"Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."
- from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", by T.S. Eliot, of course
My only recollection of this poem, until I read it again recently, was the line about daring to eat a peach, and the idea that the love song was not addressed to any woman, but from J.A.P. to himself. I probably did not connect with it when I read it years ago because I was not old, I had no sense that I would ever grow old, and of course I dared to eat a peach, of course I dared disturb the universe - what could possibly be the problem? I thought I was being very non-conformist and free when I was younger but I imagine now that I was as constrained and needy as anyone, rushing to become an adult and prove myself. It is only in middle age that we are able to see the span of life behind us, the span of life yet to come, and can understand our place, and where we might yet go.
I am in love with J. Alfred Prufrock.
He has loved and does love all sorts of women, and himself.
It is not so simple.
When I was thirteen I was infatuated with Erin MacDonald, my gorgeous best friend, who introduced me to Duran Duran and Dokken and James Bond and Tennyson and S.E. Hilton and bad boys and angst. On Saturdays we sometimes biked out of town to the valley, where we found a path through a farmer's field to the woods and eventually to the muddy, twisting Assiniboine River. We would set out a blanket and snacks and read books and dance around and poke sticks at the river bank and imagine that we lived in a different world. This was our poem:
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
That's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost. We found it in "The Outsiders", and memorized it, and often quoted it back to each other. We knew that it applied to us, to our youth; we knew that what we had there in the woods or in each others' basements or walking along the train tracks or in our classrooms passing notes was something transient and special; and yet we ached to grow up, to gain knowledge and experience, to part.
Why is all beauty transient?
"Why must all good things come to an end?" - Nellie Furtado.
Probably time to wrap it up when I start quoting Nellie Furtado. Though that song's quite catchy, as is "I'm like a bird; I wanna fly away" - sticks in one's brain.
To redeem myself for that I will leave off with a bit from my favorite poem EVER, though it does not make me cry, though I suppose someday it might; no, no, I can't see it; it's only ever made me laugh, or shiver with excitement:
From "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens:
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
Seriously! Isn't that hilarious?
Actually it's much funnier when you read all thirteen. So here's another:
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
And another:
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
Okay, last one:
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
Brilliant!
