The Testudinata
A Collection of Poems
by
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The Order of Testudinata The turtle is in the land Guided by satori, Two million years of march, My Name is Willie They were up all night drumming in Allegheny City turned out Mam did not come to the station The purple plume of my Zouave hat The forbidding forest was intersected At Five Forks Sheridan prepared to attack The last shots were fired by my regiment, Sometimes I have walked the Old Turnpike
Rise above us!
Ten thousand times ten thousand
Coming to prime,
Loggerheads at five hundred
Pounds, zoetic.
Rise above us!
Long in the race,
Leatherbacks’ carapace,
Fingers of rock fossils,
Terrapin hand of lore,
Cross the line.
Rise above us!
Twelve endangered species surge,
Waves gushing in
Sucking out
And a palm cups a well.
The turtle is in the land.
9-11-01
The new recruits.
There had been dress parades and
Military reviews and I, a Park Zouave,
Cavalier in my dress uniform,
The plumed hat, swirled blue pants
And laced red cummerbund,
Lured by the steady beat of the drums,
Next, and you next, now you and next;
The straggly regiment was formed,
Mustered into service.
Massive support in defense of the Union
Gathered from the compass of Pittsburg.
They marched down Liberty Street
To Union station when Sumter fell.
One half of our regiment were boys
Who answered Lincoln’s call to arms
And Sisters of Mercy were the first
Women in the War.
They traveled in freight and cattle cars
Toward the enemy.
The man with the musket marched
To Antietam.
I carried a memory of her standing on the
Cobblestone street beneath our stoop,
Her gray eyes red rimmed,
Wringing her hands on her frock as if
They were tears, too.
Mam had fought her battle and lost it
Long ago.
In the ravage of epidemic she had steeped
All the herbs she knew and put poultices
To my lesions against the enemy
But the scars and pits are deep.
Arcs down over my mottled neck
Covering my affliction, I pretend.
I was Mam’s handsome laddie
But the fair maids of the May moon
Would not choose me now and I was in
A larger parade and my plumed hat was
On the bottom of a trunk in the spare room.
I carried a musket now in the infantry
In a long march,
I, in my nineteenth birthday year. Soave
With narrow roads and deep ravines,
Scraggy oak and pine, sassafras and hazel.
The Confederates were familiar with every leaf.
We came into pack mule drivers with
Wounded prisoners and felt the enemy up close.
The Rebel Yell became familiar,
Raised my goose flesh to the hebegeebes.
During the inferno of summer days unrelieved
By breeze or shade,
A party of young ladies from Richmond
Came to view our horror
Mounted on the tops of Confederate parapets
Like box seats at a play, and we, the actors.
And Custer’s division of cavalry was brought
Into the theater.
Our line advanced with the drummer boy
And a man yelled "I’m killed".
They said later this was a brilliant, decisive
Battle of the War.
I stayed with it headed for
The glory of Appomatox.
The Pennsylvania One Hundred and Fifty Fifth,
Stalwart to the end.
The white flag of truce was within
The Union lines and in the pending quiet
Came the mortal wound from cannon
While I was loading, preparing to fire.
No further casualties occurred.
They took me to the hospital at Farmville
Where I left my body.
Through the field of the Fifth Corp,
Sometimes I have sat on the porch
Of McLean Mansion with comrades,
Sometimes I have seen Mam
Through our window
Above our cobblestone street
And touched the sorrow etched on her face.
She stirs mutton stew in the kettle
With her long handled silver spoon,
Its lip worn thin from her rounds.
I feel her longings for me
And I try to reach and tell her
"Your Willie’s scourged face
Is again fair where I am
And you will yet see a May maiden choose me
And I will erase
The sad deep lines from your face
And the red rims from your beautiful gray eyes".
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About the Book
Pittsburgh’s Rich history is resurrected in this compelling sequel to The Olivette. Barbara Challis Kock’s native roots bear fruit in this lush casting of characters in The Testudinata. The author has transferred her poetry from legend, myth and the British Isles to the American stage in a roll call of dynamic persuasion. The Civil War era showcases Appomattox and documents a young soldier of the Pennsylvania 155th (a fruit on Mrs. Koch’s ancestral tree) to his death there, his cry from the grave at the events of 9/11/01 and dovetails the destination of Julia and Ulysses Grant with the plantation parade of southern aristocracy Natchez. The romantic turn of the century charmingly spotlights Willa Cather, Ethelbert Nevin and the Rhineharts against the Three Rivers’ canvas. With a gifted pen the author infuses the Fitzgeralds, bootleg whisky and musical rhetoric to convey the agony and passion of The Jazz Age. Some of her own poignant memories are woven through The Depression and World War II sequences. Limitations of lyric and rhyme are credibly abandoned in this more urgent narrative rendering. She evokes the testimony of Dante and Homer with oblivion to time lines in a fascinating flight of fact and fancy. It is at once an invincible invocation to arms. The sequel is designed to be a companion to The Olivette. The pair belongs together.
About the Author
Barbara Challis Koch is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where many of these poems have historical focus. Descended from early settlers, she grew up in suburban Sewickley and has long had an interest in local history and genealogy. She is the author of The Olivette, a collection of poems for which she won a Writers’ Digest Certificate Of Merit 2001 National Book Award. She is currently at work on a biographical novel of an ancestor Marie Bethune who was in the court of Mary Queen of Scots. The Testudinata is her second published work. The author lives in Ben Avon Heights with her husband John, and is active in numerous civic and cultural affairs.