In a previous essay, I left you in the lurch, having quoted, in closing a discussion of the early work of the Institute for Regional Studies at North Dakota Agricultural College, now NDSU, a poem by John R. Milton. This opening poem of The Loving Hawk, a chapbook published by the Institute, ranges from the fall of man to the endless issues of place and identity fostered by open horizons. Never fear, there is salvation in the same booklet, in the form of another poem, Dust Storm, which doesn't sound optimistic, but wait, listen:
Unresourced from the outer world, a light turns in, skims toward the soul of self, shines on the mind, dissects a hearted sphere of one lone man.
The town is filled with lonely men, enveloped in the cloak of wind, dust driven to the inward look.
Like shadows moving in the breath of God, they stumble in the dim arenas of the world.
Reborn in dust, the past returns, of rain-washed streets in the afternoon, a clear-eyed look sweeps over the plains of richer gold, sky super blue.
1962 is the year of this work by Milton. This is 12 years after the founding of the Institute, which during the years 1950 to 1970, as I see it, was trying to figure out what a regional studies center should do, what the regional project should be.
Milton, the poet, had been teaching at Jamestown College while completing his PhD in English at the University of Denver. The next year, he would commence what would be an exceedingly distinguished career at the University of South Dakota, but he left us this poem, which if we decode it, will help us understand what a regional studies center should do. Unresourced, the poet begins, for there had been hard times on the northern plains, comprising, in recent memory, both the dirty 30s and the filthy 50s.
Hence the poem's title, Dust Storm. Extreme hardship had its effect on people. When they most needed to turn outward to help and be helped, they hunkered down, turned inward, stewing in their own misery. The town is filled with lonely men, says the poet, dust driven to the inward look. We know this brooding introspective habit. Often we ascribe it to Nordic and German temperament, but Milton attributes it to dust and hardship.
By 1962, however, if you were alive to it, there was breathing space. Families were big, schools were full, gas was cheap, cars were beautiful. Heck, towns were building swimming pools. There were rain-washed streets in the afternoon, fields were golden, skies were blue. Milton is telling us it is time to figure out how to live well in this prairie place, for all that holds us back is that lonely, self-centered habit of hardship. Milton was premature.There were more hard times ahead, but perhaps his poem is for us now.
The regional project is unfinished. That was what the Institute for Regional Studies needed to do then, needs to do now.
