here, now,

It meant nothing at all. Another foolishness

That men had built to make existence less unbearable.

He smiled. Thus he consigned the Christmastide

To idol-worship class, and yet an odd reminder of

The old, old thrill this evening never failed to bring,

Was with him even now, because, perchance,

He had turned back to count the winter days.

Well, he had better get himself to bed, or he

Would play with memories, which is a foolish thing to do,

At best, and is still more than foolish when so much

Of memory, as with himself, was full of things

He did not wish to think upon.

He knocked the ashes from his pipe

Against the grey stone of his fireplace and stood.

Bernard was whimpering. He looked around

And saw the great dog standing by the door,

Making all his most anxious signs, but in a manner

Far exceeding customary zeal.

"How now, old man," he asked, "what ails the door?"

He strode across and threw it open.

In the shadow and the half light of the fire stood a man,

I His head and shoulders white with snow, which still

Was falling in big silent flakes.

"May I come in?" he asked. "Of course," said Hjalsen,

And made way, and drew another heavy chair up to the fire.

He watched the stranger in his slow approach. This was

No common man, for, first of all, Bernard had never growled,

And now he walked beside him as beside

A new found friend. The man was tall,

But not so tall as he himself, and dressed

In toil worn clothes, though warm, with heavy cap

And gloves, which he drew off His hair was reddish gold

And over long, and he was bearded, and his eyes

Were very blue, and had about them that which Hjalsen knew

He'd never seen in other eyes. His voice was soft

And mellow, and he spoke with ease.

"I know, my friend, you wonder who I am,

And why I should be here at such a time.

I'm only a sheepherder, who keeps flocks

Here in the valleys close around you, moving as

The forage bids. I have come up because,

Of the belated flocks which we took down, a few

Have strayed, due to our haste, and missing some of them

Upon the lower slopes, I've come, though late, in hopes

That they, seeking some shelter, might have lived

In spite of storm." He smiled, a smile

As quiet as his voice. "A true keeper of sheep, you know,"

He said, "Finds his heart turning more upon

The last lost member of his flock than all the rest."

He spoke of other things concerning sheep

Which Hjalsen scarcely heard for trying to seek out,

In his own mind, the reason for his liking of this man,

The name for what was hidden in his eyes, the secret of

The strength which he unquestionably had.

At last lie woke and mindful of his duties as a host

Proffered both meat and drink, to which the bearded man

Sat down. He talked of trifles as he ate, and Hjalsen found

A little of the mystery of the eyes He knew a thing

From seeing it. Hjalsen as well he knew

As the crude chair, or as the food upon his plate.

He knew and yet he loved, and that was why that gaze,

Which looked on through one's eyes, did not offend.

But the first thing that Hjalsen liked about him was

His strength, for all his gentleness, of voice and manner both.

Those hard palmed hands had labored, and that face

Had seen as many storms as had his own.

"I noticed, Hjalsen," said the stranger,

Pushing back his chair, "As I came down,

That you have cut the trees all from your canyon slopes,

Yet you could not have used so much wood as all that."

He paused to light his pipe upon the brand

The big blonde lifted from the fire.

"When the spring thaws come up from the warm valley

You will lose most of your water, for the trees are few.

If it melts fast you might have a real flood."

"I hadn't thought of that," Hjalsen replied, "I cut

Because the axe felt good, and it was something

Very real to do." "I know," the other nodded,

"That is so with most of us at times. But yet,

You see your valley is less beautiful, and not so safe,

And all those naked stumps mean something you have done

Not things yet to be done, and such are, after all,

What makes life liveable." He paused another moment,

Looking down into the fire. Then he resumed,

"When the wild duck comes North again, and flies

Over your valley, calling up the spring,

You could go out and plant some seeds, or maybe bring

Small trees from other places and plant them. If you

Are the beginner of as many trees as you can cut

The world will find not fault. You know,

A shovel to dig holes feels just as good

As a smooth-handled axe, it's only using it enough

To let your hands get the new way. Lifting instead

Of swinging may be harder for a while, but not for long."

"I never thought of that," Hjalsen replied.

"You have not lived here long enough. It takes

The sort of knowing that extends beyond

just understanding what eyes see, to grasp

All that trees mean, or stones, or any of the other things

We live among." Another silence while

The two men smoked and watched the crackling flames

Mount up from the fresh log Hjalsen had just put on.

The great dog lay between them, with his nose

Upon his paws, and all the room breathed a content and peace

Which had been strangely absent since

Deep snow days had set in. This man

With the red beard and quizzical blue eyes

Seemed to have brought the quiet of high places

Down with him. The things he said,

Meant so much more than just the words in which

He said them, and were worth attention for

The music of the voice. He was always smiling, too,

A gentle smile that told of knowledge of

The sorrows of the world, from stones to men,

And yet revealed the progress of warm, pleasant thoughts

Behind the eyes. His was no peace of ignorance,

But of a knowledge so complete that surface troubles,

Which are most men's lives, never obscured

The reason growing from the center of the earth.

He drew the stem of the deep glowing pipe

Down from his lips, watched the smoke drifting up, a time,

Then spoke again.

"It's hard for most to understand, I know,

Why too much living among men makes understanding of them

Difficult. The truth, if it were known,

Is that most never realize that they have failed

To understand. That's much of the discomfort of your heart,

Hjalsen, you have been close to men so long

That you no longer see them. Men become

Means to each other rather than reasons for being

In themselves. The things men do make those among them

Who still think, feel sure that the whole world's disquietude

Arises from man's selfishness, and that is largely true.

Men kill each other for the things that men have set

As goals for man's existence. Thus, become so much

Too self-sufficient, the big things are lost. And yet,

From each man's heart there cries a little

So unhappy voice, to everyone who passes in his way,

'Wait, let us know, each, where the other one has been,

And where he goes; What his unhappiness

And what his joy; Let us have food and drink

Together; The wide world is nothing but a place

For us to meet within!' But each, with his ears dulled

By too much listening to sounds of haste

And closing doors, but seldom hears the voice

Within himself, and when he does hastens to still it,

Thinking it a sign of weakness, something other men

Would laugh about. To know men one must be among them, yes,

But he can never find the solid rock beneat

The shifting sands of this unconscious knowledge

Without taking time apart from men, where other things,

Less complicated in their being, show the plan

More clearly. One must learn of trees and rocks;

And the full truth of a man's heart is never known

Until life has been lonesome long enough

To make the things the wind says understandable.

Have you begun to understand the wind?"

"I think I have, a little," Hjalsen said.

But not enough to hear things about men."

"It seldom speaks of men, but if you know

The way of wind in pines you know the way

Of love in a man's heart. The wind brings ever

A response from pines. Men take much pride,

By far too much, in minds, and praise machines,

And find but little reason to remember hearts. And yet,

In hearts alone is understanding, and man's certainty

Of being more than man. To play at being wind

And blowing in men's hearts with a clean mountain breath

Brings more real joy than crossing clever thoughts

Like smoothly oiled machines. The heart is the real knower,

And the only joy the mind can touch rests in the heart

Or passes through it on the way. The heart is joy,

The mind is given to enable us to build the heart.

There must be limit to man's knowledge of externals,

Distant though it be, and only in the heart is he allowed

To go beyond. Yet he has scarcely stepped along that way."

The silence fell again, while endless paths

The bearded man's slow words had opened, branched before

His brawny listener. Faint intimations of those ways he'd had,

As every questing mind must have, but things far more

Immediately forceful had, in those past years, obscured

The traces, and he found the tools of words,

However slow dependence on them was, an aid

In cutting through the unreality of half-formed thoughts.

Dim things for idle moments had become

As real as his smooth-handled axe. Perhaps

This summer and crisp autumn here, had helped indeed

In putting them more easily in proper place, now that

Their proper placement had been called to his attention

"The cabin here, you built it, did you not Hjalsen?"

His visitor's deep voice broke in again,

Though no more noticeably than a breeze awakes

A trembling in young aspens; no one can tell

When it begins or when it stops, although

The silver shimmering is clear.

"I built it, yes," said Hjalsen, "It was fun."

"There is real joy in any building. I myself

Know something of the trade of carpentry.

My father built a great deal, though with simple tools.

Your rafter there- " and he went on,

Maintaining, somehow, all the way of one who had

Been a cobuilder of the place, of one

Who never spoke of any work as bad, but of all work

As something which they two, with thought

And further time, could much improve.

They carefully went over all the room, and Hjalsen learned

The truth of things at which he'd only guessed,

On rafters, joists and corner joints, and even masonry, A

nd laying of a floor. From this their talk

Turned to a multitude of things in life, from making paths

To pathless guiding by the stars, and moss on stumps

And trees, and wind direction when the stars were dimmed,

'Till, as the hours passed, Hjalsen surprised himself

By hearing his own words of war, the worst of war, the things

Which had burned in so deeply that he feared to trust them in

The form of words. Yet now they came quite easily,

And a great shadow lifted from his being with the speech.

He realized, though never knowing how, that time had passed,

That dawn had put its grey face to the frosted panes,

And that the last log he had put upon the fire had now

Become a blackened shell, through which the core

Of flameless heat reflected with a simmering glow,

Just now and then a tiny flame flickering up

From the small cracks along the side, and dropping back

Before one was quite sure that it had been.

The stranger rapped his pipe upon the hearth stone

And stood up. "I must be going down," he said,

"The food was good, Hjalsen, the talk was better yet."

When he had donned his cap abd gloves and coat,

Hjalsen threw wide the door. The sun was rising,

A cold sun, but clear upon the freshness of

The newly fallen snow. The sky was clean,

And all the forms which thrust above the level of the white

Cast long blue shadows, promising a golden day.

The bearded man stepped past the sill, sinking knee deep

In snow, and standing so, breathed deeply of the cold.

Hjalsen had done that, too, it cut away

The last smoke of the cabin room.

"If you come back this way, stop in," he said,

"There's always a good fire and time to talk."

"I shall," the man replied, and turned apart, but stopped

As though an after thought had laid its hand

Upon his shoulder. "By the way,

The village down below is having a hard winter now.

Sickness is there, and your big hands could do much good

If you have time. They are so far from any place

Of size, and there is very little money for them all."

"I will be down, and very soon," Hjalsen replied.

He stood and watched the other ploughing through

The snow. At the white rim, where the trail dropped,

The bearded man faced back and waved, and called

"A very Merry Christmas to you both."

Hjalsen looked down and saw Bernard's big wistful head

Thrust through the door beside his leg. He grinned

And pulled the heavy cars. When he looked up

His bearded man was gone. But the great peace

Which he had brought remained. It seemed as though

The echoes of a crystal music came, the air was full

Of morning, and his heart was strangely glad.

Perhaps the music was a reminiscence of

The best that life had brought to him, left ringing in

The stranger's voice. The stranger's voice or the church bells,

Which always came so clearly, although thin,

Up from the valley on these mornings of new snow.

The stranger's voice, why he had never thought to ask

His name. He laughed. Queer to have talked away the night

And never asked your one companion's name.

Yet now, when he took time to think, he realized

That there had never been a time, from the first opening of

The door, when he had not felt sure he knew the man.

Oh well, they'd know him in the village, two such men,

He knew, could hardly be, especially in one small place,

He'd ask when he went down. But come to think of it, W

hat better day than this? He'd take his axe,

Perhaps they needed wood. Yes, he'd go down

With Bernard and his axe. He took

Another breath of the white day, and then gave way

To all the newness, or the oldness found, and sang

With all his might, to hear the echoes in

His canyon sing, his threefold self, a little song

Which flowed upon big notes, a song

He'd written for himself, long years before:

"Ring morning bells across the white,
Ring far the gladness of the night,
Ring, though the star has died with day,
Ring, He has brought the dawning day,
Ring to the glory of new light,
Ring, with His coming fear has gone,
Ring out the blackness of its night,
Ring to the rising of His dawn!"

_________________________________________________

Christmas Comes to Hjalsen was originally published in 1930 by Walter Van Tilburg Clark's family as a gift for family and friends. The poem was reprinted in1998 in a limited edition 32-page chapbook with woodcut illustrations of Lake Tahoe scenes by John Balkwill. The book is available from Great Basin Publishing. To order click here.

Thanks to Walt Clark, Robert Clark, John Balkwill, subscribers to Great Basin magazine, and supporters of Black Rock Press.

Christmas Comes to Hjalsen (c) by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Reprinted by permission from Robert Clark.