Walter Pavlich

Walter Pavlich, once said in an interview, “I’ve always tried to define—and celebrate—sort of hard things in life. To try to find beauty in them—or to be more patient and watch the beauty unfold.” My late wife and I knew Walter as his hometown booksellers and occasional dinner and drinking companions. Vicky and I would always light up whenever Walter would walk through our store’s doors. A conversation with Walter could brighten a day with all the laughter, and his stories were great. But then he would turn around a write a poem like the following.

“Sarajevo Bear”

The last animal

In the Sarajevo Zoo

A bear

Died of starvation

Because the leaves

Had fallen

From the trees

Because

The air was

Getting colder

So the snipers

Could more easily see

The few remaining peoples

Who were trying to

Feed it
___

Walter died much too early at not quite 47 in 2002. He was born up in Portland, Oregon, and the forests stayed within him and his poetry far beyond his days as a wildfire firefighter, when he was smoke jumping into the backcountry. He graduated from the University of Oregon in Eugene and then went on for an MFA at the University of Montana. Beyond his poetry, he worked as a poetry teacher in the prisons and schools, and later in life he had an online antiques business. He once told an interviewer, “It’s okay to be silent and not write for a while. I don’t force it anymore. I relax with it. It might be a way of saying less ego—or less rhapsodizing.”

You were always aware that Walter had seen and felt so much in his life. He held a deep empathy for so much within himself. Vicky and I were honored to have had Walter and his wife/soulmate Sandra McPherson for several poetry reading and events over the years.

Since I now live and have a feel for Winters—that’s my bank that’s mentioned—I feel an attachment to the following poem.

“Happy Days”

Early one Friday morning
In the small farming town
Of Winters, California

Where life is good and bad
Where most people
(even tourists off the highway)

Stop at the one flashing red light
Where I was wearing a bad dream
With a slow walk and a good coffee

I heard a man singing
On his way to the bank
(bank with a real lobby

Marble floor,
Crushed red velvet chains,
Where a quarter could roll forever…)

In the old days he might
Have been called the village idiot,
Or worse, his head large,

Teeth in twos and threes.
He sang in a key all his own,
“Happy Days Are Here Again”

Over and over as he held
The door open for someone else.
I know he knew something

That the rest of us would laugh at,
Or younger, throw rocks at him for.
Yet for the better part of that morning.

I found myself humming that melody
With faith in the man, but not the tune.
For such is the nature of belief.
___

Allow me to quote from the book. “The book you hold in your hands is, literally, the result of a dream wakened from on July 20, 2013. In it, Walter Pavlich and his wife, poet Sandra McPherson, visited me near dawn to discuss the unavailability of his previously published books of poetry. In that dream, I agreed to do whatever I could to make Walter’s collected poems a reality.” Thank goodness for that dream and the efforts to collect Walter’s poetry. With this book, I was able to once again enjoy Walter’s words, as all his chapbooks are packed away in the boxes of my former bookselling life in a storage unit that I can’t bring myself to dig into alone.

I know it’s crude, but let me share a few short lines from some poems that have stuck with me over the years.

“Awareness”
A mockingbird goes on and on
because it has to. Its silence
goes unlistened to.

“Elegy for James Wright”
I spent the first nine years of my life
thinking the Oregon Artificial Limb Co.
repaired broken trees.

“Hardhat Pillow”
I am
an outline in the ash.
Others sleep without moving,
nailed down by weariness.

“How to be This Man”
Watch a boy being brought in to our grade school on a handtruck by
his father because they couldn’t afford a wheelchair and take
that lesson in and use it for the rest of my life.
__

Turn down the hearing aid to save money on batteries. But listen, listen
always. Because the world is talking.

“Dawn Walk, Waking Up”
There are voices in the waves,
it is always a matter
of translation.

“What Should I Write About Today”
I don’t know,
but I do have to think about dinner,
some nice spinach lasagna maybe, zinfandel
and to hell with writing for now.
___

I still very much miss seeing Walter coming through our bookstore’s doors, knowing that Vicky and I would soon be laughing with Walter and his stories. It seems that so much of my life is now defined by those I miss … but I’m glad to have Walter’s poetry back in my life.… (more)