Month: October 2001

Times Winged Chariot

PARADOX OF TIME

I. GRAVITY OF STONE AND ECSTASY OF WIND
Each day now more precious will dawn,
And loved faces turn dearer still,
And when sunlight is withdrawn,
There, over the mountain’s black profile,
The western star reigns
In splendor, benign, arrogant,
And the fact that it disdains
You, and your tenement
Of flesh, should instruct you in
The paradox of Time,
And the doubleness wherein
The fleshly glory may gleam.
Sit on the floor with a child.
Hear laugh that creature so young.
See loom its life-arch, and wild
With rage, speak wild words sprung
From vision, and thus atone
For all folly now left behind.
Learn the gravity of stone.
Learn the ecstasy of wind.
Robert Penn Warren in Rumor Verified

I know that this "tenement of flesh" is all too temporary. I learned it in Vietnam, leaving too many friends behind. The media has never let me forget it. I know all too well the gravity of stone.

My grandson Gavin helps me rediscover the "ecstasy of wind," forcing me to live in the moment. He has no name for me, but when he sees me he reaches out his arms to be picked up. That’s name enough for me, a print-oriented bastard who surely spends too much of his life looking for meaning in words.

Spending a day with him is a day of extremes. He lives for the moment, and not a moment longer. Joyful one moment, irate the next. And for at least that moment with him on the floor stacking blocks to knock down, the outside world no longer exists. No Twin Towers, no bin Laden, no Afghanistan, no terrorists threatening our existence.

Live in the moment and there is no time for an irrational fear of anthrax, no time to worry about the could-be’s or might-be’s of terrorists who would rob you of all you have, the sheer ecstasy of this moment.

What the Living Do

What the Living Do

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil
probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty
dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the
everyday we spoke of.

…

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of
myself in the window glass,
say the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a
cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face and unbuttoned coat
that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

Marie Howe in Sixty Years of American Poetry

It’s far too easy to get caught up in the outside world, to focus on those things we have little or no control over and, as a result, to feel vulnerable, helpless and alone. As much as I might rail against the terrorists or past American policies that have helped to empower the terrorists, I doubt that posting to a blog inflluences events any more than the man who hangs a huge American flag from his oversize pickup insures America’s victory.

Who could watch the media lately and not feel schizophrenic, caught between two very different worlds and unable to control either of them.

Not surprising, then, that too often we forget the wonder that is each of us.

Personally, I read poetry to be reminded of that wonder. Walt Whitman, Theodore Roethke, Robert Penn Warren, and David Wagoner are some of my favorite poets because they do remind me of that. Ancient Zen poets, but recently discovered by me, startle me to new awarenesses precisely because they are new to me and force me to see my world in a new way.

At their best, though, all poets, and perhaps all true artists, force us to rediscover ourselves. I had not encountered the contemporary poet Marie Howe before yesterday, but I found this poem a perfect reminder of that which does give us control over our world.

I Read the News Today

NEWS
Children, come to my knee.
I am old, I forget
More things than I can say.
What is the news today?
No news today, no news today.

There is always news-a town
Burning, a man shot down.
Men salt the lands with man;
The blood rusts a man’s hand.
That is no news today.
No news, no news….
But were I to say
I have seen mercy: the sun lapping
The bared head, the empty hand
Why, who would believe you today?
Randall Jarrell / The Complete Poems

When the president said today, “You mark my words, people are going to tire of the war on terrorism. And, by the way, it may take more than two years,” I realized that I don’t have two or more years to devote exclusively to fixate on a war that I have very little chance of altering. It is time to refocus on those things that are most important today instead of worrying about a future I cannot control anymore than I could control in the past.

When I look back at my life, it’s amazing how many wars have impinged on my life: World War II, The Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, not to mention a few-odd police actions. Luckily, I was unaware of most of them, unless that was the reason I liked the Fort Apache I got for Christmas so much, and nothing in 4th grade seemed quite so important as that cute girl who wouldn’t pay attention to me, certainly not a war in a distant land.

I don’t think I will “tire of the war on terrorism,” nor do I think I will be able to avoid being outraged as long as there is a television in the house, but I will try my best to focus on the small things that bring me joy and make my daily life as meaningful as it can be.

My war, the one I couldn’t ignore, made me miserable for a long time, but it also made me aware of how lucky Americans really are.

If I’m luckier this time, my revived awareness of just how much misery there is in the world and how much misery will inflict on others will somehow make my moments of happiness more precious instead of eating away at them.

Puff the Magic Dragon

A dragon lives forever
But not so little boys
Puff the Magic Dragon

When I was in Vietnam we called the AC-130, or an earlier version, "Puff the Magic Dragon" because it magically appeared at night when the enemy attacked, shooting out steady streams of flame, vanquishing our enemies.

I’m sure that the Vietnamese children had another name for it, just as I’m sure that the children of Afghanistan will soon have another, less loveable name for it.

Randall Jarrell understood the tragic attempts of children to make sense of a war that makes no sense.


Come to the Stone …
The child saw the bombers skate like stones across the fields
As he trudged down the ways the summer strewed
With its reluctant foliage; how many giants
Rose and peered down and vanished, by the road
The ants had littered with their crumbs and dead.
"That man is white and red like my clown doll,"
He says to his mother, who has gone away.
"I didn’t cry, I didn’t cry."
In the sky the planes are angry like the wind.
The people are punishing the people-why?
He answers easily, his foolish eyes
Brightening at that long simile, the world.
The angels sway above his story like balloons.
A child makes everything-except his death-a child’s.
Come to the stone and tell me why I died.

Randall Jarrell The Complete Poems

Thirty years after Vietnam, I still am startled awake by distant noises at night. Sometimes lately when I am startled to awareness, I lay awake and worry about those children in Afghanistan.I worry about those who will not make it through the night, who will "come to the stone."

Most of all, though, I worry about those who will live on. How will they answer the question, "The people are punishing the people-why?"

And what will that answer mean to my grandson and his generation?

Some of the media, primarily the alternative media, have begun to ask these questions, too. Two of the best are Save the Children and AlterNet — Living Up To My Beliefs — For My Children And The Children of Afghanistan.

However, the media as a whole seems obsessed with showing fuzzy green-and-white lightshows of our air raids or sterile overhead shots of targets surgically removed by our missiles and bombs, ignoring or denying that any people live down there where those bombs come skipping in like giant rocks thrown by some angry god.