What he said

Stop for just a moment, or 3 …

3
by John Berryman

Sole watchman of the flying stars, guard me
against my flicker of impulse lust: teach me
to see them as sisters & daughters. Sustain
my grand endeavours: husbandship & crafting.

Forsake me not when my wild hours come;
grant me sleep nightly, grace soften my dreams;
achieve in me patience till the thing be done,
a careful view of my achievement come.

Make me from time to time the gift of the shoulder.
When all hurt nerves whine shut away the whiskey.
Empty my heart toward Thee.
Let me pace without fear the common path of death.

Cross am I sometimes with my little daughter:
fill her eyes with tears. Forgive me, Lord.
Unite my various soul,
sole watchman of the wide & single stars.

From “Eleven Addresses to the Lord”, “3” by John Berryman, Collected Poems 1937-1971. © The Noonday Press, 1989.

It goes on

Wednesday’s Writer’s Almanac featured a poem by Bruce Taylor entitled “Middle-Aged Men, Leaning.” It begins:

They lean on rakes.
It’s late, it is evening
already inside their houses.

The children are gone.
Their wives are on the phone
talking softly to someone else.

This frost, this early Fall
upon their minds, a small
measure of patience and regard

as if the twilight world
in bright papery pieces
diminished so and thus.

It caught my attention because my fingers and palms are still sore from all the yard work we did last weekend; yard work that had me leaning on rakes and shovels as well as standing on ladders, wrangling in brush piles and wrestling with awnings. It was a lot of hard, dirty work but we were blessed with an extended stretch of early September at the end of October, giving us the time we desperately needed to get the yard ready to host the Mall Diva’s upcoming nuptials in the spring.

While Tiger Lilly, my wife and I worked on the gardens the Mall Diva and Ben cleared out the four flower beds in front of the house and planted tulip bulbs, happy in the thought of the rewards for their labor regardless of whatever hardships and depradations should be visited upon these by the winter, the squirrels or the administration.

A long, cold season may be ahead but there’s so much promise on the other side of it. I’ve lived through many a winter now and quite a few temporal seasons of hope and change — some of which even almost worked. I take any and all forecasts with as many grains of salt as I’ll eventually pour on my sidewalk in the months ahead, but one thing I know for certain is that the head of my government has decreed that seedtime and harvest shall not cease as long as the earth remains.

More 17th century blogging

I was flipping through my copy of The Art of Worldly Wisdom the other day. It’s a collection of the aphorisms of Baltasar Gracian, who I have quoted here before. I rather liked this one:

…For virtue is the bond of all the perfections, and the heart of all life’s satisfactions. It makes a man sensible, alert, far-seeing, understanding, wise, courageous, considerate, upright, joyous, welcomed, truthful and a universal idol. And three are the S’s that make for happiness: saintliness, sanity and sapience. Virtue is the sun of our lesser world, the sky over which is a good conscience. It is so beautiful, that it finds favor with God, and of man. There is nothing lovely without virtue: and nothing hateful without vice: for virtue is the essence of wisdom, and all else is folly: capacity, and greatness must be measured in terms of virtue, and not in those of fortune. Virtue alone is sufficient unto itself: and it, only, makes a man worth loving in life, and in death, worth remembering.

Those old guys sure had some funny ideas.

Oh, to be able to put it Blount-ly

What kind of writer do I want to be? My interests are so varied that I’d hate to limit myself to one niche, and in that Roy Blount, Jr. is another writing idol of mine. In a piece on Saturday noting Blount’s birthday, The Writer’s Almanac included this description:

Roy Blount has been a freelance writer for more than 100 different publications. He has written profiles, essays, sketches, verse, short stories, and reviews. And he’s written about politics, sports, music, food, drink, gender issues, books, comedians, language, travel, science, animals, economics, anatomy, and family life.

Wow – sounds like my blog, except no one’s ever paid me for my profiles, essays, sketches, verse, short stories and reviews. Yet. The Almanac goes on to name Blount’s new book and mention that it comes out this week. The title is 34 words long, with 17 punctuation marks but I’ll call it Alphabet Juice for short.

The new book contains the following excerpt:

To me, letters have always been a robust medium of sublimation. … We’re in the midst of a bunch of letters, and if you’re like me, you feel like a pig in mud. What a great word mud is. And muddle, and muffle, and mumble. … You know the expression “Mum’s the word.” The word mum is a representation of lips pressed together. … The great majority of languages start the word for “mother” with an m sound. The word mammal comes from the mammary gland. Which comes from baby talk: mama. To sound like a grownup, we refine mama into mother; the Romans made it mater, from which: matter. And matrix. Our word for the kind of animal we are, and our word for the stuff that everything is made of, and our word for a big cult movie all derive from baby talk.

What are we saying when we say mmmm? We are saying yummy. In the pronunciation of which we move our lips the way nursing babies move theirs. The fact that we can spell something that fundamental, and connect it however tenuously to mellifluous and manna and milk and me (see M), strikes me as marvelous.

Mmm-hmmm, that’s good stuff.

God save the Yankees

As I mentioned earlier, I’m re-reading Mark Helprin’s most recent collection of short stories, The Pacific. One of the stories is especially apt right now as baseball’s regular season and the history of Yankee Stadium — the House That Ruth Built — come to a close. Entitled “Perfection”, the story is set in 1956 and is about a teenage Hasidic boy, Roger, who is sent by a vision from God to save the season for New York Yankees. Call it the opposite of the classic play, “Damn Yankees.”

Roger, a surviving orphan of the Majdanek concentration camp, knows nothing of baseball, but quite a bit about faith. He goes to Yankee Stadium and finagles his way in on a pre-game summer morning, bringing the following tribute from the pages of the story:

After working for half an hour, Roger was in. Not only had he found the House of Ruth, he had breached its walls without slinging a single stone or slaying a single Boabite. Gliding up a ramp in search of June daylight, he came out on the first tier near left field. Looking east toward the bladder neck of the Bronx and into the vast right-field decks rising unto the crane of his neck and topped by rows of flags and formations of lights like the radars on a cruiser, he realized that although it did not fit Luba’s description exactly — gone were the purple hangings, the maidens, the grapes — it was close. You could fill it with every rabbi in the world and you would still have room for more. He looked at rows and rows of seats as neatly folded as laundry, lacquered hard and beerproof. Remembering the oceanic sounds on Schnaiper’s radio, he filled in the crowd. In his vision of what he heard, he saw whole steppes of people whose faces were like seeds peering from sunflowers, and whose changes of position and sudden cheers were like wind sweeping high grass. Legions disappeared in the shadows, from which a roar echoed like a hurricane. How many places like this, he thought, would it take to hold six million people, and his answer, quickly calculated, was one hundred twenty. Stadiums packed with fifty thousand people could be placed in a line from down both sides of Manhattan from Washington Heights to the Battery, with no space in between, and if the souls within could break their silence, the roar would be unlike anything ever heard.

“One foot at a time,” he said to himself, with no idea why he said it. “One foot at a time.” He sighed. If only his father and mother could see him, standing in Ruth’s house, about to save the Yenkiss. They would not know of either of these things, but if only they could see him.

A young Hasidic boy in black robes and a fur hat on a hot June day had no idea how to save the Yankees, but his moving feet carried him to the rail. At the elliptical center of the field a man in a white suit stood on a barrow of dirt and would periodically throw something at two men who faced him. One of the men was in turtlelike armor, squatting. The other stood, with a weapon.

When the thing that was thrown at the man with the staff would come at him almost faster than the eye could see, he would strike at it, and there would be a crack as in the breaking of a cable, after which the thing that was thrown would fly out into the air, along varying trajectories, and land in the grass. Then someone would throw the man on the dirt a new thing, and the process would continue. Sometimes the man who held the weapon missed, and the thing that was thrown was caught by the turtle, who threw it back. Who knew? But this was baseball.

On the back of the man with the weapon was the number 7. This meant, according to Schnaiper, that he was Mickey Mental. It was a good place to start. If you are going to help the needy, help those in most distress, and those in most distress are those who have fallen the furthest. Roger was sure that it was no accident that the only thing between him and Mickey Mental, the greatest baseball player of any age (according to Schnaiper), was a hundred feet of perfectly clear air through which sound could easily carry.

This was at a time in the morning when the field was most like what a field is supposed to be, swept clocklike by golden legs of sun stilting across it as time progressed, insects busy in flight against the huge foils of black shadow. A white blur that is not mist but a condition of the light, a lost and miscellaneous glare, covered the empty stands and bleachers in which, to Mantle’s delight, virtually no one had yet appeared. And those who had come early kept as respectful a distance as pilgrims in St. Peter’s who have stumbled upon the Pope in the dry runs of investiture. Fragrant breezes from the field alternated pleasingly with cool downdrafts of leftover night air rolling off the second level like a waterfall. It was the perfect time for the great player to concentrate on the attainment of perfection in hitting the ball. To allow his gifts free rein, he needed something like the flow of a river. In the mornings, when Yankee Stadium reminded him most of the field his forebears had farmed, that river flowed best. He was deep in concentration, and doing very well, when he became aware of a distraction.

From behind, from the left-field fence out toward third base, came a kind of squeak. At first he thought it was a bird or a cricket. Then he realized that it was an imploring voice. Once every great while, coarse people got into the stadium before a game and stood at the rail calling out his name, hoping for acknowledgment, a conversation, or an autographed baseball. This he had learned to ignore.

But though he tried, he could not ignore the squeak. He screwed up his face, rested the bat against his shoulder, and held up his left hand as a signal to the pitcher to hold off. What was this squeak? He lifted his head, hand still held out, and squinted, which was what he did when he wanted better to hear something behind him. He heard the calling of his own name, after a fashion. “What?” he said, as if asking why the perfect morning had to include this.

I’ve said how much Helprin’s writing simultaneously inspires and defeats me, and I typed those words out of the book in the way a young fan might fastidiously recreate the boxscore from a great World Series game, trying to make greatness feel familiar to his fingers. As for Roger and Mickey Mental, you’ll need to read the whole story to find out what Roger had to teach “the Yenkiss” (and us) about justice, redemption, miracles and redemption. They are lessons well worth absorbing.

Shifting the son

Shifting the Sun

When your father dies, say the Irish,
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Welsh,
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Canadians,
you run out of excuses. May you inherit
his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the French,
you become your own father.
May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Indians,
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the English,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn’t.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever,
and you walk in his light.

by Diana Der Hovanessian,
from the book “Selected Shorts”
published by Sheep Meadow Press.

Related posts:
In My Father’s House, Part 1
In My Father’s House, Part 2
In My Father’s House, Part 3
Turning Toward the Mourning
In My Father’s House, Conclusion – yet to be posted.

Turning toward the mourning

Turning Toward the Morning
by Gordon Bok

When the deer has bedded down
And the bear has gone to ground,
And the northern goose has wandered off
To warmer bay and sound,
It’s so easy in the cold to feel
The darkness of the year
And the heart is growing lonely
For the morning

Oh, my Joanie, don’t you know
That the stars are swinging slow,
And the seas are rolling easy
As they did so long ago?
If I had a thing to give you,
I would tell you one more time
That the world is always turning
Toward the morning.

Now October’s growing thin
And November’s coming home;
You’ll be thinking of the season
And the sad things that you’ve seen,
And you hear that old wind walking,
Hear him singing high and thin,
You could swear he’s out there singing
Of your sorrow.

When the darkness falls around you
And the Northwind comes to blow,
And you hear him call your name out
As he walks the brittle snow:
That old wind don’t mean you trouble,
He don’t care or even know,
He’s just walking down the darkness
Toward the morning.

It’s a pity we don’t know
What the little flowers know.
They can’t face the cold November
They can’t take the wind and snow:
They put their glories all behind them,
Bow their heads and let it go,
But you know they’ll be there shining
In the morning.

Now, my Joanie, don’t you know
That the days are rolling slow,
And the winter’s walking easy,
As he did so long ago?
And, if that wind would come and ask you,
“Why’s my Joanie weeping so?”
Wont you tell him that you’re weeping
For the morning?

Now October’s growing thin and November’s coming home. I’m thinking of the season and the sad things that I’ve seen.

In the morning I’ll be turning south, toward what was my father’s house…

What you realize

What You Realize When Cancer Comes

You will not live forever—No
you will not, for a ceiling of clouds
hovers in the sky.

You are not as brave
as you once thought.
Sounds of death
echo in your chest.

You feel the bite of pain,
the taste of it running
through you.

Following the telling to friends
comes a silence of
felt goodbyes. You come to know
the welling of tears.

Your children are stronger
than you thought and
closer to your skin.

The beauty of animals
birds on telephone lines,
dogs who look into your eyes,
all bring you peace.

You want no more confusion
than what already rises
in your head and heart.

You watch television less,
will never read all those books,
much less the ones
you have.

Songs can move you now, so that
you want to hold onto the words
like the hands of children.

Your own hands look good to you.
old and familiar
as water.

You read your lover’s skin
like a road map
into yourself.

All touch is precious now.

There are echoes

in the words thrown
before you.

When they take your picture now
you wet your lips, swallow once
and truly smile.

Talk of your lost parents
pulls you out, and
brings you home again.

You are in a river
flowing in and through you.
Take a breath. Reach out your arms.
You can survive.

A river is flowing
flowing in and through you.
Take a breath. Reach out your arms
.

“What You Realize When Cancer Comes” by Larry Smith, from A River Remains. © WordTech Editions.

Six years

Night Writer 

For the Falling Man
by Annie Farnsworth

I see you again and again
tumbling out of the sky,
in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.
At first I thought you were debris
from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall
or fuselage but then I realized
that people were leaping.
I know who you are, I know
there’s more to you than just this image
on the news, this ragdoll plummeting—
I know you were someone’s lover, husband,
daddy. Last night you read stories
to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep
next to your wife. Perhaps there was small
sleepy talk of the future. Then,
before your morning coffee had cooled
you’d come to this; a choice between fire
or falling.
How feeble these words, billowing
in this aftermath, how ineffectual
this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly
it’s hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths
—but we can’t help ourselves—how I wish
we could trade them for something
that could really have caught you.

“For the Falling Man” by Annie Farnsworth from Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light. © Annie Farnsworth.

On his last (stubby) legs

No, this isn’t a post about Strommie the would-be polygamist who may or may not be being hunted by Kevin, but about another member of the family — our failing guinea pig, Piggy-Wiggy.

He’s not eating which, given his normal appetite, is either a sign of the apocalypse or of ill health. He’s not taken a morsel for two days, even when enticed with succulent dandelion stems, the crispiest greenbeans or even his favorite treat — a Tic-Tac (the sound of a shaken plastic dispenser half-full of mints usually brings him storming eagerly to the bars of his cage). I suppose if eating your own excrement was a regular part of your diet you might look forward to a Tic-Tac or two as well.

Don’t misunderstand — this has been a well-fed piggy-wiggy. He recently finished chewing his way through an entire bale of Timothy Hay, and the Reverend Mother has always prepared him a lovely breakfast salad of fresh greens and cucumber, meanwhile our yard has never wanted for dandelions, which I think he liked because the little fuzzy seeds tickled his nose.

He’s at least seven years old, which we’ve learned is a ripe old age for a guinea pig. We’ve had him for four years or so, and rescued him from a home with heavy smokers. The white parts of his fur were yellow when we got him and it took a couple of shampoos to restore his natural tones. He was especially lethargic this morning, which the Reverend Mother noticed and reported to the girls, along with the warning to prepare themselves. The Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly were distraught, and took turns sitting with him in their laps for over an hour this morning, working their way through a box of Kleenex in much the same way he used to work his way through a bag of baby carrots.

He’s always been a paranoid guinea pig, convinced that everything wanted to eat him, dashing into his plastic pigloo at the slightest disturbance and acting as if a warm bath was in reality some kind of sinister marinade. This may have been hard-wired into his genes. My sister-in-law, who is from Ecuador, was bemused to find we had a guinea pig for a pet. She said her grandmother, who raised guinea pigs, would have thought we were as strange as someone who kept, say, a rooster for a pet. That’s because her grandmother raised GPs for food, not companionship.

This morning, however, our pig seemed resigned and rested quietly with the girls, making an occasional grunt of contentment as they stroked his fur. They eventually had to put him back in his cage as they prepared for their expedition today, and I’ve been monitoring him since then; this is more of a hospice, not a hospital — I’ll be sure he’s as comfortable as can be, but there’ll be no heroic life-preserving interventions.

Then again, he might just pull out of it, declare that he’s feeling better and that he thinks he’ll go for a walk. If he should, however, expire today it will be an odd Memorial Day coincidence to go along with our last cat dying on Valentine’s Day earlier this year.

I’ll leave it to the Diva or Tiger Lilly to provide updates, if they’re able. No one likes to see his children cry, and I feel sadder for them than for Piggy-Wiggy, who – face it – has had a good run. Right now I’m reminded of a poem I came across and saved a couple of years ago right about the time our hamster took his last spin around the exercise wheel.

Forty-One, Alone, No Gerbil
In the strange quiet, I realize
there’s no one else in the house.
No bucktooth mouth pulls at a stainless-steel teat, no
hairy mammal runs on a treadmill—
Charlie is dead, the last of our children’s half-children.
When our daughter found him lying in the shavings,
trans-mogrified backwards from a living body into a bolt of rodent bread
she turned her back on early motherhood
and went on single, with nothing. Crackers, Fluffy, Pretzel, Biscuit, Charlie,
buried on the old farm we bought
where she could know nature. Well, now she knows it and it sucks.
Creatures she loved, mobile and needy, have gone down stiff and indifferent,
she will not adopt again
though she cannot have children yet,
her body like a blueprint
of the understructure for a woman’s body,
so now everything stops for a while,
now I must wait many years
to hear in this house again the faint
powerful call of a young animal.
by Sharon Olds, from The Wellspring © Alfred A. Knopf.

Update:

Our beloved Piggy-wiggy died last night after a few seizures. I miss him so much right now. I feel really bad that he had to die alone in the dark. He was my baby, and if love could have saved him, he would have lived forever. Same goes for the cat.
TL.