Like any hermit, Michael Kriesel will talk to
just about anyone who stops by; and like any poet, he will talk to himself. And he does. That's the noise you hear in the house when he goes in to get the brats while you sit outside watching the charcoal turn from black to white.
Last Friday I went to Aniwa to visit Michael, whom I had met in June during my "Poets Loose in Marshfield" adventure with Free Verse editor and publisher Linda Aschbrenner. Michael had earlier published a favorable review of my book Kissing Poetry's Sister in Free Verse so you know I was predisposed to like him. What I didn't know was that I would find him such an interesting fellow. Because he has reviewed a book of mine, I'm uncomfortable reviewing any of his, but I did interview him about his work, and will publish that in conjunction with the release of his next book, forthcoming at the end of the month from Aschbrenner's Marsh River Editions.
Like good poets, we only had the least of plans for the day, and we stayed open to serendipity. One place he wanted to show me was the parking lot at Northern EXposure, a "gentlemen's club" along Highway 45 south of Aniwa. The place used to be a gas station and has a giant badger coming out of the ground in the yard and a giant squirrel on top of a huge (fake) log which used to house the gas pumps. It was a little early for the nekked girls to be onstage, so we admired only the badger and the squirrel at the beaverhouse, and then moved on.
Michael also thought I needed to see the big chicken at Chet & Emil's in Birnamwood. I had driven right past it on my way north without noticing it. If one is to appreciate the world, he must pay attention to these local wonders. Unlike the giant badger and squirrel, which seemed to be made of concrete, this giant rooster was plastic, perched atop the Chet & Emil's sign at the entrance to the parking lot.
If you go as far as Birnamwood to see the giant rooster, you might as well go all the way – and head to Wittenberg for custard at the Dairy King there. It's the best to be found in that part of Wisconsin, Michael says, and he's right. I ordered a medium cup of vanilla, and Michael got a swirl cone, vanilla and chocolate, and we sat at one of the picnic tables in front of the Dairy King and ate the lovely treat. Michael finished his cone and I finished my cup and we looked at each other: we agreed right off that he ought to have another swirl cone and I ought to have another cup of vanilla custard. "The same thing?" the high school boy at the counter asked. Oh, youth. Yeah, the same thing! That's the serendipity.
There used to be an Air Force base at Aniwa. It was closed some decades ago. Outside the base there had been some "company housing" type residences for servicemen and their families, and these were sold to locals. Maybe you've noticed that I like old houses. So, of course, I wanted to see these. We ignored the sign saying "Private Road – Keep Out – No Trespassing" and headed off the main highway towards the base. The station had been abandoned for awhile, and later was bought by a private individual who uses it for his business. A decrepit "Aniwa Air Force Base" sign still stands above the locked gate that closes off the fenced-in area from intruders like us. We made a left turn at the gate and circled the loop of houses off to the side. Small and oddly painted, yeah you'd say they looked like nothing so much as old military housing, or like miner's houses in Lynn Lake, Manitoba.
We went next to the Dells of the Eau Claire, which tumble and roil about four miles from Michael's house. There's a lovely country park above the Dells, and Michael's grandfather was one of the CCC workers in the 1930s who built the log shelterhouse and buildings at the site, and the granite slab steps leading down to the water. "When we get home, have me show you my poem about my grandfather working here," Michael said. (And when we got home, he showed it to me.)
Michael, it turns out, has always had a fear of heights, so once we'd walked down to where the water was turning and dropping and roiling and foaming, he said: "I'll just stay here, if you don't mind." By then the pretty girls in bikinis on the high rock wall across the way had wrapped towels around themselves and gone back to their car, so I walked the rocks and watched the water, and the birds above the water, a kind of flycatcher or gnatcatcher. The birds were snatching insects out of the air above the river in startling displays of start and stop. I'm having a problem with identification of the bird, though, as none of those in my field guide has both the eye patch and the red bar on the wings of birds I saw here.
As I stood next to the water, I noticed again that the earth sings, or rather HUMS at a pitch at least one octave below the lowest note on the bass guitar. At every waterfall I've visited, beneath the sound of the river, of the water among the rocks, of the water falling and tumbling, there is a deep, elemental OHMMMMM. I told Michael it reminded me of the NPR news story I'd heard two years ago, about a discovery that the universe constantly hums an E-flat note several hundred octaves below our hearing threshold. I'd like to think there's a relationship between the deep OHMMM of the earth at the Dells of the Eau Claire and the great E-flat of the universe.
Michael thinks the ability to grill out comes in the collection of genes every male of the species receives at birth, but I'm not so sure. He does know how to grill bratwurst, though: that much is clear. In terms of starting charcoal, he's of the "if a little is good, a lot is better" school of pouring on the starter fluid; but once the charcoal has turned white and he has spread them evenly, he's a master with the meat.
He heated the baked beans he'd bought at the meat market along with the brats, and heated the sauerkraut, too, that we'd use to garnish our brats; he sliced us some cheese, shook some potato chips out of the bag, gave me a fork. It was time to eat.
"Has anyone ever eaten three of your brats and survived?" I wondered. Michael assured me one of his friends had indeed survived such an experiment. I survived it too.
Then, having eaten, we had to sprawl for a while, sprawl and talk shop, talk about poetry and poets, about books and book reviewing. On some things we agreed, and on some things we agreed to disagree. Michael is of the opinion that a reviewer should save his energy and not waste time writing reviews of books he doesn't like; I think poets sometimes need to be told they've failed. In general, Michael thinks life is too short to spend time rattling cages and making people angry; on the other hand, I sometimes think my mission at this stage of my life is: "Make Trouble." So you see what poets talk about. We can make a good time out of nothing.
Yet soon enough, it was time to head for home.
I was alone in the car and the sun had set and the clouds in the west were glowing like roses and an NPR program, "This American Life," aired a terrible sad story about life and death and loss and love. And it was then, I think, that I heard the hum of the universe, that terrible sad E-flat note: and I was sad.
It had been a wonderful day - two poets on the loose, ice cream, bratwurst, giant badgers and squirrels and chickens, waterfalls and rock, immovable rock.
Yet the encroaching darkness reminded me that all things die and everything comes to ashes finally. And I didn't have to like it. And I didn't like it. And I still don't.
Well, that was fun! I could see the badger, the squirrel, and the chicken -- and the waterfalls, and taste the brats, and hear that hum in E flat. So much of the music I like to play is written in E flat, it seems.
Thanks for this wonderful account of your day in Aniwa.
Posted by: maria | August 15, 2005 at 04:58 PM
Hi, Maria--Thanks for the good words about this Poets Loose adventure. It was so much fun, maybe I should start finding poets in every part of the state to have adventures with, yes? (Do I have enough time & energy for that?)
Posted by: Tom Montag | August 17, 2005 at 03:38 PM