Marlene and Lloyd Hitt with Village Poets. Photo Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.
The Lifetime Achievement Award, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
On July 28, 2019, at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, Village Poets presented its "Lifetime Achievement Award" to Dr. Lloyd Hitt and Marlene Hitt during a crowded poetry reading, MC-ed by poet Joe DeCenzo, and filled with loving tributes and gifts to the wonderful couple, retiring from their active duties as members of Village Poets, an organization that they co-founded in 2010 with Dorothy Skiles, Joe DeCenzo and Maja Trochimczyk.
Photo Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.
Photo by Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.
Marlene and Joe DeCenzo read "The Remembering." Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
THE REMEMBERING
She says she remembers
the dark meat of grouse
chunky with bites of buckshot,
cabbage fried in bacon grease,
one pot of potatoes for eleven children.
He says he remembers
sugared tomatoes stewed in the warm kitchen,
flour-and-milk pudding on a snowy day
with brown sugar and nutmeg.
The days they salted the pork.
She remembers
the root cellar full of salamanders,
chickens and peas and jams in jars,
muddy prints on the scrubbed floor,
hot water on the side of the stove.
He remembers
digging the well. Twilight harvests.
Piling manure on the side of the house,
ferrets in the henhouse,
the cow that nearly gored his mother.
She remembers
the one tin dipper in the wooden water bucket,
the babies coming one after the other,
the grandmother, the hired hands,
Sunday dinners, so many pies.
He says he remembers
the day they brought the Rumley home,
the joy of an easier days’ work,
the calving, the horse with colic,
the Northern Lights.
She says she remembers the story
of her father coming home
over unmarked prairie,
the horses leading through blizzard,
the dot of lamplight in the frosted window.
He remembers the story
of the day a mother loaned blankets
to fevered, trail-weary men.
In a month children died,
throats closed, breath trapped inside.
She remembers
her first sight of the city
the day after they eloped,
the room they stayed in,
the frame garage that became their home.
He remembers
the job that took him from her,
the full, sweet moments of coming home,
their small corner drug store,
built together. The children.
They say they remember
as they hold hands,
speak about the new ways of things,
and of their old world
which has passed away.
(c) Marlene Hitt, from Clocks and Water Drops (2015)
Joe DeCenzo reads, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
Joe DeCenzo read an extensive selection of poems from The Earth Time, Lloyd Hitt's first poetry collection, published in 2018 as a surprise Christmas gift from Marlene, and edited by her, with help from Maja Trochimczyk (Moonrise Press, 2018). Since Lloyd, during Village Poets readings, contented himself with setting and putting away chairs and with reminding the poets not to make a mess, the quality and scope of his poetry surprised and delighted the audience.
Grandfather Clock
I sip my coffee, the clock chimes six.
In that slow, honest pensive way, the brass pendulum swings. Stops.
The early morning sun reflects
when time stands still.
When I was eight, I believed
I could enter that split second,
that time was frozen and I could live forever.
When I was young
there was so much time.
When I was fifty,
time was filled with family and work,
now my children are me.
I watch and remember.
Dad was eighty, wan and bent,
one hand gently pulling the clock chain
the other cradling the weight
in white cotton gloves, as if to nurse
the minutes, that time might
stand still.
(C) 2018 by Lloyd Hitt, from The Earth Time (Moonrise Press, 2018)
Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
The Presentation of the "Lifetime Achievement Award" concluded the first half of the proceedings. On behalf of all Village Poets gathered on the stage Maja Trochimczyk thanked Lloyd and Marlene for establishing the Poet Laureate program and helping organize and manage the monthly Village Poets readings at the Bolton Hall Museum, held since 2010.
Photo by Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.
Photo by Kathabela Wilson
Photo by Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.
MAJA TROCHIMCZYK talked about the role of Marlene and Lloyd in the start of the Village Poets and Poet Laureate Program in Sunland-Tujunga. She thanked the honorees for years of poetic inspiration and community involvement. Instead of reading her own poems, she presented Marlene's "Fifteen Ways of Hearing the Wind Chimes" published in the Chopin with Cherries anthology that Maja edited in 2010 as her own Poet Laureate project, celebrating the 200th birth anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin.
Photo Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.
Peter Larsen, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
Other poets also read Marlene's poetry instead of her own. Village Poets regular member, Peter LARSEN read the wonderful poem "Silence" from Marlene Hitt's Clocks and Water Drops (Moonrise Press, 2015).
SILENCE
There is something about
silence...its weight,
the way it inhales,
leaves the room clear
for thought.
Though quiet is never pure
as all the world knows.
Take away the whirr of fans,
traffic’s drone,
and leave the sky
clear and quiet.
Turn the voices off,
quiet the old record.
Sound still creeps in
with the call of birds,
scrambled scree
on the hillside,
bees, or a night
full of crickets.
Without these,
the beating sound
of one’s own heart.
One evening
we sat moon-bathing,
listening for nothing.
But the silence,
so light, so fragile,
just slipped away.
(c) 2015 by Marlene Hitt, from Clocks and Water Drops
Standing room only. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
Congratulations and Thank You, Lloyd and Marlene!
