Stones in the Water

Kenn Amdahl

This is a collection of about 85 poems by Kenn Amdahl. From the introduction to the book:

I’ve been writing words on scraps of paper since third grade. Some grew into novels, nonfiction books, or songs; others morphed into articles, blog posts, or stories. Some never evolved. They remain orphan words on envelopes and shopping lists stashed in cardboard boxes in my basement. This book is what a few of them look like, all typed up.

As to the book’s title: Years ago, a friend was leaving on some exotic vacation. At the time, I was too broke to travel. On an impulse, I asked him to throw a stone into those distant waters on my behalf. He did, and it made me feel good, almost as if I’d traveled there myself. “Throw a stone into the water for me” became one of my little mantras. Kind friends and strangers have thrown stones into various bodies of water on my behalf all over the world. Some have given me photos of the act, as if I required proof. One friend, visiting Manhattan, had access to neither stones nor bodies of water so she threw some ice cubes into a cocktail on my behalf. It seemed to work just fine. Another, leaving a big city, realized he’d forgotten to throw a stone. He made the taxi stop on a busy bridge so he could throw some pennies over the side for me. He didn’t exactly understand the game, he said, but he hoped that worked. Hundreds of stones, pennies, and ice cubes imbued with some tiny part of me lie quietly at the bottom of pristine mountain ponds, frozen glacial lakes, filthy rivers near bright colored temples, and steaming swamps. A Real Poet threw one in the River Thames for me. I wish I’d kept a journal of my pebbles.

Thanks to my family, friends, and strangers for all the stones, real and metaphorical.

Special thanks to people who published some of these poems; I apologize for my fragmentary records. Back when I was actively mailing poems out into the world, I became obsessed with collecting rejections as if they were stamps or butterflies. Acceptances were nice, of course, but not really part of the collection; they did not merit a special file or notebook. I even submitted poems to journals with interesting names just to get a rejection from them for my collection. It’s not as easy at it sounds. I coveted a rejection from Exquisite Corpse, for example, as if it were a one cent British Guiana stamp from 1856; alas, they merely sent back a yellow Post-it note with the single word “sorry.” That did not seem sporting at all.

Here’s a sample:

A Tiger is Coming

A tiger is coming, I don’t know his name,

But he moves like a shadow at dusk,

He waits with the sure eyes of death for his claim,

In the stillness of spice trees and musk.

A tiger is coming, I’ve not seen his face,

But I’ve heard the grass sigh in his wake,

There is no philosophy in his cold eyes,

And his fangs leave no room for mistake.

The tiger who comes, I can’t say who he loves,

But he whispers a name to the moon,

His muscles ripple like silk when he turns,

Yes, a tiger is coming here soon.