This is an artifact from half a lifetime ago. Although I had not yet come into my own as a poet when I wrote these words, and the poem has the painfully trite, often forced, singsong quality that marks so much of my juvenilia, the content still rings true to me. I could even make a case that the style reinforces the subject matter, although I had no such intent at the time I wrote it.
"I don't feel any taller now,"
I did, when turned four, say.
I don't feel any older now,
And I'm fourteen today!
At thirteen I was foolish,
Acting young and immature.
At thirteen I was lonely,
Feeling small and insecure.
Yet am I any wiser,
By my age alone enhanced?
Am I done with childish ways,
By newer paths entranced?
Yesterday I was thirteen,
But what more can I say?
I'm still a foolish, lonely child,
And I'm fourteen today!
Monday, November 8, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Flower in the Crannied Wall
This poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, may be short, and, like the flower of which the poet speaks, deceptively simple, yet there is a world of truth in it. An unusually metaphysical poem for the nineteenth century, it is possessed of a timeless impact. It has long been one of my favorites. I hope it inspires you.
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower - but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower - but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
A Tale of Two Smart Women
Once upon a time, there was a smart woman who gave birth to her first child, a girl. With her background in child development, this woman was able to recognize very quickly that the baby was quite brainy in her own right, and to nourish her daughter's infant intellect. The mother's fondest hope was that the child would grow up to be a creative, independent, and ingenious thinker, capable of making sound decisions and contributing meaningfully to the world around her. The woman soon discovered that her daughter, despite her docile temperament, would prove a challenge not only to her parents, but to educators, agemates, and innocent bystanders, due to her unique worldview and nonconformist streak.
When she was little, the daughter more or less trusted the adults around her in matters beyond her comprehension. When she was in first grade, there was a presidential election, her first for all intents and purposes, and although she knew nothing of politics she was fascinated by the spectacle. When she learned that the candidates were named Bush and Dukakis, she immediately threw the full weight of her support behind the former, for good reason: her personal experiences with shrubbery had taught her that "Bush" was a name that could be trusted. Occasionally, she wondered if she was making the wrong choice. After all, "Dukakis" was a pretty nifty name, a nice crunchy name like the sound of biting into a pickle. But her concerns were eased away when she learned that her mother intented to vote for Bush. Her mother wasn't much concerned with the candidates' names, though; apparently Bush was a Republican and her mother was rooting for the Republicans to win the election, the same way her grandfather was always rooting for the Red Sox to win the baseball game.
Of course, as she got older, this bright girl came to understand the Issues - what they were, if not why anyone really cared about some of them - and since it was usually her parents who explained what they were all about, it was only natural that her parents' positions on the Issues made perfectly good sense to her (most of the time, anyways). As the years passed, she found herself more and more often exposed to viewpoints that differed from what she had been taught. Some of them made more sense to her than what she had been told by her parents. When she discussed these different viewpoints with her mother and father, sometimes they were able to point out something she hadn't thought of, some sort of weakness in the argument. Other times, they couldn't - not to her satisfaction, at any rate.
She arrived at puberty right on schedule, but unlike many on the cusp of adulthood, she never developed a rebellious spirit or felt the need to reject the values with which she had been raised solely because they were her parents' values. In fact, possessed of a strong need for harmony and the approval of others, she tried to rock the boat as little as possible. On the other hand, her intellectual and moral maturity far outstripped her emotional growth, and she did feel a compelling need to re-examine and evaluate nearly everything she had been raised to believe - if only in the privacy of her own mind. It was somewhat comforting, perhaps, when the conclusions she came to happened to be in line with the opinions of those around her, but when they did not, she had enough faith in her own moral compass to take a stand, however tremulously.
Although they often came to similar conclusions by different methods, this young woman was growing up to be very much like her mother in her political thinking: practical yet compassionate, able to consider both sides of an issue and seek a rational solution that would take into account the needs of everyone involved. Both these smart women knew that life is less fair than it should be, and that change takes time to become entrenched, and that sometimes you just have to settle for a compromise. They believed in living and letting live, and agreeing to disagree. And when the day came, nearly eighteen years after the daughter's birth, for the mother to wrap her in one final embrace before she boarded the airplane that would take her to college three thousand miles away, it was true that the two of them had agreed to disagree about a number of things in life, but when it cames to politics, they were more or less both on the same page.
As fate (and the Constitution) would have it, that happened to be another presidential election year. Now, although they were good citizens who tried to stay basically aware of national affairs, both mother and daughter were a little too busy to get swept up much in all the political hoopla. The daughter was, much to her dismay, one day too young to vote at all - and she was more focused on adjusting to all of the wonderful and terrible changes that come with young adulthood. The mother planned to vote, and gave much thoughtful consideration to the candidates and issues - but she was more focused on her new job teaching third grade at a Protestant church-affiliated private school, and on the lovely woman which whom she had unexpectedly fallen in love the previous spring.
Although neither mother nor daughter had a particular interest in politics just at that moment, they were both to have politics thrust upon them. As a student at a highly-regarded women's college, the daughter had hoped to find herself surrounded by mature, thoughtful young women. Much to her disappointment, she found that many of her new schoolmates were little more than overgrown adolescents; heady with a newfound freedom expressed in smoking, screwing, and swearing; professing their opinions with a swagger that belied their unwillingness to think too much. "Often in error, never in doubt," one of them boasted in the signature to her e-mails, and the young woman was bewildered: was admitting to uncertainty supposed to be a greater shame than being shown up as flat-out wrong? Although she hadn't immediately found the campus to be the haven of intellect and reason that she had at first hoped, it wasn't until she had been there about a month that she learned just how vicious her schoolmates could be.
It was that September that the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of the drug mifepristone as an abortifacient, and when the news hit that college campus, the online bulletin boards lit up with excitement. Students hailed it as a great step forward for women's rights. One young woman even proclaimed that she was "celebrating" the news. Now, much like her mother, our young protagonist thought abortion was the wrongful destruction of a human life. But she also, much like her mother, had the greatest sympathy for those women whose lives were turned upside-down by an unexpected pregnancy, and she certainly believed that no woman should be forced to continue a pregancy that endangered her life. She'd never really come down hard one way or the other on the matter of abortion, but the idea of "celebrating" an abortion method made her sick to her stomach. She posted to the bulletin board, reminding her ebullient schoolmates that abortion is an ugly and painful matter for all involved, and ought to be regarded with appropriate solemnity. The replies to her post came fast and furious, attacking and denouncing her as ignorant, uncaring, and backwards. When she tried to defend herself, it only got nastier. One poster made reference to our heroine's "gun-toting friends, hiding in the bushes in front of clinics." If she hadn't been so shocked and wounded by this outpouring of hostility, this could have been amusing, considering her stance in favor of gun control. (Those theoretical gun-toting friends most likely wouldn't have looked too kindly on her vegetarianism, either, or her wholehearted support for her mother's lesbian relationship.)
Back on the other side of the country, the mother wasn't finding her place of employment any more comfortable, politically speaking, than her daughter was finding her college campus. She'd been in the staff room one day, and one of her coworkers had mentioned a relative who was struggling with a risky pregnancy - and it prompted another coworker to go on a long rant about the evils of abortion. As the election approached, the political feeling in the school grew even more fervent. When they were planning their fall carnival, a sort of substitute Halloween party without the pagan overtones, one of the teachers suggested using a picture of Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore as a dartboard. When her mother mentioned this during one of their nightly telephone calls, the daughter forwarded her a glurge e-mail she had received from her aunt. The e-mail told the story of a seminary professor who had had all his students throw darts at pictures of people they disliked, only to take down the dartboard at the end of class to reveal a picture of Jesus underneath, torn and mangled by the darts his students had thrown. The mother appreciated the e-mail, but didn't share it with her colleagues, reluctant to rock the boat.
It was almost a shock to the daughter's system to hear that somewhere out in the world, there were masses of people vilifying Al Gore. In her world, it was the name of Republican candidate George W. Bush that was mud. She'd learned from her experience in September not to get into political discussions on the school bulletin boards, but when one brave Republican posted her opinion, only to be subjected to ad hominem attacks, our heroine could keep silent no longer. Brimming over with sweet reasonableness, she posted a reply in which she made it clear that she didn't agree with the Republican on many of the issues, but she didn't see any need to insult the young woman for speaking her mind. After all, the free exchange of ideas was historically one of the things that made this country great, and the balance of opposing viewpoints was necessary to prevent either side from spiralling off into extremes. "Besides," she concluded, "if there weren't two sides to every issue, there wouldn't be intelligent, well-meaning people on both sides." Surely no one could object to that?
Surely they could. "I have freedom of speech too and I reserve the right to call her an idiot if I want to!" one student proclaimed, in a truly impressive display of maturity. Almost as much invective was heaped on our heroine, for defending the Republican's right to speak freely without harassment, as had been directed at the poor Republican in the first place. Somehow, in this community that prided itself on its open-mindedness, it was possible to be ostracized, not only for disagreeing with the majority position, but for simply standing up for the right of others to do so.
The election came and went; the daughter woke up on her eighteenth birthday to the news that George W. Bush had won the election, and rejoiced at having attained the age of majority while her schoolmates mourned. Campus Republicans enjoyed a moment of triumph and went out to proudly chalk the letters "GOP" on the sidewalks; disappointed Democrats grabbed some chalk of their own and converted "GOP" into "GORE." Three thousand miles away, another smart woman grappled with her new role as the mother of an adult, while her coworkers whooped and cheered at the election results. Mother and daughter: the one too liberal, the other too conservative, two of a kind, with the same brown hair and the same gently bewildered smile.
When she was little, the daughter more or less trusted the adults around her in matters beyond her comprehension. When she was in first grade, there was a presidential election, her first for all intents and purposes, and although she knew nothing of politics she was fascinated by the spectacle. When she learned that the candidates were named Bush and Dukakis, she immediately threw the full weight of her support behind the former, for good reason: her personal experiences with shrubbery had taught her that "Bush" was a name that could be trusted. Occasionally, she wondered if she was making the wrong choice. After all, "Dukakis" was a pretty nifty name, a nice crunchy name like the sound of biting into a pickle. But her concerns were eased away when she learned that her mother intented to vote for Bush. Her mother wasn't much concerned with the candidates' names, though; apparently Bush was a Republican and her mother was rooting for the Republicans to win the election, the same way her grandfather was always rooting for the Red Sox to win the baseball game.
Of course, as she got older, this bright girl came to understand the Issues - what they were, if not why anyone really cared about some of them - and since it was usually her parents who explained what they were all about, it was only natural that her parents' positions on the Issues made perfectly good sense to her (most of the time, anyways). As the years passed, she found herself more and more often exposed to viewpoints that differed from what she had been taught. Some of them made more sense to her than what she had been told by her parents. When she discussed these different viewpoints with her mother and father, sometimes they were able to point out something she hadn't thought of, some sort of weakness in the argument. Other times, they couldn't - not to her satisfaction, at any rate.
She arrived at puberty right on schedule, but unlike many on the cusp of adulthood, she never developed a rebellious spirit or felt the need to reject the values with which she had been raised solely because they were her parents' values. In fact, possessed of a strong need for harmony and the approval of others, she tried to rock the boat as little as possible. On the other hand, her intellectual and moral maturity far outstripped her emotional growth, and she did feel a compelling need to re-examine and evaluate nearly everything she had been raised to believe - if only in the privacy of her own mind. It was somewhat comforting, perhaps, when the conclusions she came to happened to be in line with the opinions of those around her, but when they did not, she had enough faith in her own moral compass to take a stand, however tremulously.
Although they often came to similar conclusions by different methods, this young woman was growing up to be very much like her mother in her political thinking: practical yet compassionate, able to consider both sides of an issue and seek a rational solution that would take into account the needs of everyone involved. Both these smart women knew that life is less fair than it should be, and that change takes time to become entrenched, and that sometimes you just have to settle for a compromise. They believed in living and letting live, and agreeing to disagree. And when the day came, nearly eighteen years after the daughter's birth, for the mother to wrap her in one final embrace before she boarded the airplane that would take her to college three thousand miles away, it was true that the two of them had agreed to disagree about a number of things in life, but when it cames to politics, they were more or less both on the same page.
As fate (and the Constitution) would have it, that happened to be another presidential election year. Now, although they were good citizens who tried to stay basically aware of national affairs, both mother and daughter were a little too busy to get swept up much in all the political hoopla. The daughter was, much to her dismay, one day too young to vote at all - and she was more focused on adjusting to all of the wonderful and terrible changes that come with young adulthood. The mother planned to vote, and gave much thoughtful consideration to the candidates and issues - but she was more focused on her new job teaching third grade at a Protestant church-affiliated private school, and on the lovely woman which whom she had unexpectedly fallen in love the previous spring.
Although neither mother nor daughter had a particular interest in politics just at that moment, they were both to have politics thrust upon them. As a student at a highly-regarded women's college, the daughter had hoped to find herself surrounded by mature, thoughtful young women. Much to her disappointment, she found that many of her new schoolmates were little more than overgrown adolescents; heady with a newfound freedom expressed in smoking, screwing, and swearing; professing their opinions with a swagger that belied their unwillingness to think too much. "Often in error, never in doubt," one of them boasted in the signature to her e-mails, and the young woman was bewildered: was admitting to uncertainty supposed to be a greater shame than being shown up as flat-out wrong? Although she hadn't immediately found the campus to be the haven of intellect and reason that she had at first hoped, it wasn't until she had been there about a month that she learned just how vicious her schoolmates could be.
It was that September that the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of the drug mifepristone as an abortifacient, and when the news hit that college campus, the online bulletin boards lit up with excitement. Students hailed it as a great step forward for women's rights. One young woman even proclaimed that she was "celebrating" the news. Now, much like her mother, our young protagonist thought abortion was the wrongful destruction of a human life. But she also, much like her mother, had the greatest sympathy for those women whose lives were turned upside-down by an unexpected pregnancy, and she certainly believed that no woman should be forced to continue a pregancy that endangered her life. She'd never really come down hard one way or the other on the matter of abortion, but the idea of "celebrating" an abortion method made her sick to her stomach. She posted to the bulletin board, reminding her ebullient schoolmates that abortion is an ugly and painful matter for all involved, and ought to be regarded with appropriate solemnity. The replies to her post came fast and furious, attacking and denouncing her as ignorant, uncaring, and backwards. When she tried to defend herself, it only got nastier. One poster made reference to our heroine's "gun-toting friends, hiding in the bushes in front of clinics." If she hadn't been so shocked and wounded by this outpouring of hostility, this could have been amusing, considering her stance in favor of gun control. (Those theoretical gun-toting friends most likely wouldn't have looked too kindly on her vegetarianism, either, or her wholehearted support for her mother's lesbian relationship.)
Back on the other side of the country, the mother wasn't finding her place of employment any more comfortable, politically speaking, than her daughter was finding her college campus. She'd been in the staff room one day, and one of her coworkers had mentioned a relative who was struggling with a risky pregnancy - and it prompted another coworker to go on a long rant about the evils of abortion. As the election approached, the political feeling in the school grew even more fervent. When they were planning their fall carnival, a sort of substitute Halloween party without the pagan overtones, one of the teachers suggested using a picture of Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore as a dartboard. When her mother mentioned this during one of their nightly telephone calls, the daughter forwarded her a glurge e-mail she had received from her aunt. The e-mail told the story of a seminary professor who had had all his students throw darts at pictures of people they disliked, only to take down the dartboard at the end of class to reveal a picture of Jesus underneath, torn and mangled by the darts his students had thrown. The mother appreciated the e-mail, but didn't share it with her colleagues, reluctant to rock the boat.
It was almost a shock to the daughter's system to hear that somewhere out in the world, there were masses of people vilifying Al Gore. In her world, it was the name of Republican candidate George W. Bush that was mud. She'd learned from her experience in September not to get into political discussions on the school bulletin boards, but when one brave Republican posted her opinion, only to be subjected to ad hominem attacks, our heroine could keep silent no longer. Brimming over with sweet reasonableness, she posted a reply in which she made it clear that she didn't agree with the Republican on many of the issues, but she didn't see any need to insult the young woman for speaking her mind. After all, the free exchange of ideas was historically one of the things that made this country great, and the balance of opposing viewpoints was necessary to prevent either side from spiralling off into extremes. "Besides," she concluded, "if there weren't two sides to every issue, there wouldn't be intelligent, well-meaning people on both sides." Surely no one could object to that?
Surely they could. "I have freedom of speech too and I reserve the right to call her an idiot if I want to!" one student proclaimed, in a truly impressive display of maturity. Almost as much invective was heaped on our heroine, for defending the Republican's right to speak freely without harassment, as had been directed at the poor Republican in the first place. Somehow, in this community that prided itself on its open-mindedness, it was possible to be ostracized, not only for disagreeing with the majority position, but for simply standing up for the right of others to do so.
The election came and went; the daughter woke up on her eighteenth birthday to the news that George W. Bush had won the election, and rejoiced at having attained the age of majority while her schoolmates mourned. Campus Republicans enjoyed a moment of triumph and went out to proudly chalk the letters "GOP" on the sidewalks; disappointed Democrats grabbed some chalk of their own and converted "GOP" into "GORE." Three thousand miles away, another smart woman grappled with her new role as the mother of an adult, while her coworkers whooped and cheered at the election results. Mother and daughter: the one too liberal, the other too conservative, two of a kind, with the same brown hair and the same gently bewildered smile.
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