Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.
H. L. Mencken
At the Bomb Testing Site
By William Stafford
At noon in the desert a panting lizard
waited for history, its elbows tense,
watching the curve of a particular road
as if something might happen.
It was looking at something farther off
than people could see, an important scene
acted in stone for little selves
at the flute end of consequences.
There was just a continent without much on it
under a sky that never cared less.
Ready for a change, the elbows waited.
The hands gripped hard on the desert.
Ways of Rebelling
By Nathalie Handal
Who needs to be at peace in the world? It helps to be between wars, to die a few times each day to understand your father’s sky, as you take it apart piece by piece and can’t feel anything, can’t feel the tree growing under your feet, the eyes poking night only to find another night to compare it to. Whoever heard of turning pain into hummingbirds or red birds— haven’t we grown? What does it mean to be older? Maybe a house with- out doors can still survive a storm. Maybe I can’t find the proper way to rebel or damn it, I can’t leave. I want to, but you grow inside of me. And as I watch you, before I know it, I’m too heavy, too full of you to move. Maybe that’s what they meant when they said you shouldn’t love a country too much.
Into my empty head there come
a cotton beach, a dock wherefrom
I set out, oily and nude
through mist, in chilly solitude.
There was no line, no roof or floor
to tell the water from the air.
Night fog thick as terry cloth
closed me in its fuzzy growth.
I hung my bathrobe on two pegs.
I took the lake between my legs.
Invaded and invader, I
went overhand on that flat sky.
Fish twitched beneath me, quick and tame.
In their green zone they sang my name
and in the rhythm of the swim
I hummed a two-four-time slow hymn.
I hummed “Abide With Me.” The beat
rose in the fine thrash of my feet,
rose in the bubbles I put out
slantwise, trailing through my mouth.
My bones drank water; water fell
through all my doors. I was the well
that fed the lake that met my sea
in which I sang “Abide With Me.”
One of the simple pleasures of summers in Minnesota is swimming in the neighborhood lake. There is a quality to swimming in a clean lake that is unmatched, compared to the ocean or a pool. The water is soft and inviting, the unexpected interactions with the little fish that nibble on your skin and the pleasant sounds of families and children playing in the sand and water. When my children were small we went swimming during July and August as often as possible, probably 3 to 5 times a week. There was a local pond that was stream fed, that had once been a gravel pit that sprang a leak and it had a sandy beach, clean water and no lifeguard, so we could do all the fun things we wanted to do, like leap off the rope swing tied in the tree and have the kids jump off my shoulders. It was exactly the kind of fun I had as a child and it was delightful to re-experience it again with my children.
Today I am swimming at a neighborhood lake and beach that my grandfather used to swim at regularly as an adult when he lived in the same neighborhood I live today 60 years ago. I am blessed to have a partner who loves to swim and we love to head over after dinner and swim for about an hour as the sun goes down. It is a short window for swimming in Minnesota but we are in its prime and we need to savor every opportunity we can to get in the water.
Do you have favorite memories of swimming as a child? Wast it at a pool, at a lake, in a river or the ocean? Where do you swim today? If its been awhile, throw modesty to the wind, find a swim suit that mostly fits and get out there in the water and enjoy.
Why I Am Happy
by William Stafford
Now has come, an easy time. I let it
roll. There is a lake somewhere
so blue and far nobody owns it.
A wind comes by and a willow listens
gracefully.
I hear all this, every summer. I laugh
and cry for every turn of the world,
its terribly cold, innocent spin.
The lake stays blue and free; it goes
on and on.
“Writing is a blank piece of paper and leaving out what isn’t supposed to be there.”
John Prine
After Arguing against the Contention That Art Must Come from Discontent
by William Stafford
Whispering to each handhold, “I’ll be back,”
I go up the cliff in the dark. One place
I loosen a rock and listen a long time
till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush
of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind—
I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your side
or it waits and then buffets; you sag outward. . . .
I remember they said it would be hard. I scramble
by luck into a little pocket out of
the wind and begin to beat on the stones
with my scratched numb hands, rocking back and forth
in silent laughter there in the dark—
“Made it again!” Oh how I love this climb!
—the whispering to stones, the drag, the weight
as your muscles crack and ease on, working
right. They are back there, discontent,
waiting to be driven forth. I pound
on the earth, riding the earth past the stars:
“Made it again! Made it again!
It has been heartwarming for me to see the remembrances posted on-line in the wake of John Prine’s passing, the admiration for his song writing and humanity pouring out from so many. I have been a John Prine fan for over 40 years, buying my first John Prine album in 1978. I have purchased I think almost every album and CD Prine ever released, even a couple of the mediocre ones mid career because there was always at least one great song. And there are more than one that I have bought several times because I wore the original copy out playing it so frequently.
“I edit as I go. Especially when I go to commit it to paper. I prefer a typewriter even to a computer. I don’t like it. There’s no noise on the computer. I like a typewriter because I am such a slow typist. I edit as I am committing it to paper. I like to see the words before me and I go, “Yeah, that’s it.” They appear before and they fit. I don’t usually take large parts out. If I get stuck early in a song, I take it as a sign that I might be writing the chorus and don’t know it. Sometimes, you gotta step back a little bit and take a look at what you’re doing.”
John Prine
Part of living the journey alongside Prine over the last 42 years was watching how he responded to everything that life can throw at you, from career ups and downs, to true love, to divorce and heartbreak, back to true love and happiness, to substance abuse, to depression to disease and disfigurement, to recovery and hope and success and fulfillment. One of the many defining moment in Prine’s life is when his good friend and early touring partner, Steve Goodman passed from leukemia at the age of 36, just as their careers were taking off. Prine and Goodman each mastered their craft in Chicago’s small stages and bars in the late 1960’s. Goodman’s harmony on vocals and guitar playing on the original recording of Paradise on Prine’s debut album in 1971 is what makes that song stand out.
“The best way to write a song is to think of something else and then the song kind of creeps in. The beginning makes no sense whatsoever. it just, like rhymes. And then all of a sudden I’ll go into, I am an old woman named after my mother.”
John Prine commenting on how the iconic line in Angel From Montgomery came about
A sign of a great song writer is when the version’s of the song that they wrote that you remember best were recorded by someone else. It means other great song writers and singers were so moved by that song that they made it there own. One of the reasons that I have loved Prine all these years, beyond his deft lyrics, simple yet complex guitar playing and always good humor, is that Prine and I share the same vocal range, which is about 6 good notes. There is not a single Prine song I can’t sing along. In poking around one morning this week I found on YouTube a link where someone had assembled every song John Prine wrote and recorded in a one stop shop of good humor. It’s staggering to see the list of how many great songs this man has written.
I often feel the same way about poets I enjoy. Poet’s who speak in a language that just makes sense to me, like John Prine songs. One of those poet’s is William Stafford. Stafford writes with a range of emotions and connections to nature and humanity that are right on key with my heart. Stafford and Prine share some common sensibilities in their kind pacifism and their ability to reflect back upon ourselves a mirror of how good this lonely business of living can be. Prine and Stafford both mix humor and suffering in darn near equal proportions, served with a touch of ironic bitters, for the perfect cocktail of genuine American art.
If it’s been a long time since you took Prine seriously, check out the final 4 CDs of his career after beating his first round of throat cancer. His songs and ability to regain his voice after multiple health setbacks, along with the litany of amazing musicians who partnered with him to make those albums are well worth a listen.
Lines To Stop Talking By
by William Stafford
In your city today outside my room
some quiet animal or only the rain
at its patient task was opening the wall
by touching it, and whatever was there
spread outward a bit at a time toward the horizon
cresting ahead and breaking, the way
all through your life whatever is near extends
when you think. In your city today
I thought of Never, hiding inside
an iceberg floating south rinsed by the days
till that great blind ice blinks open in the center.
I heard an ambulance carry its banner away
in the rain in your city. And I though of
my poems – how they are always there
waiting to try for that circumference
it takes all of us to find. . . .
I glanced at her and took my glasses
off–they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. “I am your own
way of looking at things,” she said. “When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation.” And I took her hand.
Do you have a muse? An unseen force that stirs your creativity, guides your voice, puts words on the page, or paint on a canvas with a clarity that goes beyond your conscious mind? I have written about my muse before, it is a force that is real and can leave me awestruck at times. Part of what makes it special is my muse visits infrequently. Most of the time I am left to my own devices and writing is plain hard work.
What’s the most unusual thing your muse has ever told you? What is the most unusual thing you have ever told your muse? Is your muse male, female, non-binary, non-human? How often does your muse visit? What will you say next time it does?
Sonnet 38
by William Shakespeare
How can my muse want subject to invent,
While thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thy self dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
If my slight muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
After Arguing against the Contention That Art Must Come from Discontent
By William Stafford
Whispering to each handhold, “I’ll be back,”
I go up the cliff in the dark. One place
I loosen a rock and listen a long time
till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush
of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind —
I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your side
or it waits and then buffets; you sag outward…
I remember they said it would be hard. I scramble
by luck into a little pocket out of
the wind and begin to beat on the stones
with my scratched numb hands, rocking back and forth
in silent laughter there in the dark–
“Made it again!” Oh how I love this climb!
— the whispering to the stones, the drag, the weight
as your muscles crack and ease on, working
right. They are back there, discontent,
waiting to be driven forth. I pound
on the earth, riding the earth past the stars:
“Made it again! Made it again!”
I made my annual pilgrimage to the West Bank of the University of Minnesota last night to see Greg Brown. I wrote more in depth about a year ago a post about my history with Brown as a musician. He was a bit more melancholy than usual and little less funny last night, but he made up for it through Bo Ramsey’s mystical guitar accompaniment. The two of them have been playing together and writing songs together for longer than Iowa has planted corn. Ramsey’s unique ability to soften and highlight Brown’s song writing and voice is a nearly perfect pairing of two remarkable musicians.
Brown was focused more on looking back than looking forward in both his song selection and story telling between songs. I think that’s a mistake as we get older. I think poetry can be a reminder to live in the moment, regardless of when that moment is in the arc of our timeline. Stafford reminding us we can make it, what whatever it is, climb that obstacle and bask in the accomplishment of being alive. Mary Oliver’s poem is as relevant a question to the 88 year old having a birthday today as the 17 year old uncertain of where their future will lead; “Tell me what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life?” That’s right, tell me what you plan to do today on this sunshine filled Saturday May morning, a precious commodity not to be wasted?
That being said, Greg does have a sense of humor about where all this finally leads….
The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
Mississippi River Frozen Solid in January in St. Paul, Minnesota
Ask Me
by William Stafford
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
There are certain poems which stand out because of one line. Not to say the entire poem doesn’t have meaning, but there are lines in poems that are like thunderbolts in my brain, electric in the resonance from the shared understanding with the poet. A line or even a few words, which are a whispered secret between us, a secret I am surprised to see on paper more elegantly than I could ever express.
Ask Me by William Stafford is one of those poems. It is a poem I read and re-read more than any other single poem because of one line; “Ask me whether what I have done is my life.” I enjoy my life. I am proud of what I have accomplished, but there is this voice that has arisen in middle age that nags: “I am more than an amalgam of what I have done. I am more than the vector of days, months, and years of experience, more than my successes and failures. My inner life is bigger than what I have accomplished and ever will accomplish.”
Ask Me is as close to a sonnet hiding in plain sight that Stafford published in his life time. It is 14 lines, nearly 10 syllables per line. I have no idea whether Stafford had any conscious associations to a sonnet structure when he wrote this poem, for its power lays not in its structure but in its open-ended questions and images it creates in my mind. Stafford allows me to take solace or vitriol, depending on my mood, from the linkages of the frozen rivers of my life that are at once unmoving and flowing ever faster downstream. Stafford was a pacifist, whose poetry resonates with an acceptance of the human condition and a gentle push to enjoy yourself, even if things are going to hell all around you, with a reminder that this life we live is pretty amazing.
Fourteen Lines 