Of things to come...

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; 
And give us not to think so far away 
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here 
All simply in the springing of the year. 

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; 
And make us happy in the happy bees, 
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees. 

And make us happy in the darting bird 
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, 
And off a blossom in mid air stands still. 

For this is love and nothing else is love, 
The which it is reserved for God above 
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

--Robert Frost

"Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen"...

"My, my, my, my, my, what a sight for my poor eyes...": A friend of mine posts art to FaceBook. He posts other worthwhile things as well, and rarely offers anything that is not worth looking at (if only the rest of the world wold use FaceBook so judiciously and positively). But his most frequent posts are part of a series of hundreds upon hundreds of images of art doled out slowly for the rest of us to consume and wonder at...

"Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole...": Picasso reportedly said "The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." My soapboxing, wise, musical, wordsmith of a friend has helped me wash off quite a lot of dust over the years, through wit, kindness, and beauty. What hallmarks of the season we are in. Christmas time, regardless of ones religious pinnings, is a special time. It provokes some stress in many (as we try to uphold that specialness we know to be the point of it all), but also seems to bring out the best in most of us. We cozy into the cold, and light our lights in the darkness. We gather in groups in the name of celebration, and strive to give more than we receive. What a time!...

"If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air, Quaint little villages here and there...": We are in the home stretch here in my household preparations for next week, but there are many miles to go before I sleep. So today, for my weekly post I offer a little art as poetry and a little poem as a painting (Leonardo DaVinci gets credit for today's title.) 

I live in a "quaint" small town in New England where "Main Street" is about a hundred yards long. I love it here. So who better to represent my daily life than Norman Rockwell and Robert Frost? Who better to help wash off the dust of daily life by showing how special that daily life is?...

Christmas Trees
By Robert Frost

(A Christmas Circular Letter)

The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said,
“There aren’t enough to be worth while.”
“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”

                              “You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north. He said, “A thousand.”

“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”

He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”

Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

The golden days are coming...

Sherwood Gardens, Baltimore, MD

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold: It is the first day of spring. Weather lags the transition of the the equators's plane through the center of the sun (light and dark are in equal proportion for the day). But the spring has arrived and with it will come fairer days....

Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour: We missed winter for the most part this year. Thanks El-Nino (did you read the sarcasm there?). Although I lament the lack of snow, and am sad that I didn't find an excuse to have a fire in dark on a cold night with flakes falling about me, I embrace the arrival of spring...

Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief: Bring on the tulips and crocuses, forsythia and dogwoods. Send the smell of oxygen and mud with the warm breezes of April mixed with the occasional smell of wood-burn as brush piles are disposed of. Dispatch the birds from the south, call out the sleeping things, and wake up the turf itself. Life!

Frost's poem, a favorite of mine, speaks to the fleetingness of "golden things." It is true that the golden sunset is sweet and fleeting, that the blooming flower is short with its reproductive glory, that the joyous moments of our lives quickly fade to normalcy... But each of these things leave a residue, a memory, a tangible feeling that is savored after the moment has passed. The days grow longer, the air more sweet, the light more bright, the time to breathe easier. So although nothing gold can stay, if we wait a little longer, another moment arrives, each one in its turn potentially golden. Spring is such a great time for golden moments, full of reminders of life, to break up the constant normalcy of change: life and death, hope and loss, etc. etc. etc...

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

--Robert Frost

So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay: Spring is so brief in New England, not like the mid-atlantic where I grew up. There, the Dogwoods, and all the early flowers, along with the Redbud and Cherries bloomed nearly simultaneously early in April and the weather remained fair all the way to June. August could be brutal mind you, but spring is glorious there, an Eden of sorts. Baseball, flowers, birthdays, grass, and the sweet sweet air of 70 degree days. Regardless of the duration, we are in for the best of days, we don't need to hold our breath, or wring our hands with worry; the balance of light and darkness has tipped in favor (for a while) of warmth and light, and we can look forward to the next golden things arriving any moment now...

Today

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

--Billy Collins

Three Poems about "Choice"...

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening: My 2015 seniors graduated yesterday. They represent the first class that perhaps signals the start to the second half of my career. It was a genuinely lovely day, great weather, smiles and cheering, well written and delivered speeches... I get weird on these days, feeling a deep relief as those I watched for years are delivered from my portion of watchful care, but also feeling sadness as I have to let go. The best part of their journeys are just beginning and for the most part I am left here to try to take ownership of another young bunch next year. My school swims in the small pond...

The Armful: There is no way to hold on to all of them, and they need us to let go long before we actually find the strength to do so. Yet so many of my hours are spent with and for them. Sigh. I get to teach around 3000 different souls in my career. I get to learn from 3000 different attempts at success, and I get to learn from 3000 different mini teachers who never cease to surprise and inspire me with their journeys. After around 1500, I am starting to forget names and blur stories. I try to keep it all straight in my head, but it's all starting to slosh around somewhat. But no matter how elusive those memories are, or solid, each has helped make me what I am today, and that is a pleasant thought...

The Road Not taken: Some years ago I was asked to teach 8th grade in addition to my usually 9th and 10th grade fare. I have also been afforded the opportunity to have several classes that draw 11th and 12th graders. Two young ladies managed to get slotted into my room for five consecutive years starting in their 8th grade. I have joked that this will lead to their immense need for prolonged therapy, but it is merely my preemptive joke that I worry they missed out on other, maybe better, experiences while doing time in my room. (See, there I did it again.) In reality I feel grateful for those special relationships that go beyond teacher/student and approach mentor/mentee or life coach/apprentice. (There were others in this graduating class who I taught three and four times, and with this class that crazy possibility is done). They have become such interesting people (they always were to give full credit). I have to steel myself to remain patient to learn about what paths they might choose...

I do take some sense of solace that I get to visit over the years with those who return one way or another. The meetings are sometimes a little awkward as my grown-up charges realize that they have grown up and that their teacher of old swims in such a small pond. But their realization is such an amazing perspective gift. The digital landscape offers additional paths to bump into each other as we tool around our lives. Pictures shared from world travels; observations on life and news and love and loss. No matter in what form, these meetings after the graduations... I love those little moments...

---

Robert Frost is one of my poetic loves, and I love to offer advice to students when I can. I found a blog entry by another writer that offers three Frost poems as a collection on "choices". This is what I wish for all my departing charges; choices to make decisions and find a path that is most helpful, enjoyable, productive, and fulfilling... I offer this New Englander's wisdom as a parting lesson for the class of 2015...


Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.



The Armful

For every parcel I stoop down to seize
I lose some other off my arms and knees,
And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns—
Extremes too hard to comprehend at once,
Yet nothing I should care to leave behind.
With all I have to hold with, I will do my best
To keep their building balanced at my breast.
I crouch down to prevent them as they fall;
Then sit down in the middle of them all.
I had to drop the armful in the road.
And try to stack them in a better load.



The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.