if you like my poems let them

if you like my poems let them
walk in the evening,a little behind you

then people will say
"Along this road i saw a princess pass
on her way to meet her lover(it was
toward nightfall)with tall and ignorant servants."

-e.e. cummings 

No Small Thing

I haven't posted for two weeks because I've been discouraged and unsettled and didn't want to post complaints and fears.  My goal this year is to live beyond fears, remember.  Although lately I felt less enthusiastic about 2012, I knew to give up would be premature and wimpy.  The only thing to do was read a good book with lots of resounding wisdom and epic journeys and heroic little people fighting against evil.  Lord of the Rings, specifically, as I have been wanting to revisit these gems for years. I was first introduced to Tolkien's work at the tender age of 11 by my seventh grade science teacher.  I blazed through those fat little paperbacks by nightlight and was seriously upset when Gandalf fell in the mines of Moria.  Thank goodness he resurrected or whatever that was. My grandma bought me the books even though she thought they were weird (an opinion based on pictures from the movie, particularly of the orcs). My younger brothers were led by my excellent example to read them, although they were more easily addicted to the movies and had them practically on a loop for years.  I resisted the films at first because I didn't want them to ruin the books, but they too are excellent. (I will say that occasionally hearing people deliver grand speeches about a ring does strike me as silly.  This is where the books come in.)

Anyway, I'm rereading the books and discovered my younger self prudently underlined all the excellent lines in The Fellowship of the Ring.  This reading I noticed many are spoken by Gandalf, and I will, in a few moments, share a few here.  But first I would like to say of Tolkien that he was a wise man and I am deeply appreciative of the years and years of work he put into these volumes. 

And now, some great lines from The Fellowship of the Ring (book), for your edification:

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." -Gandalf

"It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill." -Elrond

"[D]espair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt.  We do not." -Gandalf

"Books ought to have good endings." -Bilbo

"[W]e put the thought of all that we love into all that we make." -the leader of the Elves in Lothlorien

"Memory is not what the heart desires." -Gimli

And from the film:

" And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend; legend became myth." -Prologue

" Even the smallest person can change the course of the future." -Galadriel

Of course there are longer passages that are equally insightful.  To myself in this quiet phase of my existence, I say as Bilbo said:  "It is not a bad thing to celebrate a simple life."

In the Hush of Winter

Today being a cold, wintry day, I feel it appropriate to share Robert Frost's "Reluctance."

Out through the fields and the woods

And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,

Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither;

The last lone aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

But the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?

'Twas My Birthday Week

And a celebratory week it was.  First, my dear friend (and first ever college roommate) Jill of the flowing auburn locks came to spend a few days with me.  These days involved much movie watching, game playing, and cocoa drinking.  Our movie selections included the visually delightful Alice in Wonderland (2010), and a few lines have gotten me thinking.  The Hatter says to Alice, "You're not the same as you were before.  You were much more...muchier.  You've lost your muchness."Alice queries, "My muchess?"  He points to her heart. "In there." Alice ponders this as she (re)discovers her courage and finally fights the Jabberwocky.  "Lost my muchness, have I?"  She mutters to herself.  "How's this for muchness?"  Like Alice, I have at times "lost my muchness."  Lost my enthusiasm, my good sense, my compassion.  Lost trust, lost faith, lost purpose.  And I don't like it.  I miss the good things about the girl I was.  Of course, I've gained things too, and am regaining others.   Again, like Alice, I have the spunk to believe impossible things before breakfast and to fight scary monsters.  The little saying I tell myself is "Live beyond fear.  Beyond regret."

I say live beyond because I've tried not having fears and regrets and failed.  Those are just two weaknesses I fight.  I get anxious about situations before, while, and after they happen.  I beat myself up over mistakes.  I regress to being about 15 years old and do and say weird things I can't explain and stay embarrassed about them for years.  It's very complicated in my head sometimes!  Fortunately, I am loved by a merciful God and by gracious friends (including some with similar DNA) who extend grace to me even when I am wearying.  I have a sense of anticipation for this year of being 24.  It's gonna be a good year.  Wrongs made right, burdens thrown overboard, adventures galore.

Right, so back to the birthday week.  For my actual birthday, I was with another dear friend (and third college roommate) Clara.  Her mom pampered me with homecooked meals:  waffles for breakfast, omlet for lunch, and a from-scratch chocolate cake for dinner, complete with candles.  I felt very special.  Clara also took me to an art gallery, whose special exhibition was "Extreme Materials."  I was amazed, I was slightly repulsed, I thoroughly enjoyed sharing the experience.  Clara kept pointing out the shadows things made, which I wouldn't have noticed on my own. My family celebration was on Sunday, and a birthday doesn't feel complete until the family party.  I had already picked out a few things like a warm fleece to replace the one I've had since high school.  But my parents surprised me with a subscription to Country Living (hurrah!) and a set of small cake decorating tips.  I think they are hoping to benefit from those! 

The celebrations just keep going too:  a few friends here in Jamestown are having a little dinner for me and I once again feel very special.  My curmudgeonly little heart is letting go of some of its prickles :-)

Whence the Name

Tuesday, June 4, 1991   by Billy Collins

By the time I get myself out of bed, my wife has left
the house to take her botany final and the painter
has arrived in his van and is already painting
the columns of the front porch white and decking gray.

It is early June, a breezy and sun-riddled Tuesday
that would quickly be forgotten were it not for my
writing these few things down as I sit here empty-headed
at the typewriter with a cup of coffee, light and sweet.

I feel like the secretary to the morning whose only
responsibility is to take down its bright, airy dictation
until it's time to go to lunch with the other girls,
all of us ordering the cottage cheese with half a pear.

This is what stenographers do in courtrooms, too,
alert at their miniature machines taking down every word.
When there is a silence they sit still as I do, waiting
and listening, fingers resting lightly on the keys.

This is also what Samuel Pepys did, jotting down in
private ciphers minor events that would have otherwise
slipped into the dark amnesiac waters of the Thames.
His vigilance finally paid off when London caught fire

as mine does when the painter comes in for coffee
and says how much he likes this slow vocal rendition
of "You Don't Know What Love Is" and I figure I will
make him a tape when he goes back to his brushes and pails.

Under the music I can hear the rush of cars and trucks
on the highway and every so often the new kitten, Felix,
hops into my lap and watches my fingers drumming out
a running record of this particular June Tuesday

as it unrolls before my eyes, a long intricate carpet
that I am walking on slowly with my head bowed
knowing that it is leading me to the quiet shrine
of the afternoon and the melancholy candles of evening.

If I look up, I see out the window the white stars
of clematis climbing a ladder of strings, a woodpile,
a stack of faded bricks, a small green garden of herbs,
things you would expect to find outside a window,

all written down now and placed in the setting
of a stanza as unalterably as they are seated
in their chairs in the ontological rooms of the world.
Yes, this is the kind of job I could succeed in,

an unpaid but contented amanuensis whose hands
are two birds fluttering on the lettered keys,
whose eyes see sunlight splashing thought the leaves,
and the bright pink asterisks of honeysuckle

and the piano at the other end of this room with
its small vase of faded flowers and its empty bench.
So convinced am I that I have found my vocation,
tomorrow I will begin my chronicling earlier, at dawn,

a time when hangmen and farmers are up and doing,
when men holding pistols stand in a field back to back.
It is the time the ancients imagined in robes, as Eos
or Aurora, who would leave her sleeping husband in bed,

not to take her botany final, but to pull the sun,
her brother, over the horizon's brilliant rim,
her four-house chariot aimed at the zenith of the sky.
But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her,

barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window
in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,
offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.