poem

[wavyarms]

If you get the Inkberry newsletter, you'll have read this poem. But I wanted to share with everyone else, simply for the line "If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down" if for nothing else.

A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

-- Jack Gilbert, from Refusing Heaven

Comments

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

Isn't that poem stunning?

I love the line "We must admit there will be music despite everything." I love the way he faces the stark and difficult realities of the world, and still stubbornly insists on the imperative to offer praise.

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

That line is so classic, and so stunning, that I can't believe he's not quoting something else. If he's not, it must be a sentence that has always existed and that he just chose to write down, because it is so comfortably familiar.

[minyan.livejournal.com]

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight.

Man, there's my whole novel in twelve words.

To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

And there's the weekend I spent in Maine with Laura. Magic. The real catch in the throat. Stubbornly insists on the imperative to offer praise — that's it exactly, Kass. Take that along with the title of the book, and I wonder what heaven he is refusing, and whether in refusing heaven he is refusing or facing his understanding of God.

Gulp. Wow.

Re: the risk of delight

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

No problem, always glad to be friended! Feel free to comment liberally! (I meant as in, often. ;)

Risking a smile....

[suhnkecher.livejournal.com]

Ain't that true. I work with Kids who experience some of the worst faces of life. Yet they come to school, strong and willing to smile. It is good to take the perspective that smiling and laughing in the face of fear, sorrow and loneliness is just as courageous as facing down a criminal on the streets.
A bit of joy exercises our courage and makes us stronger for those situations. At least that's how I'm going to look at it.

Re: Risking a smile....

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

We must admit there will be music despite everything.

That would be just about precisely your job, in the face of a lot of kids being run down by the locomotive of the Lord. Even when the headlights of the locomotive make their eyes glaze over. ;)