from “Little Girls in Church”:
“When I was four, I could draw as well as Raphael. It has taken me my whole life to learn to draw like a four-year-old child.” – Pablo Picasso
I.
Late one summer evening
we thought you lost
in the ravine
behind the house. You told me once
God cut it in the earth, angry
because people would not love him.You had built a cocoon of branches
and were curled
inside it, sound asleep.
We broke it open, unfolded you,
and carried you to the house.After first communion,
I held the veil you handed me
and felt suddenly ashamed
that we’d broken in like that,
the branches too thick,
the entrance too low and narrow
for us to crawl through. And now
you’d see us
for the fools we were,
celebrating nothing
in the disastrous place we’d brought you to.II.
Now it begins: the search for a God
who has moved on, the
God-please-help-me need
you still can’t image; strangely
twisted landscapes
in which you may not rest.
The pillar of cloud
you saw march across the plain
will pass you by; some younger child
will see it.It was given
so easily, and now you must learn
to ask for it back.
It’s not so terrible;
it’s like the piano lessons you love
and hate. You know how you want
the music to sound
but have to practice, half in tears,
without much hope.
Tomorrow morning Kate will be running in Hood to Coast, at 197 miles the longest relay race in the world. More than 12,000 runners are expected to participate. Kate and her eleven teammates will start the race at Mt. Hood and end on the beach in Seaside. I don’t understand running, and I especially don’t understand running upwards of 20 miles in 36 hours. Undertaking this race is one of the craziest things Kate has ever done – but I am immensely proud of her.
Kate, I wish I could write an ode to your run, but W.H. Auden beat me to it again:
The camera’s eye
Does not lie
But it cannot show
The life within,
The life of a runner,
Of yours or mine,
That race which is neither
Fast nor slow,
For nothing can ever
Happen twice,
That story which moves
Like music when
Begotten notes
New notes beget
Making the flowing
Of time a growing
Till what it could be
At last it is,
Where Fate is Freedom,
Grace and Surprise.(from “Runner”)
I can’t wait to see you cross that finish line on Saturday.
Filed under: Poetry, RFLOL | Tags: Ideas, Leaves of Grass, Poetry, RFLOL, Song of Myself, Walt Whitman
The basics: the first meeting of the RFLOL (Reading Fine Literature Out Loud) Club will be June 25 at my house. In honor of the 154th anniversary (on July 4) of the publication of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” let’s stage a marathon reading of the 1855 edition of “Song of Myself.” We will drink beer. Barbaric yawps will be sounded over the roof of the world. In that order. Get in touch if you want more details.
An aside: I am an idea machine with no off switch. Generally the ideas are pretty good as long as somebody not me is in charge of making them happen. Sometimes they are very bad, like the text message I recently sent Dave and Kate, proposing, casually but sincerely, that we start our own small town. Most of the ideas are fleeting, flowing back into the spiritus mundi like water spritzed into the wind. A few ideas, however, can’t be shaken and must be pursued or rejected outright.
The RFLOL Club is one of the latter. I talked with some of you last January about doing a table reading of a Shakespeare play. In February, in honor of his 200th birthday, and when three or four of us were reading “Team of Rivals,” I suggested we kick off the club with Abraham Lincoln’s speeches. I considered doing the same thing (Lincoln’s speeches) in April to mark the anniversary of Lincoln’s death. Dave and I were going to memorize the Gettysburg Address. Nothing happened, but the idea persisted. It was a sticker.
The RFLOL Club should be a lot of fun. Sorry it took me so long to follow through.
Filed under: Family | Tags: Garrison Keillor, Holidays, Kate, Molly, Mother's Day, Poetry, The Writer's Almanac, Wendell Berry
If Mother’s Day is a holiday created by the unholy trinity of the greeting card companies, florists, and multinational confectionary conglomerates, good for them. They have unwittingly used their powers for good. It is right for a man to set aside time (ideally more than once a year) to reflect on and respond to the great acts of love shown to him by his mother and by the mother of his child, and also to give his child some extra special attention, because she kind of made this day possible.
Later today, I hope to post something about Kate specifically. In the meantime, here is a poem by Wendell Berry entitled “To My Mother.” The poem was featured on yesterday’s episode of The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor.
To My Mother
I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
precede my wrong, and I erred,
safe found, within your love,prepared ahead of me, the way home,
or my bed at night, so that almost
I should forgive you, who perhaps
foresaw the worst that I might do,and forgave before I could act,
causing me to smile now, looking back,
to see how paltry was my worst,
compared to your forgiveness of italready given. And this, then,
is the vision of that Heaven of which
we have heard, where those who love
each other have forgiven each other,where, for that, the leaves are green,
the light a music in the air,
and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed.
Filed under: Books, Music, Poetry, Writing | Tags: Jazz, Jazz Appreciation Month, Ken Burns, Kurt Elling, National Poetry Month, Poetry, Poor Old Dirt Farmer, Theodore Roethke
April is a month consecrated to two arts I wish were more prevalent in my life: poetry and jazz. Last year, I posted a poem a day on the Burnside Writers Collective blog in honor of National Poetry Month. I’ve enjoyed celebrating National Poetry Month this year on the Poor Old Dirt Farmer blog, which featured occasional poems from Wendell Berry, William Carlos Williams, C.K. Williams, and Walt Whitman, as well as some poets whose names don’t begin with W. But outside the month of April, poetry collections don’t often find their way into my book rotation. This is as good an explanation as any of why I haven’t written a poem since 2002.
April, it turns out, is also Jazz Appreciation Month. I like jazz in the way I must have first come to love language. Too young to comprehend the words being read out loud, there was nevertheless probably some intuitive recognition of pitch and structure; I was bewitched by the tone, tempo, and rhythm of the syllables. I’ve basically spent the last thirty years trying to understand that artistry, how words chosen with precision and arranged with care can reach inside of the reader a place beyond language. And so it is with jazz: I know that I enjoy listening – but I would like to know more about what I am listening to, would like to know why I enjoy it so much. When I finish “The Rest is Noise,” Alex Ross’s great book about 20th-century classical music, I want to find a good book about jazz (any recommendations?) and finally finish the Ken Burns documentary.
In honor of National Poetry and Jazz Appreciation Months, and as a kind of down payment on a more jazz- and poetry-inspired year, the soundtrack to the waning hours of April 2009 will be “The Waking,” jazz vocalist Kurt Elling’s fantastic take on the Pulitzer Prize-winning poem by Theodore Roethke.
The WakingI wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
