Politics and Poetry

Once more I turn to ideas found in the writing of David Brooks in The Social Animal. Brooks observes that the liberal movement believes in using government to enhance equality and the conservative movement believes in limited government to enhance freedom. "But historically, there had been another movement that believed in limited but energetic government to enhance social mobility." The history he refers to starts with Alexander Hamilton's ideas of government. (Italics added.)

Brooks writes, "Social Mobility reduces class conflict because no one is sentenced to spend their days in the caste into which they were born. Social mobility unleashes creative energies. It mitigates inequality, because no station need be permanent." (332)

As members of this difficult democratic republic, how do we come to our own political attitudes? I think it is by life experience, which is the totality of one's education. Life experience depends, in part, on formal education. A well rounded balance requires-- well, roundedness. That is, exposure to the full range of humanity, and that includes math, science and technology, the social studies and also the arts. For example, I want a doctor who practices the art and science of medicine.

Consider the role of poetry, one of the arts that sustains me. "Let us remember... that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both," writes Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry. (www.PoetryMagazine.org)

There was a time, perhaps, when the great majority of the citizens in our country were, at least a bit, familiar with the poetry of the King James Bible: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes... What kind of poetry do we share now? The poetry of rappers and other pop vocalists?

What are the underlying values that define your attitudes, and mine? If we desire conscious change, where will you look for direction? How will we choose the balance among the values of equality, freedom, social mobility?

I would submit that our politicians do not guide us, we guide them. Might poetry open us in ways that allow us to be less apt to destroy "our lives and the world in which we live them"?

Here's a poem to consider:

Hard Night by Christian Wiman

What words or harder gift
does the light require of me
carving from the dark
this difficult tree?

What place or farther peace
do I almost see
emerging from the night
and heart of me?

The sky whitens, goes on and on.
Fields wrinkle into rows
of cotton, go on and on.
Night like a fling of crows
disperses and is gone.

What song, what home,
what calm or one clarity
can I not quite come to,
never quite see:
this field, this sky, this tree..

Mother's Day

"You mortgage your heart for the rest of your life when you become a mother."
~Sylvia Boorstein

I'm so thankful that I committed to mortgage my heart thus. I am not in any way disappointed with the return on my investment. My adult sons decorate my life in the best and most amazing ways. Thanks, guys.

The Immortals

Laughter usually happens when a thing is a bit unexpected yet fits in its juxtaposed place and is recognized as also part of how things are. Researchers say that first the puzzle recognition parts of the brain light up, then the pleasure centers, and we laugh.

This first paragraph of the last chapter of David Brooks' book The Social Animal makes me laugh:
"It's hard to know when The Immortals started appearing on the mountains. You'd be hiking or biking or cross-country skiing outside of Aspen, Colorado, and from behind you'd hear this whoosh that sounded like an incoming F-18. You'd turn around and see this little nugget of Spandex. It was one of those superfit old guys who'd decided to go on a fitness jihad in retirement. He'd shrunk as he crossed age seventy, so he'd be four ten and ninety-five pounds of hard gristle wrapped in Spandex action gear. He'd be coming at you at ferocious speed, wearing weights on his wrists and ankles and a look of fierce determination on his small wrinkled face. You'd be huffing and puffing on the mountainside, and this superbuff Spandex senior would whiz by like a little iron Raisinette." (361)

He goes on in this vein for several more paragraphs, and I recognize those of whom he writes. I've met these same superseniors on the pages of the AARP magazine, and I occasionally skim those articles and allow myself to be amazed at the photos. It gives me such a sense of disconnectedness to think this is the ideal held up by the magazine that speaks for the organization of elders. Wow. Not anything close to the ideal I strive for, and quite unrelated to my life and struggles. Thankfully, Brooks goes on, in that last chapter, to describe the actual, real kinds of experiences that I do recognize as part of my life. So for a couple pages, its great fun to recognize this creative, delightful description of a small slice of the population and to laugh.

Scott and I had a lovely convertible ride on back roads to the trail along the Susquehanna that starts at Conowingo Dam. And then an hour of me walking and him running the trail. I was hoping to see some Virginia bluebells, for they grow in profusion there, and silly me, I am too late. The river was high and fierce and muddy. The big rocks where heron usually stand to contemplate life and, oh yes, fish are all under water. So many herons startled from the shore as I passed, and many more were to be seen on the islands. The river-edge is sparkly with dappled shade, water reflections and bird song; the path is already fully shaded. Back home my red (actually, more like a deep crinson, almost maroon) trillium is in full bloom.

Half-fledged leaves twitter in the breeze, light and shadows at play. A male cardinal stands in unmown grass at the base of a tree looking like a late-blooming tulip. In rough, scruffy places, woodland's edge and along back roads, wild Russian olive trees lift their branching arms as if in prayer, their open, creamy, bell-like blossoms releasing their sweet, sweet scent.

Daffodils, jonquils, narcissus all have gone to seed. Actual tulips (ones not birds) are done blooming. Dogwood petals fall.

The devil lives in the details; so do all the angels.

May Day

May, the month of obvious exploding growth in the natural world. Also a collection of days for more subtle individual growth.

Dear heart, what do you want? From where you are in your life, what next? What do you notice? Where will you place your focus? What will you choose to do? What will you choose to not do? Just for now, just for this moment, this hour, this day. This merry month of May.