Berrying: a tribute to Jack Wonner
After the Korean war, Jack worked as a machinist in a paper mill for thirty years. Day in and day out, he completed the same task over and over. His job covered his bills, a responsibility that increased after a tragic event made him the legal guardian of his niece and nephew.
In his retirement, Jack pursued a love of writing poetry, attending workshops and readings to hone his craft. He had a knack for rhyming, and his limericks were both silly and sweet. Jack’s poems captured a sense of transcendence in the jagged edges of human experience. Take these lines from “Random Thoughts While Berrying.”
there is still enough discomfort in the
berry patch to make one feel alive
the pain of thorns and prickly heat
mosquitoes and deer flies
I believe Jack titled this poem “random” in playful irony, referencing the possibility of a revelation occurring unintentionally during an ordinary task, even one that is filled with “discomfort.” It makes me wonder how many random, beautiful thoughts Jack had at the paper mill, and it gives me cause for gratitude that he later put some of them down on paper.
Henry James claimed that a writer is “someone upon whom nothing is lost.” This might be called mindfulness. Whatever the term, it’s laborious to pay attention to all of one’s thoughts, reactions, and impressions in the daily grind of a day.
And yet, Jack was a man who found hope, faith, and joy through such ordinary moments, something like a ripe berry just there for the tasting. Now that your labor of love is over, rest in peace, dear poet.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of “Little Big Moments,” a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and “Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems.” Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.
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