Merwin and the End of Autumn

It began as terribly as any ordeal by airline ever does, short of the airplane actually crashing; we arrived at our local airport after an hour's drive through the Ohio countryside to find that our first flight was delayed. When it was still delayed, we were moved to another gate. Once we finally got on the plane, sitting with our legs up on the carry-on bags that almost but not entirely fit under the seats in front of us, there was another delay as the ground crew figured out that the weight on our plane was not balanced, that they had no ballast to correct this, and that three passengers would have to get off. Finally they ousted some people and we got in the line to take off, arriving at a different airport twenty minutes before our next flight. But we would not be on it; no, we would still be standing in the aisle waiting for an airport employee to stroll over and push the button to extend the skyway. My daughter shouted helpfully toward the front "open the door and I'll jump!" but her voice went disregarded. Despite our no-doubt-entertaining sprint for the connecting gate on a different concourse, we missed our connection. We did arrive at our destination airport right before the rental car counter closed, and then proceeded to drive down strangely deserted highways under a vast, starry sky for a little more than an hour until we found our motel, looking as if it stood alone in the darkness of the middle of the prairie.

That was how I spent the first weekend after the high school marching band season with my daughter, visiting the college she's most seriously considering. Early decision applications are due next week, so the beginning of November marks the end of any more consideration; it's time to submit.

Our trip back from the college visit went as well as any airline adventure ever can--our flights were on time, and our connecting gate was right next door to the gate we came in, adjacent to a restroom and a small restaurant. When we got back to our local airport, we watched the carousel go around for less than half its circle before our checked bag appeared in front of us. We made it home with plenty of time to get to the W.S. Merwin reading at our local college.

He read--I think "sonorously" is the best word for it. Although I'd been looking forward to this event for months, it took on a dreamlike quality; I would hear the beginning of one of the poems I'd liked best from one of his many volumes and would drift off into contemplation of a word, a line, an image. I think I dreamed a sort of unity between three of his poems and the "too soon autumn" theme I have had going on here since the beginning of September. So I will present you with the three, as another way to mark the end of autumn.

I think of this one with our initial journey late into the prairie night:

Lights Out

The old grieving autumn goes on calling to its summer
the valley is calling to other valleys beyond the ridge
each star is roaring alone into darkness
there is not a sound in the whole night

Isn't that lovely personification? Of course I love the image of the old grieving autumn--it's me--here I am, sampling the bittersweet fruits of having raised a child to be self-sufficient enough to move away.

The next one seems to me to be related because it describes something of how I feel about the end of daylight savings time at the end of this particular autumn:

Long Afternoon Light

Small roads written in sleep in the foothills
how long ago and I believed you were lost
with the bronze then deepening in the light
and the shy moss turning to itself holding
its own brightness above the badger's path
while a single crow sailed west without a sound
we trust without giving it a thought
that we will always see it as we see it
once and that what we know is only
a moment of what is ours and will stay
we believe it as the moment slips away
as lengthening shadows merge in the valley
and a window kindles there like a first star
what we see again comes to us in secret

Yes, overlaid on this fall is the memory of my first fall away from home at college, and the lengthening shadow of Eleanor's first fall away from me. I am going to be only a window kindled in the darkness, a first star, a point to measure the length of her journey.

But there are so many pleasures in the company of an increasingly adult daughter, and in the conversation of the first person I ever had a hand in helping to grow to her full autumnal glory--it was for her that I learned to buy clothing in shades of gold and brown, the colors that suit her best. She is like

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 that 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

She will not be called back. If I could make her stay as I want to it would turn into pain. It's the pleasure of this moment, the beauty of the butterfly in flight, that, like the autumn, has reached a musical pitch that continues straining forward and forward towards what eventually turns into distance.

Raiment

W.S. Merwin is coming to town in November (I guess people who live in Hawaii need to be reminded of why), and he's giving a reading. There was a community-wide book giveaway, and so along with everyone else who got to the farmer's market early enough, my family got a copy of his volume The Shadow of Sirius, which has many good poems that I intend to share with you over the next month or so. The one for today is entitled "Raiment" and it comes first because I've been thinking about a comment on my post about Daddy-Long-Legs--that the main character, Jerusha, seems, to one person at least, unduly focused on appearance (the words used were "shallow and frivolous").

I think that whether one appears frivolous to others depends largely on the self-image (and perhaps the mood) of the person looking. And self-image is something I've been thinking about lately as I continue to recover from years of sedentary work, commuting and over-eating.

As I was on my way to do an errand this morning, I had the thought that my body is getting closer to what my mental picture of it is like. When a woman gets to be a habitual over-eater, her ability to see herself as she really is diminishes. Often she only looks at herself in parts, never full-length and all at once. It takes something like seeing herself in a photograph to bring it home to the over-eater just how divergent her internal image of her self is from the outer image.

This summer, while we were on vacation at the beach, an old friend was sitting with me, watching people walk by; at one point he gestured toward a very tall, thin, and regal-looking older woman and said to me “that’s what you’ll look like when you’re old.” He understood that the way I looked right then was not the way I felt inside. His remark is still giving me the strength to bring my physical self more in line with my mental image of myself. I may never get all the way there; but the closer I get, the more like myself I feel.

In the same way, I think, the urge to distinguish yourself with clothing can be the opposite of frivolous. Read the poem and see what you think:

Believing comes after
there were coverings
who can believe
that we were born without them
he she or it wailing
back the first breath
from a stark reflection
raw and upside-down
early but already
not original

into the last days
and then some way past them
the body that we
are assured is more
than what covers it
is kept covered
out of habit which
is a word for dress
out of custom
which is an alteration
of the older word costume
out of decency
which is handed down
from a word for what
is fitting

apparently we believe
in the words
and through them
but we long beyond them
for what is unseen
what remains out of reach
what is kept covered
with colors and sizes
we hunger
for what is undoubted yet dubious
known to be different
and our fabrics tell
of difference
we dress in difference
calling it ours

I love the way Merwin uses the word "apparently" and the phrase "what is unseen," with their connotations of the intellect.

I've never believed that being an intelligent woman means you don't care what you look like. (Maureen Dowd might argue that such an attitude has developed in opposition to ignorance as chic.) It seems to me that the way pop culture stars like Lady Gaga are manipulating their audiences' ideas about what is "fitting" (the meat dress) might be a sign that we're emerging from the long, dark night of the soul to which no one wears formal dress because "things like that don't matter."

They do matter, and smart people shouldn't be ashamed to demonstrate that they know it.

Dust

No, not the Phillip Pullman kind.

I've been thinking about dust since I got it all over my rental car (the one I'm driving until my minivan is repaired) on a gravel road this weekend. It was on the way back from the Peter Pan reunion picnic, when the cast and crew got together to put the songs back into each other's heads (I'd just gotten the "Wendy" song out of there, and now it's back in again). As I followed the car ahead of me, watching the dust rise and settle, I thought what an unusual sight that is in Ohio. It's always green and wet here. You don't see much dust, even in August.

It made me think of this W.S. Merwin poem, To the Dust of the Road, which I liked when I first read it because it reminds me of places that aren't as green and wet as the place I'm living now:

To the Dust of the Road

And in the morning you are up again
with the way leading through you for a while
longer if the wind is motionless when
the cars reach where the asphalt ends a mile
or so below the main road and the wave
you rise into is different every time
and you are one with it until you have
made your way up to the top of your climb
and brightened in that moment of that day
and then you turn as when you rose before
in fire or wind from the ends of the earth
to pause here and you seem to drift away
on into nothing to lie down once more
until another breath brings you to birth

I've been in places where shade actually makes a difference--parts of Texas come to mind--and the image of wind stirring the dust like this reminds me of being there, far away from all the responsibilities that are about to come crashing down on all of us. The college where Ron and I work is about to start the semester, and Eleanor and Walker go back to school on Friday. We need another few days of drifting, but instead we seem to be rushing around trying to get everything in before our free time is all gone.