Rod McKuen - Flight Plan


Wednesday 4th June, 2008		A Thought for Today Plant something in a friend’s garden. Even if it’s only a new idea. This One Does It For Me! Ken, While browsing through some of my old Rod McKuen books the other day I read for the umpteenth time the prologue to "Fields of Wonder." I'm almost sure I've heard Rod recite this poem but can't remember on which album. Any ideas? Rachel Rod has indeed recorded this poem, Rachel, but not under its original title which is "Close Watch." Rod included a portion of it in a "compilation" recital entitled "Caught in the Quiet/Something for R.J." on the album Live in London which, by a happy coincidence, has recently been released on compact disc. I've included the original poem for your reading enjoyment along with Rod's introduction to the book. If you'd like to order a copy of the Live in London CD please visit the Stanyan House web site and Ben will be happy to oblige. Author’s Note Done to death by deadlines, other people’s clocks and needs, I took a year to think about this book before I started writing it. Though it was begun in London, continued in Mexico and finally finished back in California, Fields of Wonder is not a collection, but a single thought. More and more I think that most of us have only one or two things to say. This is an amplification of what I might have said before and the beginning of what I’ll say next time around. I write with love; and a heart bright red is easier to hit than some crouched black target. Even if I could, I wouldn’t have it any other way. R.M. February 1971 Click on the Stanyan House logo to buy Rod McKuen books, CD's and lots more Click on the heart logo to subscribe to the Rod McKuen mailing list Catch Rod McKuen live! Click on the links below for details of concerts and appearances. ROD McKUEN CONCERTS ROD McKUEN APPEARANCES



		Robert Anderson o Gene Barry o John Drew Barrymore o Charles Collingswood o Bruce Dern o Freddy Fender o King George III of England o Sam Harris o Angelina Jolie o Morgana King o Robert Merrill o Michelle Phillips o Rosalind Russell o Parker Stevenson o Dennis Weaver o Dr. Ruth Westheimer o Scott Wolf o Noah Wyle

		There are angels in the alcoves we have never met but will. Being born amid the wealth and health of this prized nation, without the need to earn or win your share, is to be yet unborn. Loving for the sake of love, serves as much purpose as hating for the sake of hate.

Prologue - Close Watch		1. I began by loving nobody. Then nobody’s face became the face of many as I traveled not to Tiburon or Tuscany but battled back and forth between the breasts and thighs of those who fancied for a time my forelock and my foreskin. If they could overlook my acne and the inch I lacked to carry them to heaven, I too could deal in charity forgetting how their faces always seemed to be the same and thinking only how their thighs were rowable and readable and right for me and wrong for me. See the stars. Count them. Watch the stars go sailing through the sky. And as the stars move through the heavens preordained and predestined, so too the faces in the street file by as if by prearrangement. 2. Now they’re everywhere, in cars with tops down, stopped at red lights or whizzing by at glider speed toward some intersection in their lives that I’ll not share. My God, when seeing them my car can barely hug the road. Barefoot and barelimbed on beaches they hump white waves and disappear as lovers in the final feathered plunge. Can this be a ballgame now or some new choreography that makes them leap and limbo through the sand ? Are they innocent of what they do to me or am I meant to be audience and umpire too ? I’d gladly be their volleyball and call it victory each time I bounced against their beach brown bodies. Whatever battering a beach ball takes I’d receive with grace, and some thanksgiving. If they covered up on summer evenings I’d roam the waterfront at will, but while they bulge and burst and boast I stay home for safety’s sake (my own and theirs.) Bartok’s blessed the Gramophone with music of another kind though even he cannot wall out my mind’s percussion. - from "Fields of Wonder," 1971

AND FINALLY

More next week. Meantime if you have a favorite McKuen song, poem or story you'd like to share, or a question you need answered, drop me a line (you'll find the address on our Contact Page) and I'll do the rest.

-Ken, Johannesburg, South Africa, June 4

Webmaster: Ken Blackie • Birthday Research by Wade Alexander • Poems from the collection of Jay Hagan •
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