The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Two days before she was due to return, she felt an unexpected sinking in her heart. On the plane ride home the feeling spread as a kind of numbness to her chest and arms. At Kennedy, as she jostled with the crowds watching their luggage come out of the wall and grabbing it off of the conveyor belt, she found herself crying. She tried to tell herself she was just tired, jet-lagged, but she knew better. It was a wonderful trip, she insisted firmly, but the wall of damp heat outside the sliding doors of the airport hit her like someone slapping a hysterical woman. Not wonderful enough, said the sticky cab seat. The disconcerting mix of good and bad smells from the city streets added: Not wonderful enough to change you.

The cab pulled up to the door of her apartment building, and the driver announced the fare. For a moment she sat there, unable to lift herself and her luggage out of the back seat. Finally, prompted by annoyed glances from the driver, she dragged herself out, and to the lobby, to the elevator, found her key on the ride up and pushed open the door to her apartment.

There was music playing. Loud, Spanish music that made her start to sway despite her confusion. She looked down and instead of her heather-blue runner saw a brightly colored throw rug, and unfamiliar shoes. She took a step backwards. She must have gotten the wrong apartment. For a full minute she stared at the number on the door. 314. This was her number. Could she have the wrong building? But her key had worked.

She stood perfectly still for several more minutes, while one fast, joyful song finished and another just like it started up. Then, leaving her luggage in the hall, she stepped again into her apartment, through the front hall and into the room that served as her kitchen and living room.

Everything had changed. Her furniture, her decorations were all gone, and in their place were other, brighter and more modern things. The walls, off-white before, had been painted deep reds, blues and greens, a different color for each wall. The kitchen counters were piled with food, much more food than she ever kept in her kitchen and everything, even the bowl of fruit, seemed chosen for its color. She heard voices in her bedroom, but she was not afraid. The energy flowing through her, like the music playing, was quick, ready, powerful. She walked into the bedroom, pushing open the half closed door.

Two dark, laughing people turned towards her in surprise, smiles still frozen on their faces. They were both half dressed, and the man seemed to be in the act of spinning the woman around in a dance. The man yelled something in Spanish, and she turned, not afraid but full of life, joy, purpose. She walked out of the apartment, past her luggage in the hall, and rode the elevator down to the street, to the corner where there was a pay phone. She dialed 911, pushing the buttons almost fondly, and tried to keep her broad smile out of her voice when someone answered.

“Someone has broken into my apartment,” she said confidentially, as if sharing a secret love with a friend, “Actually, they’re still there.”

Several hours later she stood again in her apartment, this time with a detective. They had tracked down her landlord, who verified her identity, and the two dancing people were at the police station being questioned. She was showing the detective photos of her apartment, taken a few months ago to send to her mother in Maine.

You say you’ve been gone two weeks?” he was saying, looking at the pictures and then the apartment over and over. “They must have moved in right away. God knows how they got a key – the lock’s not broken. Maybe you forgot to lock it, or maybe they know a locksmith who could have made one. They seem to be crazy: So far we haven’t gotten a straight story out of them, but it doesn’t seem like they’re homeless. They must have spent thousands of dollars to redecorate. Your old stuff is probably long gone. You can sue them for damages, but who knows if they have money to pay you or not. Or you could sell this stuff, it isn’t junk, it’s probably worth a lot. Are you okay? This has to be unsettling.”

She shook her head, meaning neither yes nor no, meaning that, actually, she was fine, everything was fine for the first time in a long time. Her apartment, her life, had been baptized with music, color, sex. As the detective went on talking she ran her fingers over a thick oil painting on the wall. She would not redecorate.

If I could suffer
For you, I would. Ah, dear friends
A warm summer breeze.

I am trapped in flesh.
Flesh like this was once divine.
Ah, friends. A warm breeze.

This warm breeze. I pray
For you, my friends, and for me.
To the one who knows.

Until you said that thing that made the steel containment doors of my heart come crashing down.

Now I am on the INSIDE and you are on the OUTSIDE.

“Try to pry them open with a crowbar!”

I hear your muffled voice.

You think I have a crowbar in my heart?

In a similar but opposite way

The birds outside my skylight wake me every morning with their song.

They are OUTSIDE and I am INSIDE.

But they know nothing of metal fear and conditional love.

They are not waiting for me to lose ten pounds or start dressing stylishly.

They neither sow nor reap.

But the things they can pry open with their tiny beaks would astound you.

I get up and go outside almost every day.

John Keats

John Keats

John.

Please put your scarf on.

As intriguing as that scrap of poetry is, I began to feel deeply the loss of the missing poems. This shows Salinger’s brilliance since, as far as I know, he is describing poems that don’t exist.

Seymour writes Haikus, or rather “double Haikus” – his own invention. Inspired by the negative space in the story, I paused to compose my own Haiku (a single). Here it is:

Baby sleeps. I read.

Use bank receipts as bookmarks.

Ten degrees, March sixth.

Traditionally, the last line of a Haiku is supposed to touch on Nature. See how I did? The syllables are tricky, though, and to be perfectly honest it was twenty three degrees and March seventh when I wrote the poem. But there’re way too many syllables in twenty three and seventh. In my defense, the previous day, March sixth, had been ten degrees (-15 with the wind-chill, a fact which made me question my sanity at choosing to live in Boston).

Even with my Haiku, though, I still feel a lack of poetry. So I’m posting another one of mine, free form, that I wrote a couple of years ago. A little mythological background: Prometheus, if you remember, is the god who took pity on chilly men (who quite possibly were living in Boston, I don’t recall) and brought them fire from heaven to warm themselves. He was punished for this divine rebellion, though at the moment the nature of his punishment escapes me. Edith Hamilton would be glad to tell you all about it, if you really want to know.

Here you go. Enjoy.

Prometheus’s Gift

When I opened the door of my study

A piece of paper – an idea for a story

Fluttered into the candle and began to burn.

And I thought of all the centuries before electricity,

When people worked by candlelight,

And drafts caused similar accidents.

I didn’t think of other writers,

Though that never-published novel

Which I consequently never read

May be the reason for

That deep and lonely

Ache I sometimes

Feel.

No, I thought of physicists, philosophers,

Economists, politicians and theologians.

Countless numbers of them, huddled over documents

That would have ended world hunger,

Brought about peace on earth,

Or taught men and women how to understand each other;

In a careless moment, opening a window,

Prometheus’s gift licking the thin pages.

They caught it in time, like I did –

Grabbing the paper and dropping it into the sink.

Their house did not burn down, their wives (or husbands)

And children were safe. No smoke

Choked the family pets, or ruined the drapes.

No one even knew.

And I’ll write that story anyway:

I have a pretty good idea what it was going to be about.

But the exact wording, that particular plot twist

That could have made it Nobel prize-worthy

Is lost. So, maybe, the secret meaning of life,

Discovered, maybe, again and again throughout history,

Was blown into a single flame,

And given back to the gods.

A tan that never quite fades.

These are the eyes, more dimensioned, more bordered by lines.

This is the hair, a bit of silver gleaming through, but only on the right side.

It always sounded so young to me, so young to die.

But now I know, I am old.

The way my memory stretches back amazes me.

That I can say, “ten years ago” or “fifteen.”

The things I have seen, the things I know;

Are more than I ever wanted to.

A kind of peace with age, a kind of wisdom

In the loss of possibilities.

Are these his hands, his eyes, his hair,

His memories, his sorrow, his strength?

Divinity in flesh, the apex of its aging?

Is this the age of the body of my Lord,

When he gave it for me?

My cat died on this road, too, coincidentally. She’d been run over and was dying, so we brought her to the vet on Old County Road to have her put to sleep. She sank her teeth slowly into my hand and died while the vet was preparing the injection. I drive past the vet’s every day, too.

I try not to think about these things, much less write about them. But as if the black and blue sign for the vet’s and the flowers left on the twisted guardrail weren’t enough, this morning a tow truck was perched on the side of the road like a vulture; haunting the road like an ice cream truck haunts playgrounds, confident that it would soon find customers.

Suddenly as I drove by I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I pulled over to the side of the road. Leaping out of the car I began to run at the tow truck, waving my arms wildly in the air and shouting an exorcism:

“Avaunt, thou vulture,

Thou raven!

Thou albatross!

Begone!”

The driver of the tow truck sipped his coffee and looked at me impassively. I dropped my arms resignedly to my sides and began to turn back to my car. But just then I saw a hazy black shape flap up from the truck and ascend into the sky.

To all my friends from whom I’m seperate

In flesh, in never having heard your voice,

Or by great distances, or by birthdate.

Brought together gladly, though not by choice

Or purpose, or intention, on our part.

But that there Purpose is, is clearly true.

For you have furrowed soil in my heart

That long lay barren, though I never knew.

To think this very medium’s despised!

And I, embarrased, often hold my tongue

Or speak not loudly of you, dearest friends

For fear of sounding frivolous, or young.

Oh, many by their touch can me console,

But you with words alone have touched my soul.

Welcome to 71/73/77 Green Street: The Greenhaus Community, and to our third annual Advent Calendar. We will be adding a lantern every night, from December 1^st to December 24^th. Our theme for the calendar this year is The Darkest Night of the Year.

The Darkest Night of the Year

The Winter Solstice and Advent

On December 22^nd, in Boston, the sun will rise at 7:11 a.m. and set at 4:15 p.m. It is said that the ancient people watched the nights lengthening, and feared that the sun was dying. Even in our modern times, when we think we understand the movement of the earth and sun, we cannot help but feel oppressed by the encroaching darkness. We have even given this oppression a name: Seasonal Affective Disorder. The ancients offered sacrifices to the sun, we take anti-depressants and buy full spectrum light bulbs. But every year, the sun returns. It rises earlier and sets later each day, even as the winter weather worsens. Somehow, we are saved from the darkness.

The early Christians understood the deep truth behind this salvation. Jesus was probably not born in December – most scholars suggest April as a more likely month. But the Christians understood that there was more to the ancient myths than superstition. The darkening earth reminds us of the darkness of our souls without God. And that is why the shortest days of the year are the perfect time for the season of Advent. Advent means “coming,” – the coming of Christ – and the twenty four days before Christmas are a time of preparation for this coming. As the days shorten, our spirits tell us that without some intervention, we will be lost in the darkness. But that intervention has been given. Christ has come! “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light/ The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” ~from O Little Town of Bethlehem

That is why, in the midst of the darkness of Apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was able to proclaim,

Goodness is stronger than evil,
love is stronger than hate,
light is stronger than darkness,
life is stronger than death,
victory is ours through him who loved us.

Yours through the darkness,

Greenhaus