Faith

State of the Planet

by Robert Hass

Line 1

October on the planet at the century’s end.
Rain lashing the windshield. Through blurred glass
Gusts of a Pacific storm rocking a huge, shank-needled
Himalayan cedar. Under it a Japanese plum
Throws off a vertical cascade of leaves the color
Of skinned copper, if copper could be skinned.
And under it, her gait as elegant and supple
As the young of any of earth’s species, a schoolgirl
Negotiates a crosswalk in the wind, her hair flying.
The red satchel on her quite straight back darkening
Splotch by smoky crimson splotch as the rain pelts it.
One of the six billion of her hungry and curious kind.
Inside the backpack, dog-eared, full of illustrations,
A book with a title like Getting to Know Your Planet.

The book will tell her that the earth this month
Has yawed a little distance from the sun,
And that the air, cooling, has begun to move,
As sensitive to temperature as skin is
To a lover’s touch. It will also tell her that the air –
It’s likely to say “the troposphere” has trapped
Emissions from millions of cars, idling like mine
As she crosses, and is making a greenhouse
Of the atmosphere. The book will say that climate
Is complicated, that we may be doing this,
And if we are, it may explain that this
Was something we’ve done quite accidentally,
Which she can understand, not having meant
That morning to have spilled the milk. She’s
One of those who’s only hungry metaphorically

Line 7

The people who live in Tena, on the Napo River,
Say that the black, viscid stuff the pools in the selva
Is the blood of the rainbow boa curled in the earth’s core.
The great trees in that forest house ten thousands of kinds
Of beetle, reptiles no human eyes has ever seen changing
Color on the hot, green, hardly changing leaves
Whenever a faint breeze stirs them. In the understory
Bromeliads and orchids whose flecked petals and womb-
Or mouth-like flowers are the shapes of desire
In human dreams. And butterflies, larger than her palm
Held up to catch a ball or ward off fear. Along the river
Wide-leaved banyans where flocks of raucous parrots,
Fruit-eaters and seed-eaters, rise in startled flares
Of red and yellow and bright green. It will seem to be poetry
Forgetting its promise of sobriety to say the rosy shinings
In the thick brown current are small dolphins rising
To the surface where gouts of the oil that burns inside
The engine of the car I’m driving oozes from the banks.


I suggest anyone who loves poetry, whether they prefer
the nature genre or not, should read this poem. The depictions
and the places that Robert takes you are phenomenal.

My favorite line of the poem that actually sparked
the topic of my blog tonight goes as follows:

Line 10

What is go be done with our species? Because
We know we're going to die, to be submitted
To that tingling dance of atoms once again,
It's easy for us to feel that our lives are a dream-
As this is, in away, a dream: the flailing rain,
The birds the soaked red backpack of the child,
Her tendrils of wet hair, the windshield wipers,
This voice trying to to speak across centuries
Between us, even the long story of earth,
Boreal forests, mangrove swamps, Tiberian wheatfields
In the summer heat on hillsides south of Rome - all of it A dream, and we alive somewhere, somehow outside it, Watching.....

In thinking about this poem and the imagery he portrays I
thought about a lot of things. I considered how blessed I was to be
raised in the country. I grew up understanding and enjoying nature.
This poem meant so much to me being as I would love to go all the
places discussed int he poem and see them for my own eyes. Then I
was brought to my next thought. Robert is talking about all of these
places as if they were a dream, and in a small way he is right.
How do we really know these places exist? (Other than the fact we now
have sofisticated technology) If we lay technology aside, many of us
never actually seen these places with or own eyes, therefore how do
we know they really exist? To us they are like a dream because we
have essentially never actually captured their image in real life.
This makes the poem seem more like experiencing a dream.
Sure technology says thee places are there, but have you seen them?
Have I? This idea makes the poem seem more enjoyable for me.
The fact that it takes me to a place I have never been, but also I do not
know COMPLETELY concrete that is exists. This also
sparked a new thought. I have faith. Being a christian, I have faith
in God. He is something I have not concretely seen, but that makes
him all more real. "Blessed are those who believe and have not seen,"
is what Jesus said to Thomas.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen. "

I think this is completely relevant to poetry
analyzing and experiencing. I think that poetry requires a certain
amount of faith, in this sense. We can never really know concretely
what a poet/poem is trying to say. In that way we dream an idea and
then we formulate a belief. We set our faith towards the belief that
our assumption about the poem is correct. Although, fortunately
for us poetry is open. We can take anything from it we choose.

Reflection

http://www.diomass.org/multimedia/audio/Mary_Oliver_reads_Six_Recognitions

This is a link to a reading of the poem that I discuss in this blog:

Six Recognitions of the Lord by Mary Oliver

“Lord God, mercy in your hands, pour ma a little. And tenderness too. My need is great. Beauty walks so freely and with such gentleness. Impatience puts a halter on my face and I run away over the green fields wanting your voice, your tenderness, but having to do with only the sweet grasses of the fields against my body. When I first found you I was filled with light, now darkness grows and it is filled with crooked things, bitter and weak, each one bearing my name.”

(Line 2 of Six Recognitions of the Lord)

One thing I have recently decided about Literature is that is has many functions. In accordance with scripture it can heal or direct your spirit. Secular literature can teach and guide. It can humor you or excite you. It can culture you. It can take you places you have never been around the world. You can revisit history and meet people long before your own time. In my own life it has been revealed to me that literature can serve as a mirror. A mirror in the sense that by reading a poem, this poem and line in fact, you can experience yourself. When I was reading this poem I saw a glimpse of myself in the words; a part of myself that I have deliberately dealt with very briefly. Now that I have come to college, the light is being shown on it brighter than ever. I struggle with depression. I always have. I have become an expert at covering it up. My life has consisted of busying myself in order to distract myself and others from this fact. It makes me feel weak to admit it, and that thought is wrong I realize. I have never told anyone this until recently. I have never really fully believed it myself until lately. The poem says, “Impatience puts a halter on my face…” My dad has always got on to me for not “practicing patience". It was a very hard lesson for me to learn. “When I first found you I was filled with light, now darkness grows and it is filled with crooked things, bitter and weak, each one bearing my name.” I have never realized how powerful the experience of Literature can be until it helped unveil something in my own life. Had I never read this poem, maybe I would not have ever been confronted with depression in such a personal manner. It is easy for someone to tell you how you are, but it is another for you to say it to yourself. I suppose the first step to dealing with any sort of problem is confronting it.

En Robe De Parade

The Garden
By: Ezra Pound

En robe de parade.
-Samain ("Dressed for show")

Like a skien of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
       of a sort of emotional anaemia.

And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
       will commit that indiscretion.


In analyzing this poem I have painted a certain image in my head:  
I see a beautiful girl walking through the royal gardens.
"Kensington Gardens"  

"Like a loose silk blown against a wall 
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens" 

I picture a younger girl as  that is what identifies in my mind when
I think of silk.She is either very high class or of royal or noble
descent. judging from the fact sheis walking in a private garden
 and by the fact that it would be considered unmannerly
for just anyone to want to speak to her or to do it,
 ("She would like someone to speak to her ,
And is almost afraid that I will commit that indiscretion.")
this also leads me to believe
that this is a somewhat long period of time ago. 
Maybe in the times of the first kings and queens.   

"And she is dying piecemeal of a sort of emotional anemia"

I imagine her to be of a fair or light colored complection.
Maybe she has been locked  away inside for studies
or royal duties. I would imagine that in time a girl who was
dirty from being outside would be considered  low class or low
in moral standards. Maybe she feels emotionless due to
the fact that she cannot show certain  feelings or act in
certain ways in her position. Maybe she wants to dance
 and be silly in the garden but she cannot because that
would not be very becoming of a young high class lady.  

"She is dying piecemeal"  
This makes me think she is unhappy with
her circumstances, that she is loosing herself or her ideal self. 
I think she enjoys being outside, being as it is a
change pace from what she is accustom to.
I imagine her running her hands over 
deep red roses she has probably touched very few
times in her life, and enjoying the sunlight that her
skin so desperately needs.   

"And round about there is rabble 
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor"  

There is some gateway or entrance to either the
garden or to the palace near the garden where poor
or  lower class children are playing.
They are filthy due to the fact that they might
not have means to bathe,  or they enjoy being dirty.
They are "sturdy" and "unkillable" in the sense that
the system of poor people seems  rather prevalent.
All over the world there are some sort of poor class.

Even the Bible talks about there always  being
poor among us. In a society where people can
become so rich, there will always be the
ability to be very poor.  

I am sure she can not only hear them, but also see
them. I wonder though how she sees them through
such an emtionlessgaze. A part of me believes that she
would like to talk to them.
"She would like someone to speak to her...."

"In her is the end of breeding."

This could mean a number of things.
I view it personally as her being a
young queen or mistress to the king who is unable to
give a male heir. She is an end in the philosophy terms,
"an end as a means", she is only good
when giving heirs.
She also an "end" if she cannot produce a male heir,
as in those times a male was most preferable.

"Her boredom is exquisite and excessive"

If she is a queens maybe she feels bored of doing royal
duties for a number of reasons. She may not feel as if she is the
 best to judge such matters. She feels as if she hates dealing with royal
matters. If she is a mistress maybe "entertaining the king"
persay, is becoming a boring task.

"She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
  will commit the indiscretion."

I wonder who she is talking about when she thinks this.
Is she talking about the male author?
Or the poor children?
Or any other royal person watching her?
I would like to think that she is looking at a child.
That maybe she misses the childlike attributes of herself.

Pass #2

Prejudice

I have always had the impression embedded in my mind that prejudice and discrimination are limited to religion and race. In my own personal dealings with these mistreatment, I think my naive behavior toward it has aided in my reaction with it. It seems as if we are raised through grade school with a curriculum of learning this. In elementary school we are taught about the civil war and the injustice shown to the slaves by the white Englishmen. This prejudice rooted in somewhat of a religious background. The African Americans were told even God himself did not see them as equals. In middle school we are constantly learning about the terrors of the holocaust and the terrible treatment of Jews from the Nazis. This prejudice rooted in various backgrounds. The hate of an authoritarian’s heart named Hitler, the soreness of a country growing towards poverty and the need for a new change and a new leader. Then in high school were are taught about clashing world cultures from the time of Columbus and the mistreatment of the South American people, to the present time battles between the United States and Iran and Iraq. When I started taking this class, Psychology of Adjustment, I read the portion of the book on prejudice and discrimination and it has really opened my eyes to the broadness of those categories.
In dealing with prejudice and the discrimination that usually follows, we have to identify what they really mean. Prejudice, in our book, is described as being “an unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individual’s membership in a group” (Santrock, 2006, p.189). Discrimination is described as being “An unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because the person belongs to that group” (Santrock, 2006, p.189). Once I started to see the openness to these definitions I was soon faced with person instances. I went to a very small high school, roughly fifteen kids combined in the high school class. My graduating class was three seniors. It was me, my friend Cody who I have known my whole life, he is basically like my brother, and "John" (I will call him) one of my lifelong school mates. I have gone to school with John since kindergarten. He was one of those awesome people in your life that you just cannot forget. He was the class clown, but not in the usual bad way. He was extremely funny and made everyone’s life better, but with manners. He was raised very good, not to mention his mother worked at the school so if he got out of line she would have spanked him right in class probably. I considered John a spiritual friend of mine as well. He was part of The Church of God of Prophecy, and was throughout his school life training to become a lay minister. He was extremely knowledgeable in the word and I somewhat looked up to that quality about him. He basically read nothing else besides the Bible. We would often joke about him and say, “Where’s John at? Oh, he’s probably somewhere in the corner reading his Bible.” I think his homelike was less than favorable for him. His grandfather and father were ministers in that denomination and sometime in there life decided to give that role up to leave their wives for another woman to live with. John’s father had done this, and his mother was heart broken. His grandfather soon came back to the Lord and lived with John and his mother. He helped John perfect his craft of ministry. Sheldon began preaching everywhere; he even became one of the most well known speakers for his age in his denomination. Then this summer after graduation he called me one night. He said, “I have something to tell you. I am gay.” I was devastated by this blow because he seemed to me to be the farthest from homosexuality I could think of. I told him that I loved him and accepted him as a person and I would never turn my back on him. He went on to say how he told his family, and that they were disappointed. His mother completely quit speaking to him. His family had experienced this before when his cousin came out of the closet. They had tried to force him out of it due to the extremely strong religious background of the family. He just ended up moving out and having little contact with all of them. John told me he thought that they all seemed easier on him, and that he assumed that was the reason. Now his family does not invite him to “get-togethers”, and they have banished him from their church. They allow him to live in there home, but he rarely stays there. This even for me was an extreme shock, also because I have never had a homosexual friend before, and especially not one of my close friends. As I thought on this situation and read some on psychology text, I began to realize that John was going through a type of prejudice and discrimination from his family. I can understand to an extent the spirituality hesitance to the situation, because God is very clear about the sin. This would be a very hard situation to sort out. What I do not understand is the "extravagances" of this certain sin. I mean, why do we act so much differently towards the sin of homosexuality than towards lying? It is both sin. We do not condemn liars from our family. We do not discriminate against liars in our family. We might not even think twice about lying ourselves. Could it be the actual source of prejudice maybe? The text defines sources I think are very meaningful in this instance. The “individual personality” of the dominant people in his family might be a factor, or the chance that they might have an “authoritarian personality”, or someone who believes in strict adherence to traditional beliefs and aggression towards people who violate conventional norms, rigid thinking, and exaggerated submission to authority (Santrock, 2006, p.190). This could be a source of prejudice his family expresses towards him. I think they also practice what the text also describes as called “cultural learning”, or what you have grown up around or been taught you entire life. (Santrock, 2006, p.191).
How do we solve this problem? How do we propose to improve this situation? I propose that Christians in general, for once, stop being so close-minded. I am not in any way promoting homosexuality; I realize the word says it is wrong. I just believe that Christians try to put God in a box. How can God work through the lives of homosexual’s lives if all we ever do is shut them out? This is a form of what the text describes as “intimate contact”, or spending time with someone and understanding where they are coming from. Lets practice the love that Jesus showed. When he came, he did not hang around the churches, he spent time with the people no one wanted to minister to. I think God is calling us to a radical love. I want to learn to practice it.

Bibliography

Santrock, John W. Human Adjustment. New York City: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2005.

The Observer

The Observer

Her name was Abigail. I had watched her play before. Our dorms are conveniently located next to the sports side of the campus, lucky for me, the most athletically challenged person alive. We must have a female tennis team because they are always there, day and night. They seemed almost obsessively devoted to the sport. They would be playing whether rain or shine, hot or cold weather. I guess the heat of Florida is subconsciously expected. It is always the same girls playing. Almost like I used to be with my guitar. I would play it anytime, and in any mood. Why I had stopped I do not know really. No, not that. I knew, but part of me was angry with myself for stopping. I let him get to me. Devotion meant something to them, devotion to the court with tennis I mean. Maybe I was just never really devoted. For some reason to this Abigail girl it was much more than just a tennis game. It is much more. I always notice her. As if her just being out there is an attraction. Attraction, like I get from watching seasoned guitarists or beautiful singers. That desire too had subsided. But if it really had, why is it still coming to my mind. You usually know if she is on the court because there is a somewhat larger than usual audience. She draws people. Easily. I noticed her on this particular night because she was no longer playing drills with her team, or being tested by her coach.
Their coach was a brassy man, Coach Mark they called him. I remember one day I was studying in the campus café and I heard a loud tire squeal. When I looked out the window I saw him jump off of the “sport coach designated golf cart” and violently open the door, which consequently slammed behind him. He rushed over to the deli and loudly demanded some health friendly sandwich. You know the kind I am talking about, the all protein kind of sandwich with “less carb” bread. I would not dare tell him today. While the deli lady prepared his sandwich his phone rang. He answered and quickly leaned over the counter to begin scribbling something on a paper menu he found close by. They lady set his finished plate above the deli shield and tried to get his attention. He turned sharply around and ended up knocking over the plat unto the ground. He flew into a rage and demanded the woman make him a new sandwich and that she ought to be more polite when she plainly saw that people were having more important calls than serving lunch. I heard the way he yelled at the girls when they missed, or if they seemed to not be running fast enough as well. The normal weather is grueling heat, and rest is quickly warranted. It is as if running thirty laps around the court is not enough, or the twelve consistent drills he runs them through.
It was not the coach I noticed tonight, but the fact that she was playing a young guy. He was someone close to her age by the looks of things. He was someone I recognized seeing with her before around the campus. Seems like when you become the most devoted to something is when you draw the most attention. Everyone wants to be your friend when you are going places and doing things with your life. When I first started learning guitar I let him show me how to play one of my favorite songs. That is how it starts. Innocent as it may look at first, your relationship progresses and gets more serious. Then your life transforms into their life. Your whole world starts changing from what you want to what they want. Then your devotion becomes a human. When you no longer move in a “fame like” direction or in a direction they think is favorable they move to the next “devotee” they meet, like a leach that feeds off the devotion of innocent girls.
Such a shame for her really, seeing as she really is so good. Your eyes are almost instinctively drawn to her, as if she commands your attention without saying a word. Even people from the courts directly beside hers have to stop and watch. People at the bench escaping the heat and drinking from their water bottles almost loose their thirst for a moment in regards to the intensity that was once directed towards their plastic, but their focus quickly becomes her.
The first time I ever sang it was like that, I was very young. I walked up to the middle of the stage. I could tell that everyone on the first row did not expect much because they were continuing to whisper and point at the flyer of the night’s schedule. I guess after hearing act after act of elementary age kids sing to popular radio songs you might not expect from the last act of the night who happens to be the youngest girl. If I was them I would probably be more occupied with keeping track of the time on my watch. The moment the first word escaped, they immediately looked up. The director of the talent show dropped her flyer. The words from my mouth almost like a tennis ball straight from Abigail’s racket. Commanding everyone’s attention.
This match was different though. She did not have the same extreme focus. She was laughing and acting childlike. Smiling at all his bad serves and huge dramatic dives from just her gentle tap. I was almost mad at her. She was letting him get to her and it was very obvious. I see her around campus. Everyone recognizes her. They congratulate her on being well taught.
“You are so talented”, they say. “What a gift you have!”

My director said the same thing. It is funny how everyone suddenly remembers your name when you are going somewhere. He remembered my name. Only he left with a part of me. Soon after that I began singing in everything I could. Pageants, fairs, talent shows, weddings, church, anywhere they would give me the microphone. They even let me into a bar to sing karaoke on my vacation one year in Key West. It was during high school that I met him. Everyone loved him. Stunning personality, always laughing and joking, but most importantly an excellent guitar player. We appeared to be a good match. He started playing for me when I sang places. It was a step up to go from singing with tracks to live music. Then he quickly became my guitar teacher. My guitar is dark purple, we became the even better match. You could say that was how our “relationship” started. Unfortunately he became more like an obsession for me. I started singing less and less to be around him. We were together all the time. Then one day another eager young devoted girl passed by and I became a memory. I had not played a day since he left, and I sing even less.
She seems to walk around happy and proud of herself. But, I wish I could ask her the same thing I have been asking myself. What does genuine passion look like?
I got up from the bench I was sitting in. My shade spot had changed with the suns position in the sky and I was becoming very hot. I walked to the library. It is always packed in there, a last resort on my part to go in. All I remember is finding a comfortable chair upstairs in a quiet spot. Next thing I know I was startled awake by the sound of the closing bell. I must have fallen asleep. There are two things I have lost since college, my appetite and sleep. I gathered my things and walked outside. As I was walking to my room I noticed Abigail and another girl shake hands and sit down at a table next to the cafe. The girl had a small interviewers note pad in her hand. Curious, I walked over to the table adjacent them and pulled out a book to seem occupied. The girl was apparently from newspaper being as she had a badge with the name on it. They were running her interview as a headline story. The conversation started with the interviewer.
“How do you describe yourself and your tennis style?” she asked.
“Well I am driven and I love the sport, which helps me play more freely. Those two characteristics keep me busy enough.” Abigail replied. The interviewer wrote on her pad violently. Then she asked, “Do you ever get tired of the sport? Do you ever just want to quit because it seems hard?”
Abigail quickly answered, “I don’t think I could quit if I wanted, it is a part of who I am. Plus, haven’t you ever seen our practices? Talk about learning focus.”
“I have seen them” the interviewer said, “Plus I know the coach personally, and that is enough to know you must be devoted. He works you guys hard. What I want to know is what is the secret to success? You must have one like lucky socks. Or, or maybe a four leaf clover?’ she added playfully.
“I have no secrets.” Abigail started, “I have lived my entire life with this devotion. It is burned into my heart. When I breathe, it breathes. We are each other. You mentioned earlier being tired, but it is the strength of the passion that gets me through the tired things. My love for it goes beyond emotions and my physical being. It is innate passion that drives me and I really think that will overcome anything.”
The moment she said this it all made sense. She was right. I have let him get the best of me. It was not him that made me love singing and playing, but the innate love for it I had inside me. If you let the whims get in the way of your true passions how will you ever succeed at anything? You miss what you truly love. I miss enjoying music and participating with it. The more I heard her talk about passion and drive, the more a realized how much of a fool I was for letting him ever stop me.
The moment I walked back into my room I pulled the case out from under my bed. As I unlocked it I could sense that old familiar smell. As my fingers gently touched the cold purple, I was flooded with memories. As I lifted my guitar to my lap and began to play, it was as if I had never stopped. No time was kept between us. It was just my guitar, and I the way it should be. I played for what seemed like only a few minutes, but when I looked at the time it had been an hour. And then I remembered that I had not thought about him one time since I started playing. Finally. You miss things you truly love and you let go of the things you never did.

(**This is a FICTIONAL story.
This story is not about me,
for anyone reading this from back home!!**)