Darius & the Clouds

'You can never have too much sky. You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad. Here there is too much sadness and not enough sky. Butterflies are too few and so are flowers and most things that are beautiful. Still, we take what we can get and make the best of it. 

Darius, who doesn't like school, who is sometimes stupid and mostly a fool, said something wise today, though most days he says nothing. Darius, who chases girls with firecrackers or a stick that touched a rat and thinks he's tough, today pointed up because the world was full of clouds, the kind like pillows. 

You all see that cloud, that fat one there? Darius said, See that? Where? That one next to next to the one that look like popcorn. That one there. See that. That's God, Darius said. God? somebody little asked. God, he said, and made it simple.'

from The House on Mango Street
by Sandra Cisneros, 1984

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

The Heart

On the first day of school I asked my students to write a reflective essay on "The Heart" for homework. I told them they could make inferences, but that they should tie everything to the text of the poem. The responses were very interesting (telling?). I'll leave some of their ideas in the comments. I hope you take the time to read all of them. Sometimes they are the teachers.

The Heart

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.

I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter-- bitter," he answered;
But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
.............................................................Stephen Crane 1895

Soneto 79 by Pablo Neruda

De noche, amada, amarra tu corazón al mío
y que ellos en el sueño derroten las tinieblas
como un doble tambor combatiendo en el bosque
contra el espeso muro de las hojas mojadas.

Nocturna travesía, brasa negra del sueño
interceptando el hilo de las uvas terrestres
con la puntualidad de un tren descabellado
que sombra y piedras frías sin cesar arrastrara.

Por eso, amor, amárrame al movimiento puro,
a la tenacidad que en tu pecho golpea
con las alas de un cisne sumergido,

para que a las preguntas estrelladas del cielo
responda nuestro sueño con una sola llave,
con una sola puerta cerrada por la sombra.

“Sonnet 79”

By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two
together in their sleep will defeat the darkness
like a double drum in the forest, pounding
against the thick wall of wet leaves.

Night travel: black flame of sleep
that snips the threads of the earth’s grapes,
punctual as a headlong train that would haul
shadows and cold rocks, endlessly.

Because of this, Love, tie me to a purer motion,
to the constancy that beats in your chest
with the wings of a swan underwater.

so that our sleep might answer all the sky’s
starry questions with a single key,
with a single door the shadows had closed.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)
born Neftalí Reyes Basoalto
Nobel Prize in literature 1971

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

by Mary Oliver

from The God of Small Things

'He was exasperated because he didn't know what that look meant. He put it somewhere between indifference and despair. He didn't know that in some places, like the country [she] came from, various kinds of despair competed from primacy. And that personal despair could never be desperate enough. That something happened when personal turmoil dropped by the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation. That Big God howled like a hot wind, and demanded obeisance. Then Small God (cozy and contained, private and limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity. Inured by the confirmation of his own inconsequence, he became resilient and truly indifferent. Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it mattered, the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse Things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening.

'So Small God laughed a hollow laugh, and skipped away cheerfully. Like a rich boy in shorts. He whistled, kicked stones. The source of his brittle elation was the relative smallness of his misfortune. He climbed into people's eyes and became an exasperating expression."
...
'We're prisoners of war...Our dreams have been doctored. We belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter.'

Still I Rise

by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

(artwork is And Still I Rise, created by Anthony Armstrong)

(I Used To Be) A Smart Guy, by David Sedaris

LIFE WAS GOOD FOR THE FIRST FORTY-ONE YEARS. THEN I TOOK AN IQ TEST.

WHEN I WAS TWENTY-FIVE, I found a job cleaning construction sites in the suburbs of Raleigh. It was dull work, made even duller on the days I was partnered with a fellow named Reggie, an alleged genius unhappy with the course his life had taken.

"Here I am with a 130 IQ, and they've got me sweeping up sawdust." He'd glare at the bristles of his broom as if they had conspired to hold him back. "A 130! I'm serious, man. I've been tested."

This was my cue to act impressed, but I generally passed.

"One-three-oh," he'd say. "In case you didn't know it, that's genius level."

"Congratulations."

"With a mind like mine, I could be doing something, you know what I mean?"

"Absolutely."

"A 60 could do what I'm doing. That leaves me with 70 extra IQ points sitting around in my head and doing nothing."

"They must be bored."

"You're damned right," he'd say. "People like me need to be challenged."

"Maybe you could turn on the fan and sweep against the wind. That's pretty difficult."

"Are you making fun of me?" he'd ask.

"Sort of."

"Well, don't," he'd say. "I'm a lot smarter than you."

"How do you know?" I'd ask. "I might be a 300 or something."

"A 300. Right. I'd place you at around 72, tops."

"What does that mean?" I'd ask.

"It means I hope you like pushing a broom."

"And what does that mean?"

He'd shake his head in pity. "Ask me in about fifteen years."

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER, I found myself working for a housecleaning company. Yes, it was unskilled labor, but, for what it's worth, I did very little sweeping. Mainly, I vacuumed. Oh, but that was years ago. Two years ago, to be exact.

I'm not sure what Reggie is doing now, but I thought of him recently when, at the age of forty-two, I finally had my IQ tested. Being an adult with a fairly steady history of supporting myself, I thought it could do no real harm. What I failed to realize is that such a test mucks with both your past and your future, clarifying a lifetime of bad choices and setting you up for the inevitability of future failure.

As I child, I'd always harbored a sneaking suspicion that I might be a genius. This theory was entirely my own, corroborated by no one, but so what? Being misunderstood was all part of the package. My father occasionally referred to me as "Smart Guy," but eventually I realized that when saying it, he usually meant just the opposite.

"Hey, Smart Guy--coating your face with mayonnaise because you can't find the insect repellent." Or "Hey, Smart Guy--thinking you can toast marshmallows in your bedroom." That type of thing.

I thought I could cure diabetes by spreading suntan lotion on sticks of chewing gum. Sea & Ski on Juicy Fruit, Coppertone on Big Red. I had the raw ingredients and a test subject, all under the same roof.

"Hey, Smart Guy," my father would say. "Offer your grandmother another piece of that gum and you'll be the one scrubbing your teeth in the bathroom sink." What did he know.

ALONE IN MY BEDROOM, I studied pictures of intelligent men and searched for a common denominator. There was a definite Smart Guy look, but it was difficult to get just right. Throw away your comb and you could resemble either Albert Einstein or Larry Fine. Both wore rumpled suits and stuck out their tongues, but only one displayed true genius in such films as Booty and the Beast and The Three Stooges Meet Hercules.

In high school, I flirted with the idea that I might be a philosophical genius. According to me and one or two of my friends, it was almost scary the way I could read people. I practiced thoughtfully removing my glasses and imagined myself appearing on one of those Sunday-morning television shows, where I'd take my seat beside other learned men and voice my dark and radical theories on the human condition.

"People are insecure," I'd say. "They wear masks and play games."

My ideas would be like demons rushing from a hellish cave, and my fellow intellectuals, startled by their truth and enormity, would try to bottle them up before they spread.

"That's enough!" they'd yell. "For the love of God, somebody silence him!"

Far scarier than any of my ideas is the fact that at the age of seventeen, I was probably operating at my intellectual peak. I should have been tested then, before I squandered what little sense I had. By the time I reached my thirties, my brain had been strip-mined by a combination of drugs, alcohol, and the chemical solvents used at the refinishing company where I worked. Still, there were moments when, against all reason, I thought I might be a genius. These moments were provoked not by any accomplishment but by cocaine and crystal methamphetamine--drugs that allow you to lean over a mirror with a straw up your nose, suck up an entire week's paycheck, and think, "God, I'm smart."

It's always been the little things that encourage me. I'll watch a movie in which an attractive woman in a sports bra, a handsome widower, and a trio of selfish, weak-chinned cowards are pursued by mighty reptiles or visitors from another galaxy. "The cowards are going to die," I'll think, and then, when they do, I congratulate myself on my intelligence. When I say, "Oh, it was so predictable," it sounds brainy and farsighted. When other people say it, it sounds stupid. Call me an egghead, but there you have it.

IT WAS SIMPLE CURIOSITY that led me to take an IQ test. Simple, stupid, ugly curiosity, the same thing that motivates boys to pull the wings off of flies. I took my test in Paris, in the basement of an engineering school not far from my apartment. I'd figured that, on its own, my score would mean nothing--I needed someone to compare myself against--and so Hugh came along and took the test as well. I'd worried that he might score higher than me, but a series of recent events had set me at ease. A week earlier, while vacationing in Slovenia, he'd ordered a pizza that the English-speaking waiter had strenuously recommended he avoid. It came topped with a mound of canned vegetables: peas, corn, carrot coins, potatoes, and diced turnips. Observing the look of dumb horror on his face as the waiter delivered the ugly pizza, I decided that, in a test of basic intelligence, I was a definite shoo-in. Then, days later, with no trace of irony, he'd suggested that the history of the chocolate chip might make for an exciting musical. "If, of course, you found the right choreographer."

"Yes," I'd said. "Of course."

The tests we took were designed to determine our eligibility for Mensa, an international association for those with IQs of 132 or higher. Its members come from all walks of life and get together every few weeks to take in a movie or enjoy a weenie roast. They're like Elks or Masons, only they're smart. Our tests were administered by an attractive French psychologist named Madame Haberman, who was herself a Mensa member. She explained that we'd be taking four tests, each of them timed. In order to qualify for Mensa membership, we'd need to score in the top 2 percent on any given one.

I've known people who have taken IQ tests in the past, and whenever I've asked them to repeat one of the questions, they've always drawn a blank, saying, "Oh, you know, they were.., multiple-choice things."

Immediately after taking my test, I was hard-pressed to recall much of anything except the remarkable sense of relief I'd felt each time the alarm went off and we were asked to put down our pencils. In the first test, we were shown a series of three drawings and asked which of the four adjacent ones might best complete the sequence. In the second, we were told to examine five drawings and figure out which two didn't belong. The third had to do with spatial relations and gave me an immediate headache. A break was called, and we stepped out onto the street. Hugh and Madame Haberman discussed her upcoming trip to the Turkish coast, but I was still trapped in test world. Five deaf students walked down the street, and I tried to determine which two did not belong. I imagined myself approaching the two boys wearing tennis shoes and pictured their confusion as I laid my hands upon their shoulders, saying, "I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."

Our final test involved determining a pattern in four pairs of dominoes and prophesying what the fifth pair might look like. I didn't come close to finishing. I'd like to say that the room was too hot or that Madame Haberman distracted me with her incessant banjo picking, but none of this is true. I have no one but myself to blame.

A WEEK LATER, our scores arrived in the mail. Hugh has been advised to try again: Scores can fluctuate according to stress and circumstance, and he's right on the cusp of Mensa qualification. My letter began with the words "Dear Monsieur Sedaris, We regret to inform you..."

It turns out that I'm really stupid, practically an idiot. There are cats that weigh more than my IQ score. Were my number translated into dollars, it would buy you about three buckets of fried chicken. The fact that this surprises me only bespeaks the depths of my ignorance.

The test reflected my ability to reason logically. You either reason things out or you don't. Those who do have high IQs. Those who don't reach for the mayonnaise when they can't find the insect repellent. When I became upset over my test score, Hugh explained that everybody thinks differently--I just happen to do it less than the average adult.

"Think donkey," he said. "Then take it down a few notches."

It's a point I can't really argue. The thing about my brain is that it hasn't advanced much since the time I claimed ownership. Reality doesn't concern me in the least. It never has. If told I had to vacate my apartment by next week, I wouldn't consult the real estate listings. Instead, I'd just imagine myself living in a moated sugar-cube castle, floating from room to room on a king-sized magic carpet. If I have one saving grace, it's that I'm lucky to have found someone willing to handle the ugly business of day-to-day living.

Hugh consoled me by saying, "Don't let it get to you. There are plenty of things you're good at."

When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he'll need some time to think.

Poppies

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn't a place
in this world that doesn't

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

-Mary Oliver

(photo, "poppies at montreaux 07," captured and shared by Mark B)

(Taking Sides Is Too Easy.)

"Please Call Me By My True Names"
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive every second
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, whose wings are still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope,
the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly
metamorphosing on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird which, when spring comes,
arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear of a pond,
and I am also the grass snake who,
approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean,
after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man
who has to pay his "debt of blood" to my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom.
my pain is like a river of tears,
so full it fills up the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can bear all my cries and my laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are but one.

Please call me by my true names,
so that I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Texas Bluebonnets

The Flower
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Once in a golden hour

I cast to earth a seed.

Up there came a flower,

The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went

Thro' my garden bower,

And muttering discontent

Cursed me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall

It wore a crown of light,

But thieves from o'er the wall

Stole the seed by night.

Sow'd it far and wide

By every town and tower,

Till all the people cried,

"Splendid is the flower!"

Read my little fable:

He that runs may read.

Most can raise the flowers now,

For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,

And some are poor indeed;

And now again the people

Call it but a weed.

Ode to a Lemon

Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium

Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.

Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.

So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a nipple
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.

-Pablo Neruda

Let this be the poetry we search for worn with the hand’s obligations, as acids, steeped in sweat and in smoke, smelling of lilies and wine, spattered diversely by the trades we live by, inside the law or beyond it. A poetry impure as the clothing we wear, or our bodies, soup stained, soiled with our shameful behavior, our wrinkles and vigils and dreams, observations and prophecies, declarations of loathing and love, idylls and beasts, the shocks of encounter, political loyalties, denials and doubts, affirmations and taxes. (Neruda, “Impure Poetry”, Contemporary Authors, vol. 19-20 p. 310)

Some fixing ceremony...

"after fixing herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head and prayed silently. The company watched her from the trees. They knew she was ready when she put her stick down.. Then she shouted, 'Let the children come!' and they ran from the trees toward her.
'Let your mothers hear your laugh,' she told them, and the woods rang. The adults looked on and could not help smiling.
Then 'Let the grown men come,' she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among the ringing trees.
'Let your wives and your children see you dance,' she told them, and groundlife shuddered under their feet.
Finally she called the women to her. 'Cry,' she told them. ' For the living and the dead. Just cry.' And without covering their eyes the women let loose.
It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried; children danced , women laughed, children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing, damp and gasping for breath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart.
She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more. She did not tell them that they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure.
She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it.
'Here,' she said, 'in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don't love your eyes; they'd just as soon pick them out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people, they do not love your hands... Love your hands! Love them! Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face... You got to love it, you!... This is flesh I'm talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved... and the beat, the beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air...hear me now, love your heart.' Saying no more, she stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to say while the others opened their mouths and gave her the music. Long notes held until the four-part harmony was perfect enough for their deeply loved flesh.
[She] wanted to be there now. At least to listen to the spaces that long-ago singing had left behind."

from Beloved by Toni Morrison

Here you'll watch my clumsy dance..

A few days ago, I posted "Sonnet 17" by Pablo Neruda. Fougs mentioned in her comment the fact that this amazing poet is a Nobel Prize winner in literature (1971). Upon receiving this award, Neruda said something beautiful, relevant, and profound. He said,

"All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence, in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song."

This very much spoke to me today.

So close..

Soneto XVII
Pablo Neruda

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,

sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

Sonnet 17
Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were the salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Naomi Shihab-Nye

I love this poet and am extremely lucky in that she is coming to speak at our school next semester. Naomi Shihab-Nye is an Arab-American; her father is Palestinian and her mother is American. She is probably most known for her "Open Letter to Any Would-be Terrorists". Shihab-Nye is so gentle and lovely in her writing. I highly recommend her to anyone interested in peace and eloquence.

Making a Fist
For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

"How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."

Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.



Naomi Shihab Nye