"Finishing"

“Writing is a combination of intangible creative
fantasy and appallingly hard work.”

—Anthony Powell

Most mornings include Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac" where today I learn that it was on April 10, 1925, that F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was published. I am amused and encouraged to learn that even after finally sending his masterpiece off to Scribner's to be published, he wanted to change the title, but Maxwell Perkins told him it was too late, so The Great Gatsby it remained. Later, when sales were poor, he believed it was the title that was to blame.

I cannot think of anything I have written that came perfectly gift wrapped from the muse. Even when there is a rare flash of inspiration that flows quickly onto the page, there are edits and re-edits, doubts about word choice, questions about structure, metaphors that need to be unmixed. Right now I would go back and fix the earlier flash/flow problem, but I'm leaving it in just to illustrate the point. So I am encouraged that even the great Fitzgerald was never totally satisfied. 

When the metaphors mesh, and the rhythm moves with the meaning, and the images illustrate exactly, there is joy in the creation, but nearly always there is a niggling doubt that it could be better, so we revise and re-envision, and finally, either when we can see nothing else to "fix" or when we can't stand looking at it any more, we call it "finished," but it's never quite finished, even if it's gone to press.

Remembering Daffodils

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I am a person of varied--sometimes extremely varied--interests. Today is the birthday of one of my favorite poets--William Wordsworth. I am remembering "Intimations of Immortality," and his verse celebrating nature, as well as my visit to Dove Cottage in the Lake District of England where he lived with his sister Dorothy--one of those women too often forgotten who inspired the more famous men in their lives--and where they entertained many of the famous Romantic poets of the period. I recall gardens, parks, the old Swan Hotel, and the gingerbread. And I recall Bullwinkle.
(See, I told you so.)

I guess the world really is too much with me, but I have always been a fan of that lovable moose and his pal, the flying squirrel--Rocky. But why do I connect Bullwinkle with Wordsworth? Bullwinkle, for those of you too young to remember or have forgotten, was a lover of poetry and would, from time to time, recite a poem, actually a version of a poem. As in the case of his recitation of Wordsworth's "Daffodils," he is interrupted, and the poem goes off in a humorous direction.

Just as Bugs Bunny cartoons used classical music to illustrate themes, lest their viewers remain Liszt-less, (Sorry, couldn't resist) so Jay Ward brought poetry into the story-lines of Bullwinkle. I was 14 when Rocky and His Friends first appeared after American Bandstand. Although a lover of poetry since my early years, I doubt I had read any of Wordsworth at the time. So, thanks to the two most famous citizens of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, I first heard the verse of Wordsworth, albeit twisted into a plot with Boris Badenov--yet another humorous allusion.

Wintry Mix Up

Wintry Mix Up

Living in New England

I should have known better

than hope that crocus teeth

cutting through dead leaves

and melting snow

meant an end of winter.

As baseball begins again

I should have remembered

sitting in the grandstand

wrapped in blankets

or a long ago April blizzard

that brought down branches.

A week and a half

past the vernal equinox

fat flakes turn to clicking sleet

then to rain

and back again.

Yes, now I remember.

Mariposas

If beauty is truth,

what can be said

of the the blue morpho

who closes its brilliance

into camouflage

as  it stops to gather nectar?

Or what of the green malachite
seen only in peripheral vision

as it flies fast

over concertina wire

taking its glory

out into the black night?

Or the absent orange monarch

once plentiful in the hydrangea?

If truth is beauty

what am I to learn from these?

that beauty is a transitory thing?

that the truth cannot be held?

that there is honesty in butterflies?

Lingering Music

"...our anxiety is less the mind shielding itself from death than the spirit's need to be. It is as if each of us were always hearing some strange, complicated music in the background of our lives, music that, so long as it remains in the background, is not simply distracting but manifestly unpleasant, because it demands the attention we are giving to other things. It is not hard to hear this music, but it is very difficult to hear it as music."

Christian Wiman My Bright Abyss

I am never sure I understand exactly what Wiman is talking about, but what I do get is rich and feeds me for a long time. That may be why it's taking me months to read this book. Every phrase, every sentence makes me stop, read it again, and then ponder it. Very rich and very good!

This particular quotation struck a chord (excuse the pun) with me when he talks about all the things that clutter up life, preventing us from hearing that "strange, complicated music." Returning from Nicaragua, most of our team have said that we return with many questions. What we saw and experienced is like a strange and complicated symphony--full of lovely melodies and disturbing discords.

Now we are back to work, to school, to the regular patterns of our life--patterns that can seem to drown out that other music. But not quite. The roosters are still crowing in Las Mercedes. The school children are still shuffling into their seats at NITCA. The iron gates are still clanking closed at Hansae,

And we are here in the last days of winter, looking forward to spring, but the strange music of Nicaragua still rings in our ears. Let us hope that we keep hearing those notes of beauty and oppression and that someday we hear more clearly the healing harmonies.

Remembering my Father on his Birthday

Stargazing

My father bought me stars,

a small constellation

splayed across wax paper,

picked from a wooden bin

between clothesline and fuses

at Carpenter and Webber’s Hardware.

One by one

he pasted them

on the ceiling above my bed.

“Leave the shades up today,

then when it’s nighttime,

the stars will come out.”

At 7:30 the Lone Ranger

began his fight for law and order

on the white Crosley

next to my bed,

where I lay safe

beneath my very own galaxy.

A Bit of Purple Hope

A friend told me last night that she saw a crocus popping up. God, I love those beauties. They are so defiant. They will not let this winter, any winter, keep them down.

Right now it's 10 degrees out, and my yard has snow banks three feet high, and it's March 5 already! I can pound my mittened fists and say it's time for spring, but being a true New Englander, I know springtime is a variable concept.

But those crocuses don't care. They shoot up through the snow and give us a glimmer of hope, just enough to get us through another frigid day.