Coming to Age

by Carolyn Hopley

  This sense of joy can occur at any age. Suddenly, often for no discernible reason, we are bathed in a feeling of inextricable well-being. We are at one with creation; all’s right with the world.

  Memories of these moments of grace stay with us throughout our lives. Weightless in themselves, they nevertheless provide a counterweight to the everyday. However, the real magic occurs when it is everyday life itself that occasions this joyfulness.

  WHY

  Why all the embarrassment

  about being happy?

  Sometimes I’m as happy

  as a sleeping dog,

  and for the same reasons,

  and for others.

  Wendell Berry

  WORDS FROM THE FRONT

  We don’t look as young

  as we used to

  except in dim light

  especially in

  the soft warmth of candlelight

  when we say

  in all sincerity

  You’re so cute

  and

  You’re my cutie.

  Imagine

  two old people

  behaving like this.

  It’s enough

  to make you happy.

  Ron Padgett

  ONE OF THE BUTTERFLIES

  The trouble with pleasure is the timing

  it can overtake me without warning

  and be gone before I know it is here

  it can stand facing me unrecognized

  while I am remembering somewhere else

  in another age or someone not seen

  for years and never to be seen again

  in this world and it seems I cherish

  only now a joy I was not aware of

  when it was here although it remains

  out of reach and will not be caught or named

  or called back and if I could make it stay

  as I want to it would turn into pain

  W. S. Merwin

  JOY

  You must love the crust of the earth

  on which you dwell. You must be

  able to extract nutriment out of a

  sandheap. You must have so good

  an appetite as this, else you will

  live in vain.

  Thoreau

  Joy, the, “well… joyfulness of

  joy”—“many years

  I had known it,” the woman of eighty

  said, “only remembered, till now.”

  Traherne

  in dark fields.

  On Tremont Street,

  on the Common, a raw dusk, Emerson

  “glad to the brink of fear.”

  It is objective,

  stands founded, a roofed gateway;

  we cloud-wander

  away from it, stumble

  again towards it not seeing it,

  enter cast-down, discover ourselves

  “in joy” as “in love.”

  Denise Levertov

  A state of joy can be as vibrant as one of love and occur just as unexpectedly.

  Thomas Traherne was a seventeenth-century English poet whose writings were suffused with spirituality.

  “Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.” From Emerson’s essay “Nature.”

  SONNET

  Caught—the bubble

  in the spirit-level,

  a creature divided;

  and the compass needle

  wobbling and wavering,

  undecided.

  Freed—the broken

  thermometer’s mercury

  running away;

  and the rainbow-bird

  from the narrow bevel

  of the empty mirror,

  flying wherever

  it feels like, gay!

  Elizabeth Bishop

  This is the last, or nearly last, poem Bishop wrote, shortly before her death. Here she amuses herself by cutting her word count drastically, allowing her poem to “run away” free, like the liberated mercury, and fly like a bird to wherever it wishes.

  ANY MORNING

  Just lying on the couch and being happy.

  Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.

  Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has

  so much to do in the world.

  People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can’t

  monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.

  When dawn flows over the hedge you can

  get up and act busy.

  Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven

  left lying around, can be picked up and saved.

  People won’t even see that you have them,

  they are so light and easy to hide.

  Later in the day you can act like the others.

  You can shake your head. You can frown.

  William Stafford

  GOOD

  I bet

  you’ll see me in the park

  strolling with a cane,

  a bit wobbly now and then

  which is good, for

  why should ground be taken

  for granted or trees?

  I like

  to lean my back against

  a tamarack—straight in its majesty.

  I swear I hear it hum

  which is very good for

  me since I need melodies

  to remind me to hold up

  and lean

  into whatever is close

  and near and could be dear

  which is exceedingly good

  to my mind, and could be

  to yours. I know advice is

  useless, but an example is

  another thing.

  I sit on a bench,

  eat a sandwich, a bit mushed

  in the pocket but tasty still

  which is good since the truth is

  that savoring is a necessity.

  So I eat and tap my old feet

  against

  the pavement

  and breathe which is good

  for just about everything.

  Then home like a horse

  to its stable, recognizing

  my small place in the world

  there to be

  with familiar things and sense

  where I’ve landed for now, which is

  better than good since it is

  neither good nor bad—

  but a joy if you know what I mean.

  No comparison.

  Gunilla Norris

  FROM BLOSSOMS

  From blossoms comes

  this brown paper bag of peaches

  we bought from the boy

  at the bend in the road where we turned toward

  signs painted Peaches.

  From laden boughs, from hands,

  from sweet fellowship in the bins,

  comes nectar at the roadside, succulent

  peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,

  comes this familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

  O, to take what we love inside,

  to carry within us an orchard, to eat

  not only the skin, but the shade,

  not only the sugar, but the days, to hold

  the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into

  the round jubilance of peach.

  There are days we live

  as if death were nowhere

  in the background; from joy

  to joy to joy, from wing to wing,

  from blossom to blossom to

  impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

  Li-Young Lee

  To savor fully the “round jubilance of peach”—with all that has made it what it is—is to savor creation.

  WHAT ARE YEARS?

  What is our innocence,

  what is our guilt? All are

  naked, no
ne is safe. And whence

  is courage: the unanswered question,

  the resolute doubt,—

  dumbly calling, deafly listening—that

  in misfortune, even death,

  encourages others

  and in its defeat, stirs

  the soul to be strong? He

  sees deep and is glad, who

  accedes to mortality

  and in his imprisonment rises

  upon himself as

  the sea in a chasm, struggling to be

  free and unable to be,

  in its surrendering

  finds its continuing.

  So he who strongly feels,

  behaves. The very bird,

  grown taller as he sings, steels

  his form straight up. Though he is captive,

  his mighty singing

  says, satisfaction is a lowly

  thing, how pure a thing is joy.

  This is mortality,

  This is eternity.

  Marianne Moore

  TODAY

  If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

  so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

  that it made you want to throw

  open all the windows in the house

  and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage

  indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

  a day when the cool brick paths

  and the garden bursting with peonies

  seemed so etched in sunlight

  that you felt like taking

  a hammer to the glass paperweight

  on the living room end table,

  releasing the inhabitants

  from their snow-covered cottage

  so they could walk out,

  holding hands and squinting

  into this larger dome of blue and white,

  well, today is just that kind of day.

  Billy Collins

  THE BLESSING OF THE OLD WOMAN, THE TULIP, AND THE DOG

  To be blessed

  said the old woman

  is to live and work

  so hard

  God’s love

  washes right through you

  like milk through a cow

  To be blessed

  said the dark red tulip

  is to knock their eyes out

  with the slug of lust

  implied by

  your up-ended skirt

  To be blessed

  said the dog

  is to have a pinch

  of God

  inside you

  and all the other

  dogs can smell it

  Alicia Ostriker

  11

  “TOWARD WHAT UNDREAMT CONDITION”

  Despite all our puzzling and pondering, the mystery of life remains. But isn’t this very quality of strangeness and impenetrability what gives life so much of its interest and savor? No matter how much we learn, there is always more to discover; no matter how far we have come, there is always farther to go.

  We are each a small part of the great chain of being, and we leave this world to make way for the next links in the chain. Looked at in this way, death becomes a natural part of life, the final stage of our life here on earth but possibly the first stage of something as yet unknown. Who is to say? Each of us is free to make up our own mind.

  From the very beginning of literature, poets have offered their individual views on this supreme mystery. Some of them follow.

  THIS WORLD IS NOT CONCLUSION

  This World is not Conclusion.

  A Species stands beyond–

  Invisible, as Music–

  But positive, as Sound–

  It beckons, and it baffles–

  Philosophy–don’t know–

  And through a Riddle, at the last–

  Sagacity, must go–

  To guess it, puzzles scholars–

  To gain it, Men have borne

  Contempt of Generations

  And Crucifixion, shown–

  Faith slips–and laughs, and rallies–

  Blushes, if any see–

  Plucks at a twig of Evidence–

  And asks a Vane, the way–

  Much Gesture, from the Pulpit–

  Strong Hallelujahs roll–

  Narcotics cannot still the Tooth

  That nibbles at the soul–

  Emily Dickinson

  Here Dickinson grapples once again with the ultimate mystery of existence. While she continued to question conventional religious belief throughout her life, she never relinquished her spiritual search.

  WEAN YOURSELF

  Little by little, wean yourself.

  This is the gist of what I have to say.

  From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood,

  move to an infant drinking milk,

  to a child on solid food,

  to a searcher after wisdom,

  to a hunter of more invisible game.

  Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.

  You might say, “The world outside is vast and intricate.

  There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom.

  At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight

  the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding.”

  You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up

  in the dark with eyes closed.

  Listen to the answer.

  There is no “other world.”

  I only know what I’ve experienced.

  You must be hallucinating.

  Mathnawi, III, 49–6

  Jalal al-Din Rumi

  (translated from the Persian by Coleman Barks)

  FINAL NOTATIONS

  it will not be simple, it will not be long

  it will take little time, it will take all your thought

  it will take all your heart, it will take all your breath

  it will be short, it will not be simple

  it will touch through your ribs, it will take all your heart

  it will not be long, it will occupy all your thought

  as a city is occupied, as a bed is occupied

  it will take all your flesh, it will not be simple

  You are coming into us who cannot withstand you

  you are coming into us who never wanted to withstand you

  you are taking parts of us into places never planned

  you are going far away with pieces of our lives

  it will be short, it will take all your breath

  it will not be simple, it will become your will

  Adrienne Rich

  THE WINDOW

  A storm blew in last night and knocked out

  the electricity. When I looked

  through the window, the trees were translucent.

  Bent and covered with rime. A vast calm

  lay over the countryside.

  I knew better. But at that moment

  I felt I’d never in my life made any

  false promises, not committed

  so much as one indecent act. My thoughts

  were virtuous. Later on that morning,

  of course, electricity was restored.

  The sun moved from behind the clouds,

  melting the hoarfrost.

  And things stood as they had before.

  Raymond Carver

  THE NIGHT MIGRATIONS

  This is the moment when you see again

  the red berries of the mountain ash

  and in the dark sky

  the birds’ night migrations.

  It grieves me to think

  the dead won’t see them—

  these things we depend on,

  they disappear.

  What will the soul do for solace then?

  I tell myself maybe it won’t need

  these pleasures anymore;

  maybe just not being is simply enough,

  hard as that is to imagine.

  Louise
Glück

  SAILING TO BYZANTIUM

  That is no country for old men. The young

  In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,

  —Those dying generations—at their song,

  The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

  Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

  Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

  Caught in that sensual music all neglect

  Monuments of unageing intellect.

  An aged man is but a paltry thing,

  A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

  Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

  For every tatter in its mortal dress,

  Nor is there singing school but studying

  Monuments of its own magnificence;

  And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

  To the holy city of Byzantium.

  O sages standing in God’s holy fire

  As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

  Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

  And be the singing-masters of my soul.

  Consume my heart away; sick with desire

  And fastened to a dying animal

  It knows not what it is; and gather me

  Into the artifice of eternity.

  Once out of nature I shall never take

  My bodily form from any natural thing,

  But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

  Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

  To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

  Or set upon a golden bough to sing

  To lords and ladies of Byzantium

  Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

  W. B. Yeats

  Once again, Yeats bemoans old age, but out of his despair he fashions one of his most glorious poems.

  Byzantium, an ancient city of Thrace, was renamed Constantinople after the Roman emperor Constantine I. It is the site of the modern city of Istanbul, Turkey. During Constantine’s reign, it was the capital of the Roman Empire and known for its great power and wealth. In a BBC radio broadcast in 1931 Yeats explained his choice of Byzantium as the central symbol of this poem: “I am trying to write about the state of my soul.… Byzantium was the centre of European civilization and the source of its spiritual philosophy, so I symbolize the search for the spiritual life by a journey to that city.”