Broken and Beautiful

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
Complete Modern Home No. 115
Sears, Roebuck & Company ~ 1908 - 1940
Similar to so many homes right here in my Indiana Neighborhood!
Including the one I lived in years ago as a student in South Bend.

***************
When my cousin Maggie sent me the following photograph, I couldn't help thinking of "The House With Nobody In It" by Joyce Kilmer. Maggie's caption perfectly condenses the sentiment of the poem:

Broken & Beautiful
"Whenever I see abandoned houses I wonder about the family that used to live there. The excitement when the house was first built, the children who ran through those rooms, the meals that were served and shared. The happiness and even the pain. Oh, if walls could talk!"
~ Maggie Mesneak Wick* ~

The House with Nobody In It

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

by American poet Joyce Kilmer(1886-1918)
best known for the occasionally parodied poem, "Trees"

***************

Many desolate, heart - breaking paintings and photographs
have been paired with Kilmer's poem.
Click here to see more.

***************

I'm also reminded of a couple of songs

1. "You're Beautiful Just As You Are,"
sung by Oscar the Grouch
in one of Ben and Sam's favorite childhood videos:
Don't Eat the Pictures:

"Broken and beautiful, fractured and rare
Missing pieces that used to be there . . .

Broken and beautiful, cracked but okay
Can't imagine who'd throw you away . . ."

******

2. And Janis Ian's classic, "Memories"
(mentioned elsewhere on this blog):

"There are memories within the walls and tapestries . . . "

***************

Lastly (and also mentioned a few times before) is Philip Larkin's abbreviated sonnet; for surely this poem cries out for a final quatrain, but, no, that's all there is, no fitting conclusion, no closure, no fond farewell, just the "poor old house . . . with a broken heart," the "shot . . . long fallen wide":

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

The Bereft Music Room With Nobody In It: Too Sad to Explain

Photography by Aaron B. Carriker

***************

*For more insights from my Cousin Extraordinaire,
Maggie Mesneak Wick:
Empty Nest
The Still Small Voice of Heaven
Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Or Not

See also: The Mailbox Without a House

P.S.
Things break; things can be mended:
Kintsugi / Kintsukuroi

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, May 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

La Cucaracha

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

~ A Favorite Game of Childhood ~

~~~~~~~

First they came for the Socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Paraphrased from the lectures of
Lutheran minister Martin Niemöller (1892-1984),
spoke against Hitler and was imprisoned
who in concentration camps from 1937 - 42
Whenever I hear these lines from Niemöller, I am reminded of the following poems by Muriel Rukeyser. And I was reminded of them again this weekend in connection with the hugely popular Purdue Bug Bowl -- a giant science / fun fair, held every spring, where they are more than decent to cockroaches, and insects are king!

What Do We See?
When they’re decent about women, they’re frightful about children,
When they’re decent about children, they’re rotten about artists,
When they’re decent about artists, they’re vicious about whores,
What do we see? What do we not see?

When they’re kind to whores, they’re death on communists,
When they respect communists, they’re foul to bastards,
When they’re human to bastards, they mock at hysterectomy-
What do we see? What do we not see?

When they’re decent about surgery, they bomb the Vietnamese,
When they’re decent to Vietnamese, they’re frightful to police,
When they’re human to police, they rough up lesbians,
What do we see? What do we not see?

When they’re decent to old women, they kick homosexuals,
When they’re good to homosexuals, they can’t stand drug people,
When they’re calm about drug people, they hate all Germans,
What do we see? What do we not see?

Cadenza for the reader

When they’re decent to Jews, they dread the blacks,
When they know blacks, there’s always something : roaches
And the future and children and all potential. Can’t stand themselves
Will we never see? Will we ever know?

by Muriel Rukeyser
from Breaking Open, 1973

In "What Do We See," Rukeyser is willing to count everyone in. Her pattern of inclusiveness extends to all the groups she can think of who are regularly subject to oppression and exclusion. In an ideal world, no group or individual would suffer discrimination for her being or her beliefs; yet the poet is realistic, realizing that even if in theory everyone is accepted, in practice this is almost never so. If we bring ourselves at last to take all human beings on their own terms, we'll balk at something else.


Cockroach, Periplaneta americana
Pushing the limits of tolerance, Rukeyser concludes with an invitation to consider the cockroach. Could we go that far? Can we overcome the words we were taught to sing as children:

La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha!
Me, I love you not at all!
To be fair, the roach is merely another living creature, trying to do its job on the planet, just as we are trying to do ours. In much the same context, Rukeyser expands upon the roach image in a later poem, "St. Roach," testing the reader's ability to empathize with the outgroup, the other. The poem begins with a lament for closemindedness:

St. Roach
For that I never knew you, I only learned to dread you,
for that I never touched you, they told me you are filth,
they showed me by every action to despise your kind;
for that I saw my people making war on you,
I could not tell you apart, one from another,
for that in childhood I lived in places clear of you,
for that all the people I knew met you by
crushing you, stamping you to death, they poured boiling
water on you, they flushed you down,
for that I could not tell one from another
only that you were dark, fast on your feet, and slender.
Not like me.
For that I did not know your poems
And that I do not know any of your sayings
And that I cannot speak or read your language
And that I do not sing your songs
And that I do not teach our children
to eat your food
or know your poems
or sing your songs
But that we say you are filthing our food
But that we know you not at all.

Yesterday I looked at one of you for the first time.
You were lighter than the others in color, that was
neither good nor bad.

I was really looking for the first time.
You seemed troubled and witty.

Today I touched one of you for the first time.
You were startled, you ran, you fled away
Fast as a dancer, light, strange and lovely to the touch.
I reach, I touch, I begin to know you.

by Muriel Rukeyser
from The Gates, 1976 (McGraw-Hill)

Any discussion of the poetic cockroach must include at least a nod to poor Gregor Samsa who is certainly troubled but beyond all wit. Rejected by all who know him, he is a victim of the disregard and loathing that Rukeyser describes. Untouchable.

On the witty side is Archy, the clever typing (all lower case) cockroach (and his friend Mehitabel the cat) created by humorist Don Marquis. Perhaps not as well known today, Archy was everyone's favorite cockroach when I was growing up:

He was literary:

" . . . the main question is
whether the stuff is
literature or not"

romantic:

"when the pendant moon in the leafless tree
clings and sways like a golden bat
i sing its light and my love for thee
. . . us for the life romantic"

wise:

" . . . there is always some
little thing that is too
big for us every
goliath has his david and so on ad finitum

pithy:

"procrastination is the
art of keeping
up with yesterday"

witty:

"to hell with anything unrefined
has always been my motto"

perceptive:

" . . . the lyric and imperial
attitude
believe that everything is for
you until you discover
that you are for it"

cosmic:

"I find it possible to forgive
the universe
i meet it in a give and take spirit
although i do wish
that it would consult me at times"

opinionated:

" . . . i hate one of these
grinning skipping smirking
senseless optimists worse
than i do a cynic or a
pessimist"

and just:

" . . . i would not consider
it honorable in me as a
righteous cockroach to crawl into a
near sighted man s soup . . . "

from
Archy and Mehitabel




A troop of clever cockroaches, perhaps not as wise as Archy but equally entertaining, appear in T. S. Eliot's Book of Practical Cats. The Old Gumbie Cat takes it upon herself to domesticate the roaches and put them to use around the house:


Postcard by dosankodebbie
These cartoonish cockroaches are fun, but it is Rukeyser's "St. Roach" and "What Do We See" that really ask if we are capable of overcoming prejudice and modifying our behavior. Can we open our hearts to the cockroach and grant it the title of "Saint"? A tall order, but something to think about.

What do we see?
What do we not see?
Will we never see?
Will we ever know?
In closing, thanks to Eileen Sheryl Hammer who said,
"We love Muriel, who understands what our world is made of!"

Previous References to Muriel Rukeyser
on this blog:
Icarus, Who Really Fell
Lot's Wife, Who Gave Her Life For a Single Glance
and coming next time: When the Iris Blows Blue

and on my daily blog The Quotidian Kit
All the Little Animals
Another Good Poem by Muriel Rukeyser
The Wrong Answer


SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, April 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Arranging a Window

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Window Over a Garden ~ by Marc Chagall, 1887 - 1985
Beloved Russian painter of both the quotidian and the fantastic
I have long admired Chagall's magical, unusual paintings, the flexible ballerinas and vividly colored violins; but I also love the usual - ness of his interiors, such as the above window scene. I am especially drawn to this sturdy, ordinary doll, dressed in her homespun clothes, perched in her toy chair perched on the table's edge, just waiting for some real life to come along and happen! The stationary kitchen table and chairs are not floating fantastically but quietly awaiting some everyday diners, such as the little person whose head appears right outside the window. The natural landscape beyond the room, the simple curtains and ceiling lamp are lovely but entirely real and expected.

I also like the way that this blue window goes perfectly with the following poem of spring by E. E. Cummings. The view is doubly mesmerizing because we get to look and stare -- just like the people in the poem -- into the room as well as out of the window to the woods beyond. If we "stare carefully" enough at the painting, we might see what Spring sees, some of everything: "a strange thing and a known thing . . . New and Old things."

We are used to the image of Spring bursting upon us, but in this poem Spring is so subtle, so careful:

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

by E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962
Popular, unconventional American poet

Window in the Country

" . . . arranging
a window,into which people look . . . "
[See the two faces, lower right corner?]
I've had several favorite Chagalls over the years, including for a time Le Grand Cirque, which hung in the Snite Museum of Art when I was a graduate student at Notre Dame. How lucky I was to be able to wander into the art museum for free at anytime and sit on a bench in front of this exuberant painting while grading freshman essays. Alas, since that time, Le Grand Cirque, as well as a Picasso and another very small painting that I loved called The Nights of Penelope, have all been relocated to other venues.

Le Grand Cirque

In those days of proximity to these priceless treasures, it never crossed my mind that any of them were not part of the permanent collection at Notre Dame; so it was with some disappointment that I entered the Snite last Spring with my friend Megan only to discover that all my favorites were missing. Yet another incident of being met at the door by that old disheartening maxim: "You can't go home again." Turns out these words also stand true for museums -- and coffee shops!

Here I am with my friend Lisa,
wearing my Notre Dame Chagall shirt in 1987!

If I had realized that the painting was not part of the permanent collection, I would have taken better care of the shirt as a keepsake, and bought a few extras for future use or resale! Unfortunately, I had only the one, now, sadly, worn completely out. I let my sons use it as a paint shirt. I guess Chagall would be cool with that!


Le Grand Cirque, detail

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, April 14th

FOR MORE SPRING PAINTINGS by CHAGALL & POEMS by CUMMINGS
Take a look at: "In Just Sweet Spontaneous Spring"
on the THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
(my blog of shorter almost daily posts)
P.S.
Previous Chagall Posts on this blog:
"Except Thou Bless Me"
"Dagmar's Birthday"

& on The Quotidian Kit:
"Jacob's Ladder"
"Except Thou Bless Me"
"Happy 448th to William Shakespeare"
"Chagall Four Seasons Mosaic"
"Life and Good"

Previous Cummings Posts on this blog:
"The Syntax of Love"
"Hominy, Horseradish, and Buffalo Bill"
"Rocky Road"

& on The Quotidian Kit
"The Syntax of Love"
"Little Tree ~ I Will Comfort You"
"Full Moon, Full Heart"
"The Trees Stand"

Sighs A Plenty

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Pained Heart or Sigh No More Ladies, 1868
by Engish Artist Arthur Hughes, 1832 – 1915
[To view more from Arthur Hughes]

Sigh No More
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny, nonny.

Sigh no more ditties, sing no more
Of dumps so dull and heavy.
The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leafy.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey, nonny, nonny.

William Shakespeare, English (1564 - 1616)
from Much Ado About Nothing

A few more poems on the significance of a sigh . . .
1. O Blush Not So!
O blush not so! O blush not so!. . .

There's a blush for won't, and a blush for shan't,
And a blush for having done it:
There's a blush for thought and a blush for naught,
And a blush for just begun it.

O sigh not so! O sigh not so! . . .

There's a sigh for yes, and a sigh for no,
And a sigh for I can't bear it! . . .

~ John Keats, English (1795 - 1821)

2. When Love Flies In
When Love flies in,
Make – make no sign;
Owl-soft his wings,
Sand-blind his eyne;
Sigh, if thou must,
But seal him thine.

Nor make no sign
If love flit out;
He’ll tire of thee
Without a doubt.
Stifle thy pangs;
Thy heart resign;
And live without!

Walter de la Mare, English (1873-1956)

3. When I Was One - And - Twenty
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;

’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

~ A. E. Houseman, English (1859 - 1936)

4. A Drinking Song
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

~ William Butler Yeats, Irish (1865 - 1939)

And a couple of songs . . .

My Love
Sung by Petula Clark

My love is warmer than the warmest sunshine
Softer than a sigh
My love is deeper than the deepest ocean
Wider than the sky

My love is brighter than the brightest star
That shines every night above
And there is nothing in this world
That can ever change my love . . .

As Time Goes By
Performed in the movie Casablanca

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by . . .

[Spring Break Disclaimer: I feel a little lazy this time, just posting these poems and not contributing a single word, but maybe sometimes the connections can stand on their own without an editor.]

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
On Thursday, March 28th
~ Paintings by Marc Chagall & Poetry by E. E. Cummings ~

The Small Drawing Room

". . . arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here . . ."

Raoul & Marguerite

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Masqueraders, 1875–78
by Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, 1841–1920
This darling little story by French humorist, Alphonse Allais is not always easy to locate, so I thought I'd take a minute this morning to type it up and pass it on to you here on my blog. It is perfect for Mardi Gras, Valentine's Day, or Purim, so I want to post it quick, before all the Fleeting February Feast Days slip away!

A MOST PARISIAN EPISODE
by Alphonse Allais (1854 - 1905)
translated by Fredric Jameson

Chapter I
In which we meet a Lady and a Gentleman who might have known happiness, had it not been for their constant misunderstandings.

At the time when this story begins, Raoul and Marguerite (splendid names for lovers) have been married for approximately five months.
Naturally, they married for love.
One fine night Raoul, while listening to Marguerite singing Colonel Henry d'Erville's lovely ballad:

L'averse, chere a la grenouille,
Parfume le bois rajeuni.
…Le bois, il est comme Nini.
Y sent bon quand y s'debarbouille.

Raoul, as I was saying, swore to himself that the divine Marguerite (diva Margarita) would never belong to any man but himself.
They would have been the happiest of all couples, except for their awful personalities.
At the slightest provocation, pow! a broken plate, a slap, a kick in the ass.
At such sounds, Love fled in tears, to await, in the neighborhood of a great park, the always imminent hour of reconciliation.
O then, kisses without number, infinite caresses, tender and knowing, ardors as burning as hell itself.
You would have thought the two of them had fights only so they could make up again.

Chapter II
A short episode which, without directly relating to the action, gives the clientele some notions of our heroes' way of life.

One day, however, it was worse than usual.
Or, rather, one night.
They were at the Theatre d'Application, where, among other things, a play by M. Porto-Riche, The Faithless Wife, was being given.
"Let me know," snarled Raoul, "when you're through looking at Grosclaude."
"And as for you," hissed Marguerite, "pass me the opera glasses when you've got Mademoiselle Moreno down pat."
Begun on this note, the conversation could end only in the most unfortunate reciprocal insults.
In the hansom cab that took them home, Marguerite delighted in plucking at Raoul's vanity as at an old, broken-down mandolin.
So it was that no sooner back home than the belligerents took up their respective positions.
Hand raised to strike, with a remorseless gaze, and a moustache bristling like that of a rabid cat, Raoul bore down on Marguerite, who quickly stopped showing off.
The poor thing fled, as hasty and furtive as the doe in the north woods.
Raoul was on the point of laying hands on her.
It was at that moment that the brilliant invention of the greatest anxieties flashed within her little brain.
Turning suddenly about, she threw herself into the arms of Raoul, crying, "Help, my darling Raoul, save me!"

Chapter III
In which our friends are reconciled as I would wish you also to be frequently reconciled.

………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
[ellipses in original]
Chapter IV
As to how people who get involved in things that are none of their affair would do better to mind their own business.

One morning Raoul received the following message:

"If you would like just once to see your wife in a good mood,
go on Thursday to the Bal des Incoherents at the Moulin-Rouge.
She will be there, with a mask and disguised as a Congolese Dugout.
A word to the wise is sufficient! -- A FRIEND."

The same morning, Marguerite received the following message:

"If you would like just once to see your husband in a good mood,
go on Thursday to the Bal des Incoherents at the Moulin-Rouge.
He will be there, with a mask and disguised as a fin-de-siecle Knight Templar.
A word to the wise is sufficient! -- A FRIEND."

These missives did not fall on deaf ears.
With their intentions admirable dissimulated, when the fatal day arrived:

"My dear," Raoul said with his innocent look, "I shall be forced to leave you until tomorrow. Business of the greatest urgency summons me to Dunkirk."

"Why that's perfect," said Marguerite with delightful candor. "I've just received a telegram from Aunt Aspasia, who, desperately ill, bids me to her bedside."

Chapter V
In which today's wild youth is observed in the whirl of the most illusory and transitory pleasures, instead of thinking on eternity.

The social column of the Diable boiteux was unanimous in proclaiming this year's Bal des Incoherents as having unaccustomed brilliance.
Lots of shoulders, no few legs, not to mention accessories.
Two of those present seemed not to take part in the general madness: a fin-de-siecle Knight Templar and a Congolese Dugout, both hermetically masked.
At the stroke of three a.m. exactly, the Knight Templar approached the Dugout and invited her to dine with him.
In reply the Dugout placed a tiny hand on the robust arm of the Templar, and the couple went off.

Chapter VI
In which the plot thickens.
"Leave us for a moment," said the Templar to the waiter, "we will make our choice and call you."
The waiter withdrew, and the Templar locked the door to the private room with care.
Then, with a sudden gesture, having set his own helmet aside, he snatched away the Dugout's mask.
Both at the same instant cried out in astonishment, neither one recognizing the other.
He was not Raoul.
She was not Marguerite.
They apologized to each other and were not long in making acquaintance on the occasion of an excellent supper, need I say more.

Chapter VII
Happy ending for everyone, except the others.

This little mesaventure was a lesson to Raoul and Marguerite.
From that moment on, they no longer quarreled and were utterly happy.
They don't have lots of children yet, but they will.

THE END
CODA, by Anon.

In which Raoul and Marguerite and Scheherazade attend Whose Party and depart after an evening of fun, or so it seemed.

As the door shut behind them, Raoul muttered crudely and jealously, "He likes your ass."

Before Marguerite could formulate a response of any kind, Scheherazade announced brightly: "Who doesn't?"

See, that's what makes Scheherazade a storyteller. Because in one inspired, well-timed, and heart-felt remark, she rendered Marguerite innocent of any implied wrong-doing and established Raoul's remark as foolish and churlish. Simultaneously, raising the interpretation of Whose behavior from leering to admiration, and establishing her loyalty to Marguerite.

A good friend and a good storyteller -- Scheherazade was both!*


Harmony in Flesh Colour and Red, 1869
by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1834 - 1903
[embellished by Yours Truly]

*"It is not often that
someone comes along
who is a true friend
and a good writer.
Charlotte was both."

from Charlotte's Web
by E. B. White

************
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, March 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading ~ See Carnival www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Dark Within Dark Within Dark

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
Romantic Sheepskin ~♥~ Wallet

"Keep the Faith" might not be an obvious love poem, but I think it's a good one for today, with its theme of darkness and depression to match our collective SADness, winter blues, and sunlight deprivation. And, sweetly, after all the darkness, there's a happy ending that revolves around the image of a folded heart -- a Valentine!

I've had a fading, mimeographed copy of this poem by Jack Butler in one of my old notebooks since college days, though in all honesty I cannot recall how or where I first came across it, back in 1983 or so. Was it a class assignment? Did Butler visit campus and give a reading that I attended? Despite my hazy memory of how the poem made its way into my collection of favorites, I could never forget the narrator's despairing descent into that "darkness somewhere in which you do not love me":

Keep the Faith
I think perhaps there is some darkness somewhere
in which you do not love me. Falling to sleep,
I cross that simple zone in which I keep
my solitary vigil. I am there.
And the blue truth of my being is also there,
that I am worth nothing, a heatless flame.

I am that territory and its name.
It is no place for strangers: Beware, Beware
floats over its dark coast in letters of blue fire
that are not reflected in the dark water lapping rock.

Falling to sleep, I think there is some darkness somewhere
In which you do not love me, dark within dark within dark.
I think, Maybe my wallet, folded like a heart
in the dark of my locked briefcase, in the dark of our bedroom.

And then tomorrow, standing in the stink and fume
at the daylit gas-pump, all of us hurrying to work,
my blunt fingers will be astounded to discover
only green bills, that I love and have a lover.

by Jack Butler
American poet (b 1944)

Two more descriptions
of the interior of depression, the "solitary vigil":
1. from Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper
by Harriet Chessman, American novelist (b 1951)

This is a work of historically accurate fiction narrated from the point of view of the artist Mary Cassatt's sister, Lydia. Chessman's lengthy description of the taunting message of self-doubt that plays over and over in Lydia's head reminded me of Butler's poem. Lydia's specific doubts are about being a suitable artist's model for her sister; but more generally, for Lydia and for everyone, the doubts are always about being lovable, worthy of love. In a vivid and painful image, Lydia refers to the emotional noise as a "thousand bees," buzzing all around and stinging her. She berates herself mentally, but her anguish feels nearly physical, akin to the tortured practice of girls cutting themselves. In a similar manner, she goes on to explain that she is both the queen bee and the "object of their attacks," which I now realize is the same thing Butler means when he says that "I am that territory and its name." The problem is circular, not linear:

". . . I think to myself, with hesitant pride, yes, I am, I am quite a good model, and as soon as I think this, I chasten and mock myself, sending my thousand little bees to sting me, and sing their disdain: How could you think, the song always begins, and the thousand bees hum and mumble and murmur into my ear, adding new verses as they find new places to thrust their stingers in. All you've done is sit here, they hum, and you're not even pretty, you're pale as a ghost and a bag of bones too, and then the fiercer ones sing, She's changed you into a figure of beauty, through oil and canvas, but how can you think she's pictured you as you really are? I'm used to these insects. I seem to own them, after all. They occupy a special place on my acre, complete with bee - boxes I myself seem to tend, in my veils and gloves. I'm their queen, as much as I'm the sorry object of their attacks. They fatten on my clover and apple - blossoms and honeysuckle, and they practice their songs in the warm sun on my meadow. So I can't blame anyone but myself when they come to sting" (31 - 32).

Five O'Clock Tea, 1880


2. from The Dogs of Babel
by Carolyn Parkhurst, American novelist (b 1971)
(see Highlights from 2006 & 2007 on my Book List)

Parkhurst's character Lexy Ransome would understand the buzzing, stinging bees of Lydia's self - doubt. Lexy too is trapped in a relentless cycle of replaying the negative interior tapes, hearing the harsh criticism, trying to tune it out, recognizing that she herself is the source of the noise, imploring her smart voice to repeat all the wise mantras that she knows to be true, anything to shout down those bees. Again, I was reminded of Butler's poem: "the blue truth of my being is also there, / that I am worth nothing, a heatless flame." The voice of worthlessness, doubt, and insecurity keeps buzzing: you're so stupid, you're so stupid . . . you shouldn't be here, you shouldn't be here . . . sorry sorry sorry. Things like that. Lexy wonders how alien such internal conflict must seem to the self - confident:

"You wake up and you feel -- what? Heaviness, an ache inside, a weight, yes. A soft crumpling of flesh. A feeling like all the surfaces have been rubbed raw. A voice in your head -- no, not voices, not like hearing voices, nothing that crazy, just your own inner voice, the one that says 'Turn left at the corner' or 'Don't forget to stop at the post office,' only now it's saying 'I hate myself' . . . you try to find pleasure in little things . . . but you can tell you're trying too hard. You have breakfast with your husband, your sweet unknowing husband, who can't see anything but the promise of a bright new day. And you say your apologies -- you're sorry, you're always sorry, it's a feeling as familiar as the taste of water on your tongue" (252 - 253).

What would it take for Lydia and Lexy to feel "the promise of a bright new day," to "Keep the Faith," to believe that they are worthwhile as they are? What magical formula, prescription, philosophical stance or inner resources could redirect the bees and quiet the voice of judgment? How did the bees get in there in the first place? Who installed the tapes?

How profound, how accurate is Butler's description of the hurtful, doubtful landscape of isolation inside one's head: "no place for strangers . . . dark within dark within dark." The only way to feel loved once again is to extricate yourself from that "dark coast . . . the dark water lapping rock" -- not always easy. No one can come in and get you; you have to save your own life -- by believing that you are likeable and lovable. I've never really come up with a totally satisfactory interpretation of Butler's closing wallet image, except perhaps to assume that in broad daylight the narrator gains the perspective and security to see that his night fears are unfounded. To see, in the restorative light of day, "that I love and have a lover."

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, February 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Lydia Cassatt Working at the Tapestry Loom, 1881