Donne

Good Morrow, by John Donne

I wonder, by my truth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved

[...]

And now good morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room, an everywhere.

[...]

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp North, without declining West?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one; or thou and I
Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.

I don't know why it is.  I can't quite put my finger on it, as it is one of those things that always wiggles just beyon my reach:  I love the poetry, the words, of John Donne.

Yes, they're almost clunky, dense in imagery, old-fashioned in scheme and structure, and I don't always understand what it is he's conveying - but, like music, they bypass my mind for my heart.

I am undone by Donne.

No man is an island

Walking down the hallway where the family portraits hang, I thought to myself, “We should take a new picture of Pop.” thinking that the one hanging doesn’t look right anymore – not how I remember him. It took two full steps before it came back to me: we can’t take a picture of him. He’s gone.

A year and a half after his death, the truth still strikes me at unexpected, unguarded moments. I think I’m coming to grips with this new relationship with him, which is somehow more distant and more intimate than it was before; but I haven’t, even now, quite found my footing yet.

The edge of grief has dulled. I think the frequent passage of my heart over its blade has softened the sharpness a little. Acceptance brings strength. It’s difficult to grapple with a thing in the dark. It must be brought into the light so it can be seen, and then dealt with.

I’ve been reading John Donne, and once again came across these words: Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. It’s the ‘involved’ bit that comforts me. My dad was involved in mankind: me, his family, his friends, colleagues neighbours – he was connected to us. He wasn’t an island, in isolation and solitary. None of us is, no matter how small our life, or how quietly we live it.

That doesn’t change with death. We are still connected. Pop is still involved though the physics are different. Catholics understand this concept as the Communion of Saints. His involvement now takes the form of prayer and intercession rather than phone calls and teasing. But he still is who he was, and he’s still my Pop, and I’m still his daughter. We are still connected to each other.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

Poetry

This isn't going to be profound, but I've just been poked by a certain 'anonymous' person, whose identity I do in fact know, about there not being a recent new post. The pressure! I must try to work in regular blocks of writing each day - as a prospective freelancer, I should just be in the habit, right? Unfortunately the two part time jobs, the school application, job hunting and laundry are getting in the way of what I really want to spend my day doing: writing.

So, because I had an interesting conversation at work about poetry, with a coworker who has translated English verse into Persian, today's contribution to the Lighthouse will be about poetry.

First of all, it's a real shame that poetry is approached in such a way in our schools that kids have a fear of it. Really, Wordsworth is just: Jack be nimble [nimber*], Jack be quick; Jack jumped over a candle stick -- but a little more grown-up. Children instinctively enjoy rhymes, catchy rhythms, and silly nonsense. Even grown-up poetry can offer those things.

The nice thing about a lot of poetry, is that it relaxes your mind, like prayer. It can speak to you at a deeper level of consciousness where words don't even really matter - the heart just understands the meaning.

Poetry allows for individual interpretation; it leaves room for the reader to bring his own experience and knowledge to the reading.

I enjoy poetry because I can dip into it, and savour it. One well-written poem can have the emotional impact of a full-length novel. I carry the effects of it with me through the day, and when I crawl into bed at night, I can read it again in just a few minutes, and get something entirely different from it, because at the end of the day, I have new experiences, new ideas to apply to my understanding of it.

Regrettably I don't have the capacity to memorize poems. I wish I had them stored in my memory bank to pull out at will. What a resource that would be! I once taught a group of children to memorize and perform The Walrus and the Carpenter, but after the first two lines, I lose track of it...and I heard it many many times in those few weeks! (Ironically, I have the lyrics to many inane rocks songs filed and alphabetized in my mind for easy retrieval. Even from 20 years ago.)

One cute little poem I do know by heart, is from The Great Gatsby:

Then wear the gold hat, if that will win her
And if you can bounce high, bounce high for her too

Till she cry Lover! Gold hatted, high bouncing lover!

I must have you!


Here's Pippa's song, by Robert Browning. You probably know the last two lines, and didn't realize where they came from:
The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn
Morning's at seven
The hillside's dew-pearled
The lark's on the wing
The snail's on the thorn
God's in His heaven -
All's right with the world!

And finally, from my favourite, John Donne, is this little bit from Love's Growth:
I scarce believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;
Me thinks I lied all winter, when I swore,
My love was infinite, if spring maked it more.

Don't worry about figuring out the meaning...just let the words slowly sink into you. Enjoy!

*long story - ask Fr. Ad

Islands

It is helpful to talk about my dad with other people; to hear what they remember about him, their impressions of him. I knew all along that he was a good man, and it turns out other people thought the same.

One of the things that I'm finding particularly painful right now is feeling the sadness for everyone else who knew him. I'm not the only one missing him, trying to come to grips with his absence. For instance, there is the lady who lives across the street who cried when mom told her he had died. There are the friends who live far away, for whom it is unfathomable that he is gone. There are people who knew him years ago who have clear memories of his strong, quiet presence and must now come to grips with the reality of his death. And what of those who really knew and loved him? They now are trying to regain equilibrium within a new frame of reference - one without him.

My dad was a special man - I know it - but the thing is that we are feeling this grief because we are all connected. My dad was a part of us. His being removed from among us is like having a limb excised from our body; we are lacking something that had enabled us to get on before; or in other words, we got on as we did before because of him, and now we must learn a new way of getting on. Each of us has that impact on others. Any one of us taken from this life has this effect of absence and emptiness. We are not the same as we were, but we will carry on because we are still connected, you and I. It was never just me and Pop - it was you and me and Pop.

I often turn to Donne. Below are excerpts from his Meditation XVII which has the famous lines "...for whom the bell tolls" and, "no man is an island".

And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age,some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.

If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that
application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that this occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;it tolls for thee.

Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery,as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an
excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.