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The Small Commission

When school yearbooks are thrust forth to be signed,
We give out life advice. We speak our mind,
And charge our classmates to keep some small vow:
“Recall our good times!” “Stay as you are now!”

As Christ did with his Great Commission bind
His church to teach and baptize all mankind,
So do the yearbook’s Small Commissions urge
Obedience to some much less solemn charge.

If we look back to that glad time remote,
Shall we have held to what our friends then wrote?
Were Small Commissions in our hearts enshrined?
Or were their words forgotten over time?

Well, one of these at least I’ve kept so far:
“Dear Paul, please stay as crazy as you are!”

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Paul Erlandson resides in Royal Oak Michigan, and has recently retired from an automotive engineering career with Ford Motor Company.  He has had poetry published in “Dome” (a publication of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London) and “The Slumbering Host”, a volume of poetry collected by Clinton Collister and Daniel Rattelle.

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14 Responses

  1. Margaret Coats

    Paul, I can’t recall a single Small Commission given me. Good idea of yours to think of a name for this recollected if forgotten thing, and to link the name with an exhortation that is much more familiar to many. Should I imagine the classmate who gave you the final line here was Cynthia? That would make you a keeper of vows smaller and greater.

    Reply
    • Paul Erlandson

      Margaret … I still have my Senior yearbook, otherwise I don’t think I’d remember and of these things either.

      Cynthia and I attended high school in different states, and so we never got the opportunity to write in each other’s yearbooks. Had she written something to me, I have an inkling it would have been more along the lines of, “Stop being so weird!”

      The girl who wrote me that was very much like Cynthia, though. A quiet, introspective Christian girl with a shape and hair color like Cynthia’s. If I hadn’t been so scared of girls at the time, I’m sure I would have asked her out on a date. She attended our same Presbyterian Church, and was in my homeroom class, so I’d have had the opportunity to ask. But I was terrified.

      Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    School yearbooks are indeed treasures to remind us of a time of relative innocence and the sometimes facetious “small” commissions of our classmates, What fun to relive those memories and classmate exhortations. The relation to the Great Commission was a wonderful comparison which those of our Christian faith should follow. I loved your final line and after reading Margarets musings, I now wonder if that was Cynthia or what she might have written if anything.

    Reply
    • Paul Erlandson

      Thanks, Roy, very much. Cynthia and I, though we knew of each other back then, attended high school in different states, so we didn’t see each other’s yearbooks until after marriage.

      Reply
  4. Warren Bonham

    What a great concept, and very well executed although I am secretly grateful that my mother threw away my yearbook along with everything else I left in her basement. I’m not sure I’d have the stomach to read it at this stage in life.

    Reply
  5. Gil Gilbert

    Thanks, Paul. You turned a smile. 🙂 I love the couplets; your twist on the traditional English sonnet’s rhyme scheme; the contrast between the commissions; and the surprise (to me) in the terminal couplet. Like Warren, my yearbook was tossed or lost long ago, but I recall enough of it generally to identify with the message. The poems that start my day haven’t evoked a smile like you did in months. Thanks!

    Reply
  6. C.B. Anderson

    I get it, man. We are all stuck with our history and our memories of it, no matter how hard we try to overwrite it. For those of us old enough to remember, this, right now, is the afterlife.

    Reply
    • Paul Erlandson

      True. This poem barely scratches the surface of the large issue you raise.

      Still, fifty years later, when I look in the mirror, I see that fat 8th grade version of me staring back. And I’m still motivated in several ways by how unpopular I was (or deemed myself to be) with girls in high school. Still compensating for that.

      But the “staying crazy” part is the cool, fun part of it for me.

      Reply
  7. Gigi Ryan

    Dear Paul,
    The Small Commission is a brilliant concept with an endearing conclusion.
    I will have to go read my old yearbooks and see I lived up to anything I was commissioned to do.
    Gigi

    Reply
  8. Alan Wagstaff

    Dear Paul
    I’ve bucked the trend and have attempted a third person critique.

    Paul Erlandson’s sonnet ‘The Small Commission’ follows the structure of Shakespearean sonnets, i.e. 14 lines divided into three quatrains and a final couplet. The rhyme scheme is ABAB – CDCD – EFEF – GG, with each quatrain setting up a different aspect of the theme and the final couplet providing a light-hearted and unexpected resolution.

    The sonnet adheres to the requisite iambic pentameter, with lines of 10 syllables in a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. The meter flows smoothly throughout most of the poem, but one line could be tightened:
    And charge our classmates to keep some small vow:

    Though, in general, the syntax is gentle on the ear, making it easy for the reader to follow the poet’s thoughts, ‘Small Commission’ contains three strained lines.
    Consider for further attention:
    As Christ did with his Great Commission bind
    His church to teach and baptize all mankind,

    If we look back to that glad time remote

    ‘The Small Commission’ is straightforward in its meaning and message, with each line contributing to the larger theme. There is no ambiguity or confusion in the poet’s intentions, making it accessible to a wide range of readers.

    The clever use of the school yearbook as a metaphor for ‘small commissions’ adds a fresh perspective to the theme of keeping faith with good advice.

    The final couplet:
    Well, one of these at least I’ve kept so far:
    “Dear Paul, please stay as crazy as you are!”,
    serves as an unexpected and down-to-earth conclusion. Its strength lies in its ability to tie together the themes of the poem and leave a lasting impression on the reader, via humour. The ending illustrates the aptness of this form for the theme.

    Alan Wagstaff

    Reply
  9. Daniel Kemper

    I love the closing couplet; I hope you have kept the charge! How strange a yearbook is–you can look at your parents’ and swear you won’t be as lame, but you will be, and your kids too. How does that happen? Ah life.

    Reply

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