ANOTHER AND ANOTHER READING--BLUE BABY

 

ANOTHER AND ANOTHER READING

OF MARY JO SALTER’S POEM BLUE BABY

IN THE NEW YORKER, ANOTHER AND ANOTHER READING

                               --Darrell Sagness 1944-1955

                               --David Schweizer 1950-2024

I.

Yes, yes, no, no. But this can’t be.

But the years almost right. Dee Dee

and I--born in the same

North Dakota town--he

lived and then he didn’t, and now,

well, here he is with David Schweizer.

I’m sitting in the pew, sixth row,

early Sunday, Mary Jo Salter, listening

to Bell Choir practice, my wife Karen,

ringing, with Ruth Ann’s cello, carrying

your Blue Baby, pages torn

out of New Yorker, December 8, 2025--

Yakima, Washington, decades

from Bowbells, North Dakota, still

Lutheran, dry land farm country,

NW corner, top soil covering

oil distilled from shallow seas.

I don’t know where you are this morning,

Mary Jo Salter, but strangely, you are

in the pew, present, your poem a part of me.

II.

Darrell, we called him Dee Dee,

Sagness lived on the farm outside of town

and I was a town boy, and my father

managed the Great Northern Grain

elevator, where his parents brought

their wheat. We were playmates,

and Darrell was a Blue Baby

and that’s how we knew him

playing marbles in front of school,

choosing sides for baseball out back.

Swinging wildly, choosing Darrell first,

choosing Darrell last, never

able to get it right, Blue Baby.

Something of his blueness in our selves.

III.

Blue Baby. Hole in the heart.

For the first time, Dee Dee

would run with the rest of us,

no longer blue, and fast. He would

hit, and we wouldn’t wonder

if he’d be chosen. And the operation

worked. Doctors in Minneapolis

opened his heart, stopped up the hole

where blood spilled into his face

and arms and legs. He came back

to us, and none of us were blue.

His mom called my mother,

Could Jimmy spend a day

on the farm with Darrell,

and the boys would have

the whole day to play.

IV.

And then he died. Just like that.

His heart wore out, they said.

After all the work it had to do

while he lived. This isn’t

the first time I’ve talked about

Darrell, Mary Jo. Your poem is salve.

Dee Dee and I sang in the Junior Choir.

We lived across from the church

rent free in the house owned

by the Great Northern Railroad.

Choir boys would be pall bearers

with his body. At practice,

laughter broke out from my body

stopping the hymn. Guffaws

bursting. I couldn’t stop

giggling. Dee Dee’s

heart stopped, and I couldn’t

stop laughing. I was ashamed.

We wore white robes and God gave me

buckets of tears, relieving

my terror. Like I’d been saved.

That day at his farm we sat

on the steel seat of the old tractor

and ate our sandwiches and laughed.

V.

There are tears in your poem, too,

Mary Jo. Thank you for Caleb’s

walking to the pulpit. Thank you

for the glimpses of Schweizer’s childhood

reading long books in bed,

for the saving qualities of costumes.

There would be an acting director

in my life, too, showing me how

to enter a room when I came back

from Vietnam. I would learn how

to wear a hat, how to dress

North Dakota as Louis Seize

without causing a fuss.

For your Blue Baby shows

how magnificent a heart might be,

how manly and flamboyant,

how the beating heart changes

the music and how bells ring.

Jim Bodeen

10 December 2025