Words sometimes stick with you. In yoga this morning we were bemoaning the persistent gray skies that have taken over New England this month, when I mentioned a short story, by Ray Bradbury, I had read in grade school about kids living on another planet where they only see the sun once every 7 years, and immediately another woman in the room cried, "Yes! I know what story you're talking about!" We both marveled a bit at how that story has stuck with us both for more than 20 years. I came home and looked it up, inspired to investigate what has made this tale take hold so solidly in my mind, and as I reread it here, I realize how truly devastating the story is. No wonder it has stuck with me- brought to the surface of my memory when I find myself longing for the sun. It must have triggered so many emotions for me reading it as an adolescent. (I've attached it at the bottom of this post... in case you didn't read it!)
There are other tales, other words that have also held on. As kids, my parents were big on poetry. Many goodnights were sealed with the reading of a few poems from a large dusty blue book they owned. We each had our favorites, and truly, I could almost recite some of them verbatim to this day. The Jabberwocky (I will include it too... to heck with short concise blog posts today!) would create this swirling frenzy in my mind as I listened to it's fantastic twists and turns- picturing this boy and his vorpal blade slashing through a monster in the dark of the woods... the fact that so much of the poem was comprised of invented words made it so much better- my mind was that much less constrained as it drew picture after picture. My stomach would actually turn as I imagined the sounds of the sword and pictured the gurgling.
The Mighty Casey surely planted the seed for my love of baseball. And Melinda and her cowardly dragon have always kept me company when I've felt angst, or been overcome with nerves. All these make-believe characters, planted in my mind to keep me company- it is the magic of words.
My first year of college in northern Vermont, I grew close with another woman in my dorm and we both discovered that we shared a love for poetry. For years and years, we have corresponded and shared new and old favorites between us. It has been a while since I've written her, I'll have to do that today. That correspondence solidified my love of e. e. cummings, and Pablo Neruda, Angelina Weld Grimke, William Carlos Williams, and Emily Dickenson, just to name a few. It also made me realize that for every piece of beautiful writing I've had the luck to stumble upon, there are countless others waiting to be discovered.
Kelan recently came home from school, ecstatic, clutching a new book in his favorite fantasy fiction series (Ranger's Apprentice, currently). The librarian knew how badly he wanted it, and she gave it to him before even cataloging it into the library! The love of books creates a bond between people- a desire to help each other along. Passing along a great novel to a friend you know will love it feels like you are, in some small way, giving them that story... not a book, but all the moments it contains, and the thoughts that is spurs on. It is a way to talk to someone you love without actually talking. A way to say, I think I know you enough to know that this will speak to you, as it did to me. Here are a few of the pieces I've mentioned. Share some of your favorites if you will-- plant some new words!
All Summer in a Day
By Ray Bradbury
"Ready ?" "Ready." "Now ?" "Soon." "Do the scientists really know? Will it
happen today, will it ?" "Look, look; see for yourself !" The children pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, peering out for a look at the hidden sun.
It rained.
It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives.
"It’s stopping, it’s stopping !" "Yes, yes !" Margot stood apart from them, from these
children who could ever remember a time when there wasn’t rain and rain and rain. They were all nine years old, and if there had been a day, seven years ago, when the sun came out for an hour and showed its face to the stunned world, they could not
recall. Sometimes, at night, she heard them stir, in remembrance, and she knew they were dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy the world with. She knew they thought they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands. But then they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests, and their dreams were gone.
All day yesterday they had read in class about the sun. About how like a lemon it was, and how hot. And they had written small stories or essays or poems about it:I think the sun is a flower,That blooms for just one hour. That was Margot’s poem, read in a quiet voice in the still classroom while the rain was falling outside.
"Aw, you didn’t write that!" protested one of the boys.
"I did," said Margot. "I did." "William!" said the teacher. But that was yesterday. Now the rain was
slackening, and the children were crushed in the great thick windows.
Where’s teacher ?" "She’ll be back." "She’d better hurry, we’ll miss it !" They turned on themselves, like a
feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes. Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouthand the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass.
"What’re you looking at ?" said William. Margot said nothing. "Speak when you’re spoken to." He gave her a shove. But she did not
move; rather she let herself be moved only by him and nothing else. They edged away from her, they would not look at her. She felt them go away. And this was because she would play no games with them in the echoing tunnels of the underground city. If they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking after them and did not follow. When the class sang songs about happiness and life and games her lips barely moved. Only when they sang about the sun and the summer did her lips move as she watched the drenched windows. And then, of course, the biggest crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was when she was four in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus all their lives, and they had been only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since forgotten the color and heat of it and the way it really was.
But Margot remembered.
"It’s like a penny," she said once, eyes closed.
"No it’s not!" the children cried. "It’s like a fire," she said, "in the stove."
"You’re lying, you don’t remember !" cried the children.
But she remembered and stood quietly apart from all of them and watched the patterning windows. And once, a month ago, she had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming the water mustn’t touch her head. So after that, dimly, dimly, she sensed it, she was different and they knew her difference and kept away. There was talk that her father and mother were taking her back to Earth next year; it seemed vital to her that they do so, though it would mean the loss of thousands of dollars to her family. And so, the children hated her for all these reasons of big and little consequence. They hated her pale snow face, her waiting silence, her thinness, and her possible future.
"Get away !" The boy gave her another push. "What’re you waiting for?"
Then, for the first time, she turned and looked at him. And what she was waiting for was in her eyes.
"Well, don’t wait around here !" cried the boy savagely. "You won’t see nothing!"
Her lips moved.
"Nothing !" he cried. "It was all a joke, wasn’t it?" He turned to the other children. "Nothing’s happening today. Is it ?"
They all blinked at him and then, understanding, laughed and shook their heads.
"Nothing, nothing !"
"Oh, but," Margot whispered, her eyes helpless. "But this is the day, the scientists predict, they say, they know, the sun..." "All a joke !" said the boy, and seized her
roughly. "Hey, everyone, let’s put her in a closet before the teacher comes !"
"No," said Margot, falling back.
They surged about her, caught her up and bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a closet, where they slammed and locked the door. They stood looking at the door and saw it tremble from her beating and throwing herself against it. They heard her muffled cries. Then, smiling, the turned and went out and back down the tunnel, just as the teacher arrived.
"Ready, children ?" She glanced at her watch.
"Yes !" said everyone. "Are we all here ?" "Yes !" The rain slacked still more. They crowded to the huge door. The rain stopped.
It was as if, in the midst of a film concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a beautiful tropical slide which did not move or tremor. The world ground to a standstill. The silence was so immense and unbelievable that you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your hearing altogether. The children put
their hands to their ears. They stood apart. The door slid back and the smell of the silent, waiting world came in to them.
The sun came out.
It was the color of flaming bronze and it was very large. And the sky around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned with sunlight as the children, released from their spell, rushed out, yelling into the springtime.
"Now, don’t go too far," called the teacher after them. "You’ve only two hours, you know. You wouldn’t want to get caught out !"
But they were running and turning their faces up to the sky and feeling the sun on their cheeks like a warm iron; they were taking off their jackets and letting the sun burn their arms.
?"
"Oh, it’s better than the sun lamps, isn’t it
"Much, much better !"
They stopped running and stood in the great jungle that covered Venus, that grew and never stopped growing, tumultuously, even as you watched it. It was a nest of octopi, clustering up great arms of fleshlike weed, wavering, flowering in this brief spring. It was the color of rubber and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun. It was the color of stones and white cheeses and ink, and it was the color of the moon.
The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and squeak under them resilient and alive. They ran among the trees, they slipped and fell, they pushed each other, they played hide- and-seek and tag, but most of all theysquinted at the sun until the tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up to that yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and listened and listened to the silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no motion. They looked at everything and savored everything. Then, wildly, like animals escaped from their caves, they ran and ran in shouting circles. They ran for an hour and did not stop running.
And then -
In the midst of their running one of the girls wailed.
Everyone stopped.
The girl, standing in the open, held out her hand.
"Oh, look, look," she said, trembling.
They came slowly to look at her opened palm.
In the center of it, cupped and huge, was a single raindrop. She began to cry, looking at it. They glanced quietly at the sun.
"Oh. Oh."
A few cold drops fell on their noses and their cheeks and their mouths. The sun faded behind a stir of mist. A wind blew cold around them. They turned and started to walk back toward the underground house, their hands at their sides, their smiles vanishing away.
A boom of thunder startled them and like leaves before a new hurricane, they tumbled upon each other and ran. Lightning struck ten miles away, five miles away, a mile, a half mile. The sky darkened into midnight in
a flash. They stood in the doorway of the
underground for a moment until it was raining hard. Then they closed the door and heard the gigantic sound of the rain falling in tons and avalanches, everywhere and forever.
"Will it be seven more years ?" "Yes. Seven." Then one of them gave a little cry. "Margot !"
"What ?"
"She’s still in the closet where we locked her."
"Margot."
They stood as if someone had driven them, like so many stakes, into the floor. They looked at each other and then looked away. They glanced out at the world that was raining now and raining and raining steadily. They could not meet each other’s glances. Their faces were solemn and pale. They looked at their hands and feet, their faces down.
"Margot." One of the girls said, "Well... ?" No one moved. "Go on," whispered the girl. They walked slowly down the hall in the
sound of cold rain. They turned through the doorway to the room in the sound of the storm and thunder, lightning on their faces, blue and terrible. They walked over to the closet door slowly and stood by it.
Behind the closet door was only silence.
They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out.
JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
 |
| http://www.jabberwocky.com |
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Casey at the Bat
BY ERNEST LAWRENCE THAYER
A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that—
We’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat.
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—
“That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one,” the umpire said.
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted some one on the stand;
And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two.”
“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.
The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clinched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
THE TALE OF CUSTARD THE DRAGON
By Ogden Nash
Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called her Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.
Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio, daggers on his toes.
Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,
Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,
They all sat laughing in the little red wagon
At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.
Belinda giggled till she shook the house,
And Blink said Week!, which is giggling for a mouse,
Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,
When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,
And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.
Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,
His beard was black, one leg was wood;
It was clear that the pirate meant no good.
Belinda paled, and she cried, Help! Help!
But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,
Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,
And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.
But up jumped Custard, snorting like an engine,
Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm
He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.
The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets but they didn't hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.
Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pyrate.
Belinda still lives in her little white house,
With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,
And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,
And her realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,
Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.
1936
| This Is Just To Say | |
| by William Carlos Williams |
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold |
The row of flags pictured above marked the break between metal barricades and police vehicles and the park itself, and once you made it into the wall of the park, the police presence faded. In it's place, a small community unfolds before your eyes. I had heard it was very clean and orderly, but seeing it in person was still incredibly impressive. I hadn't realized how small the park was, but even in this confined space, there were ample paths winding through, and a very intentional layout. The kitchen was set up in the center of the park, complete with a long buffet table as well as an area for prep and clean up. To the west of the kitchen there was a group of people working on a grey water filtration system, which included multiple beds/bays that utilized plant life, rocks, soil and sand to filter bacteria out of the water with the goal of reusable water as an output. I'm not clear on exactly how long the process takes, but it was really cool to see such a project being taken on. 
Continuing on, at the west end of the park, there was a designated sacred space set up around a park tree. People were gathered in a circle, each taking some time to sit quietly, to think, pray or meditate. This area was the only part of the park bathed in direct sunlight, which found a way through the towering concrete. It seemed almost excessive to have the light illuminating this impromptu shrine, and it made me smile.
I am struck, throughout the park, at the cooperation and shared resources. They keep a weekly schedule of planned events, educational opportunities, forums and such posted on a large chalkboard near the central kitchen. They have a 'people's library' where books, newspapers, and magazines are loaned and returned. All stored in plastic bins which clearly function as waterproof containers on rainy days. In one area, a man is 'tagging' shirts for people that read 'Happy Occu-party', 'Eat the Rich', and 'I am the 99%'. A bulletin board is kept with the day's press about the OWS protest, allowing people to keep up with what is being published about the cause. Conversations about change spring up like popcorn across the gathering. At one point, I passed as a man who claimed to be "part of the 1%" as he approached a few of the protesters and started a conversation. They didn't seem to be reaching any deep understanding of each other as I listened in, but just the fact that those kinds of conversations are happening is a small win in my opinion- an improvement from how things have been up until this point. A breaking down of walls.
