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Groton Daily Independent
Saturday, June 09, 2018 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 330 ~ 23 of 59
anathema to nature and beauty.”
Davies suggested the two Rapid City women charged with misdemeanor counts of intentional damage
to property, Skyler Anders, 29, and Shelby Johnson, 27, should even be reconsidered not as social nihilists but as having taken a principled stand against encroachment of artificiality into a natural space.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” he said, “It was brazen as hell. But I can see why they did it.”
On May 30, the spur leading off from the Little Devil’s Tower trail flooded with a trickle of water, drainage from recent, late spring rains. Higher up, past the sound of running water, granite thumbs shoot into the air, the remarkable, distinctive igneous intrusions of the Black Hills. It’s like standing inside a giant, gran- ite oven, the blue sky above. A raw space, save for the orange-shirted man with wet socks and sandals. Sweat beaded above his lip, as he carried his purple suitcase.
“She (his ex-girlfriend) told me about Poet’s Table,” said the man, looking for shade beneath an Aspen. “I’ve never been here, but I felt like it was the appropriate place.”
For Custer State Park, the question of what Poet’s Table “is” is easy.
“We heard enough from people on Facebook and through phone calls that Poet’s Table is a pretty special place to all the locals,” said Kobee Stalder, visitor services program manager for the park.
But they’ve taken a light-touch approach to managing the site. While they claimed through a statute on abandoned property that technically the table has more or less been state property for decades — the same as leaving a cooler in the park — he said park staff only make occasional sweeps of the area to pick up trash or other leftover distractions (such as last year’s fort).
“We would ask that visitors take it upon themselves (to clean up),” he said. “You probably could’ve taken the chess set back down with you.”
As the Journal team and the pilgrim with the suitcase turned around a boulder, the green table came into sight. It is a spectacular view. Mt. Coolidge rises in the distance. The alcove harkens as the perfect, au naturel study, for writing or reflection.
Bruce Roseland, president of the South Dakota State Poetry Society, said in a message that he believes there should be public places set aside for writing.
“Seeking out, the climb to and the view from Poet’s Table touch inward to our hearts our connection to this earth and each other.”
In a blog post written after the theft of the table last weekend, he remembered encountering a woman at Poet’s Table years ago with a notebook writing at the desk. She was from Oklahoma and was stationed at nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base. On his way down, he met two more young women who asked him for directions.
“I pointed in the direction and told them how many lefts and rights.”
Roseland said he did not see “a bit of trash, bottles, candy wrappers or anything out of place” and in- stead called the place one of “pilgrimage for poets and those who love poetry.”
When the two women cleanly swept the perch of furniture and abandoned knick-knacks on Saturday, they also ran down with family heirlooms, such as the last message of Carter Davis, a young man with Rapid City ties who was murdered a week after leaving a message in a wish-box his mother left at Poet’s Table to “add more love to the world.”
On May 30, the table was relatively unadorned. Only a few signatures scribbled in a black marker. A large emblem hanging from a nearby tree. Some notebooks. And then, soon, a broken chess set.
The man in the orange shirt knelt below the table and unzipped the purple suitcase. He lifted out the tan-and-silver, stone chess set — likely valuable — and then ceremoniously lowered it swiftly onto a pointy rock. Smash! Shrapnel scattered. Then he removed another piece and repeated the act. Smash!
The sound of destruction echoed in the quiet place.
“I’m sorry for doing this in front of you,” he said, “But I think I’ll feel better.”
He then picked up the scattered pieces, and deposited them onto the table — along with rooks and
pawns. He also stowed a large binder of diary entries and photographs and a Janis Joplin CD below the table. In any other spot in the park he’d be guilty of littering. But here, at Poet’s Table, there are no rules.
“Well, one,” he said. “I guess don’t take the table.”