Respite

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

--Robert Frost, 1915

Every now and again we hit a spot in life where we are overcome with responsibilities and problems, where we feel lost in a pathless wood. My response to those times is usually a longing to go back to childhood. Not that my childhood was idyllic--it wasn't. But it did have a certain freedom to it. I would go out for hours and play in the woods in the nearby park, sitting in a tree or wading in the creek. The problems I faced at home did not follow me there.

And now, when I feel things are out of sorts with my world, I do the same thing, escape to the woods. I don't climb the trees now, but I walk among them. I set my troubles down and leave them be while I walk. Sometimes I find they have sorted themselves out when I pick them up again. And even if they haven't, they are often lighter to carry because I have set them aside for a time.

Assignable Portions

465

I heard a Fly buzz--when I died--
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air--
Between the Heaves of Storm--

The Eyes around--had wrung them dry--
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset--when the King
Be witnessed--in the Room--

I willed my Keepsakes--Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable--and then it was
There interposed a Fly--

With Blue--uncertain stumbling Buzz--
Between the light--and me--
And then the Windows failed--and then
I could not see to see--

Emily Dickinson, 1862


Every now and again I like to pause and take stock of my life and I like to play a morbid little game while doing it: I make a mental will. It's not so much about my possessions--I have little of value and I like it that way. It's more about my friends and loved ones, and what it is that they cherish about me. The Nephews will get Clyde and Beans, the stuffed horse and dog they play with whenever they come to my house, my best friend the box of old high school hall notes I have saved for twenty years, my knitting friend will suddenly have a much larger stash.

I picture an improbable scene where all my friends and family gather to go through my stuff and pick out the one thing they want to have to remember me by. It won't happen, but it's a comforting thought nonetheless.

A few years back, my single, childless uncle died suddenly, and I went to Oklahoma with my aunt and uncle to go through his things and bring what we could back to the family. My uncle had accumulated a lot of stuff over the years, and there was a lot to go through in a short time. There were a few things that were obvious things to save: a bundle of family letters dating back to the Civil War, an old autoharp in the family for generations, photos. But there was also a lot of stuff that had significance only to my uncle, and that got piled up in a heap to be hauled off. As we surveyed the piles of built up detritus from my uncle's life, we marvelled at what he kept. And my uncle pulled out a small scrap of paper and showed it to me, fondly chuckling at the idea of a 60 year old man still holding on to this:

(click on it to see more detail)

It was a Treasure Map my uncle had drawn. The inscription in green pencil on the bottom, possibly added later, gives a phone number in Milwaukee that dates the drawing to his high school days or earlier.

When I saw the map, chills ran down my spine. I knew this map. I knew the island, with its hidden valley accessible only through the labyrinth of tunnels or the dangerous cave entrance. I knew it because the book it appeared in was one of my favorite childhood books: The Island Stallion by Walter Farley, author of The Black Stallion series. The premise of the book--one of a series about the island and its horses--is that a teen-aged boy gets shipwrecked on the island, discovers the tunnels leading to the secret inner valley, and finding treasure left behind by Spanish conquistadors as well as a herd descended from the horses they left behind. I had read all those books over and over, and imagined myself trying to find my way through the tunnels, and when I finally did, the glorious discovery of a green valley populated with horses. The imaginary island lingered in my memory as a hope of secrets revealed, treasure found, paradise gained. And it must have lingered in my uncle's mind, too, for him to have kept this carefully copied map through the years and through countless moves. I carefully tucked it away, and brought it back home. I knew I had found my inheritance from my uncle.

When I showed my mother the map, she was drawn into a series of reminiscences which revealed a side of my uncle that I had not known much about. He was always into treasure hunting and maps, she said, and went on to share some childhood memories. I took the stories in and added them to my own memories of him. He was a somewhat hard man to know. When I was a child, he was not always at the family gatherings and when he was, he tended to drink too much. He didn't have a lot of interest in children, and didn't have much to say to me. But as I grew older, our relationship deepened. He was good-humored, intelligent and well-informed on many topics. He loved nature and animals and wouldn't kill an insect in the house, but instead would capture it and release it outdoors. He had a sly sense of humor and enjoyed getting away with bullshitting me if he could. He seemed to enjoy it when I called him on it. When he died, he left a hole in the family.

I think about how odd it is, both of us remembering that book and never knowing it was important to each other's childhoods. I think about the moment of serendipity when my other uncle plucked that one piece of paper that would mean so much to me off that huge pile of other papers. I wonder what scraps of my life will mean something to my loved ones when I am gone.

Passion

One Hour To Madness And Joy

One hour to madness and joy!
O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)

O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings!
(I bequeath them to you, my children,
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

O to be yielded to you, whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me, in defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me—to plant on you for the first time the lips of a determin’d man!

O the puzzle—the thrice-tied knot—the deep and dark pool! O all untied and illumin’d!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
O to be absolv’d from previous ties and conventions—I from mine, and you from yours!
O to find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of nature!
O to have the gag remov’d from one’s mouth!
O to have the feeling, to-day or any day, I am sufficient as I am!

O something unprov’d! something in a trance!
O madness amorous! O trembling!
O to escape utterly from others’ anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts—with invitations!
To ascend—to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate Soul!
To be lost, if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.

Walt Whitman, 1860

I am not so sure one can feed the remainder of life with just one brief hour of madness and joy. I think it much more likely that, having climbed those heights once, one's instinct is to want to climb them again and again. And if those heights are forbidden besides, well, so much more the pull to them. I imagine it would be easy to fall into a trap that way, always looking for that same thrill and never finding it. And in the constant search, I also imagine it would be easy to overlook a different kind of joy. Maybe less madness to it, but that doesn't mean it can't be just as fulfilling. There is much to be said for the slowly accumulating joy of tiny little moments of everyday kindnesses and shared laughter and comforts of familiarity.

The truth is that, as we move through life and find each other, we gather more and more ties and lose more and more freedom. Sometimes it happens slowly, almost imperceptibly, other times we choose the ties deliberately and publicly. And while there is intoxication in the thought of breaking free from all those ties at times, I imagine regret would follow such an action. And surely that regret would, in time, overshadow the joy of the moment.

All that aside, reading this poem, don't you just want to jump off that cliff anyway?

Habit

Árbol que crece torcido jamás su tronco endereza.

--Mexican Proverb

A tree which grows bent will never get straight again.

I wonder how twined I have become around my past. If one were to remove the central supports of my life, would I remain twisted around, contorted to accommodate rigidity that is no longer there? Or am I still supple enough to straighten out, to reach directly upward to the sky? Am I too crooked now to stand alone? Are the habits and philosophies of my mind set forever in the paths they took when I was still young and green and flexible? Those paths wove in and around, careful not to disturb, but still longing to maintain contact, forming myself around others, bending to their convenience and liking. If I remain rooted, will not the center grow, straight and thick, until it has me locked into place, eventually consuming me, melding with me and taking from me my individuality?

Grudge

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunnéd it in smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.

William Blake, 1794

I am a grudge-holder. It is not an attractive quality, this I know. In my defense, I am extremely slow to anger, and cheerfully can bear numerous slights, insults and outright injustices while turning the other cheek and walking a mile in the other person's shoes. But I have my line, and when it it crossed, it is like crossing the Rubicon; there's no going back. The particularly unattractive part of it is that my foe may not know the Rubicon has been crossed. Because my reaction of a real, unmendable breach of friendship is simply silence. Transitory arguments that can be resolved are met with either outbursts of anger or carefully worded confrontations. The anger flares up and burns out or is carefully extinguished. But the unforgivable, the permanent breach is looked upon wordlessly and then walked away from, never to return, never to forget, never to forgive. Knowing this, I am careful, extremely careful, to be sure the offense is indeed unforgivable. Because it is a terrible thing to knowingly and deliberately poison a friendship to death.

Articulation

952

A Man may make a Remark--
In itself -- a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature -- lain --

Let us deport -- with skill --
Let us discourse -- with care --
Powder exists in Charcoal --
Before it exists in Fire.

Emily Dickinson, 1864



1212

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say

I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

Emily Dickinson, 1872

Most of my life I have been a fairly impetuous speaker. I could blame it on the stars: Sagittarians are said to be tactless and prone to blurting out their thoughts without thinking. Or you might blame it on self-absorption: I frequently am so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I hardly stop to listen to what I am saying. Or you might say I think best when I'm talking. I tend to hold many vague ideas and beliefs in my head, swimming around lazily, coming in and out of focus, and am often unaware of them myself until a conversation leads to me voicing them. Once I am called upon to give an opinion, I realize that I have slowly been formulating the ideas all along, and they pop into sharp focus, and tumble off my lips. And the same holds true for writing. Often when I sit down to write, I have only a shadow of an idea what I want to say, but once I write a sentence or two, my fingers take over from my brain with minimal instruction and write the words I have been hiding from myself. And I often write without editing, because it often seems to me my words have taken on their own life, separate from me, and it's no good telling them what to be once they have earned their freedom from my mind.

But lately, I have more and more frequently found myself at a loss for words. When called upon to explain what I mean by an uttered statement, or asked what I am thinking or feeling, I have come up blank. Partly to blame for this silence, I think, is a new unwillingness to engage in conflict of any kind. I come from a long line of arguers, and have always held my own among them. Debate, dissent, discord: all have been part of my family's mode of communication and I have never before shirked in making my voice and my opinion heard. Almost imperceptibly, however, I have wearied of this type of exchange of ideas. A reasoned discourse is all very well, but it almost always tends to escalate and I no longer care to climb those heights.

More than a new dislike of my own discomfort at conflict is a new dislike of causing that discomfort in others. Previously I have been so eager to prove my own point that I did not much care whether the other party in the debate could be made uncomfortable. Not to say that I went around picking fights all the time, I didn't. But I never turned away from an offered argument, no matter who was offering. Now I am much more likely to allow points to go uncontested, and am more comfortable in silently holding my own opinion and allowing my adversary to believe I have been out-argued.

One final factor in my reticence, however, gives me the most pause. More and more frequently, when called upon to give voice to my thoughts, I find I cannot find the words. The stream of language I have effortlessly tapped to convey my thoughts all my life is suddenly unruly and truculent. It is as though that stream has been dammed upstream and only a trickle of the most mundane and colorless words can get through. The big question, in my mind, is the nature of that dam. The suspicion has been growing upon me, slowly but steadily, that I have something I need to express, but have not. Day by day this suspicion becomes more clear and distinct, and although I scoffed the idea when it first occurred to me, now I find myself turning it over and over in my mind. Several times I have nearly blurted it out, like the old me would have, but I have edited myself each time. What is stopping me from expressing this thought, this truth that is blocking my formerly glib words?

I am afraid. Once it is said, it cannot be unsaid.

Alive

beware  :   do not read this poem

tonite ,   thriller was
abt an ol woman , so vain she
surrounded herself w /
  many mirrors

it got so bad that finally she
locked herself indoors & her
whole life became the
  mirrors

one day the villagers broke
into her house  ,   but she was too
swift for them  .   she disappeared
  into a mirror

each tenant who bought the house
after that  ,   lost a loved one to
  the ol woman in the mirror :
  first a little girl
  then a young woman
  then the young woman/s husband

the hunger of this poem is legendary
it has taken in many victims
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr feet
back off from this poemit has drawn in yr legs

back off from this poem
it is a greedy mirror
you are into this poem  .   from
  the waist down
nobody can hear you can they  ?
this poem has had you up to here
  belch
this poem aint got no manners
you cant call out frm this poem
relax now & go w / this poem
move & roll on to this poem
do not resist this poem
this poem has yr eyes
this poem has his head
this poem has his arms
this poem has his fingers
this poem has his fingertips

this poem is the reader & the
reader this poem

statistic  :   the us bureau of missing persons reports
      that in 1968 over 100,000 people disappeared
      leaving no solid clues
        nor trace   only
    a space     in the lives of their friends

Ishmael Reed, 1970

Sometimes the problem with poetry is that it can suck me in, capture me, slowly but steadily take me over--not just for the moments I am reading the poem, but after I have put the poem away. This, of course, is not a problem if the poem is uplifting or cheerful or otherwise positive. Other poems, however--the melancholy, the bitter, the hopeless--those poems can bounce around and around in my mind. Sometimes I begin to react to the poem in my head instead of the people and events around me.

It can be hard, too, for me not to take poetry personally, as though it had been written and published just for me to see or hear. As though it were meant for me and each line, each syllable holds a secret message that only I can unlock if I try hard enough. Some will argue that of course poetry is written for the reader and the reader is me. I'm not sure that's always true. Sometimes, I think poems, as well as other kinds of writing, take on their own life, and break away from the author's original intent. Sometimes, I think, poems are written just because they needed to be heard.