Seymour Glass, lack of poetry and two offerings.

Last week I read Seymour: An Introduction, a short story by J.D. Salinger. It is the reminiscences of Buddy Glass about his older brother, Seymour, and he spends a large amount of the story talking about Seymour’s poetry. We never do get to read any of this poetry, except for one poem, sent to Buddy by their sister Booboo, from when Seymour was young:

 

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.

On turning the age of my Savior at his Passion.

These are the hands of a thirty-three year old

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?

Old County Road: A True Story

An woman died on this road last month. She skidded on the ice in a snowstorm and unluckily went off of the road into an old quarry. Her car plunged thirty feet, crashed through the ice and sank twenty feet more to the bottom of the quarry. It was a week before the town could bring in divers to pull her out, and that whole week I drove past the quarry on the way to work and on the way home, every day, trying not to think about what I was driving by.

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.

Belief and unbelief.

There are some doubters even in the western villages. One woman told me last Christmas that she did not believe either in hell or in ghosts. Hell she thought was merely an invention got up by the priest to keep people good; and ghosts would not be permitted, she held, to go ‘traipsin about the earth’ at their own free will; ‘but there are faeries,’ she added, ‘and little leprechauns, and water-horses, and fallen angels.’ I have met also a man with a mohawk tattoed upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs. No matter what one doubts one never doubts the faeries, for, as the man with the mohawk on his arm said to me, ‘they stand to reason.’

~W.B. Yeats, from The Celtic Twilight

To my friends on the internet.

Love poem for my friends far away, in iambic pentameter.

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.

Past the Solstice

Today we have one more minute of daylight than yesterday, and tomorrow one more minute than today, and so on right up until the summer solstice in June. I watched the sun set on December 22nd, the shortest day of the year, and rose on the 23rd just in time to see the sun rise again, bringing fresh hope even as the winter settles in. Hopkins poem takes on new meaning:

And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

We’re still in the Christmas season now, which goes until Jan 5th. A good excuse not to throw out my gorgeous Scottish pine, which is looking as fresh as ever! But after the 5th I will give in to Daniela’s pointed stares and take the tree up to Crane’s beach in Ipswich, to be used to prevent the dunes from eroding. If you’re ever in Ipswich, please do visit Crane’s beach, which is one of the most gorgeous beaches in New England, and includes hikes through the dunes and nature trails. And say hello to my tree if you see it.Advent is over — the season that means “coming” — and Epiphany will begin on the sixth. The term epiphany means “to show” or “to make known” or even “to reveal.” It is meant to remember the coming of the wise men bringing gifts to visit the Christ child, who by so doing “reveal” Jesus to the world as Lord and King. It is also a time to think about our own role in revealing Christ to the world.

Part of me wants to stay in Christmas. Christ as a baby, me as a kid even at 32, opening presents in my pajama’s at my parents’ home in New Hampshire. But as my dad pointed out in his Christmas Eve sermon, Christ’s birth was just the beginning. It’s a terrible and wonderful time we’re living in, between the two advents of Christ. There is much suffering in this life, as the old hymns acknowledge:

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow.
I don’t think it’s an accident that the Christmas season is only 12 days long, compared to the month or more of Advent and Epiphany. Before and after this great act of Heaven is much waiting. We are in a second Advent now, waiting for the second coming of our Lord. And not just waiting. This is not the age to sit and gaze at a cozy manger scene. There is much to be done.

But for now, there are eleven more days of Christmas. The tree will stay, I will even continue to play Christmas songs on mySpace. The shepherds are here now, but not yet the Magi. Let us pause to adore the Christ Child at this his first Coming.