A two year old Finley. Oh, the anticipation!
I recently discovered the poet, Billy Collins, and have been so mournfully delighted in his insightful art. (He is actually coming to town next week and Todd and I have tickets to go spend the evening with him and his poetry! I can't wait!) I've been enjoying poet Mary Oliver too, right now. Both of them write about death but hold it within such beautiful images of life that it isn't depressing to me, just sublimely bittersweet. Here's one of my favorites from each of them:
Statues In the Park
By Billy Collins
I thought of you today
when I stopped before an equestrian statue
in the middle of a public square.
you who had once instructed me
in the code of these noble poses.
A horse rearing up with two legs raised,
you told me, meant the rider had died in battle.
If only one leg was lifted,
the man had elsewhere succumbed to his wounds;
and if four legs were touching the ground,
as they were in this case--
bronze hooves affixed to a stone base--
it meant that the man on the horse,
this one staring intently
over the closed movie theater across the street,
had died of a cause other than war.
In the shadow of the statue,
I wondered about the others
who had simply walked through life
without a horse, a saddle, or a sword--
pedestrians who could no longer
place one foot in front of the other.
I pictured statues of the sickly
recumbent on their cold stone beds,
the suicides toeing the marble edge,
statues of accident victims covering their eyes,
the murdered covering their wounds,
the drowned silently treading the air.
And there was I,
up on a rosy-gray block of granite
near a cluster of shade trees in the local park,
my name and dates pressed into a plaque,
down on my knees, eyes lifted,
praying to the passing clouds,
forever begging for just one more day.
So this is a rhododendron and not a bleeding heart bush, but it is a large, old one that is incredibly dependable in its blooms every year and this poem made me think of it.
The Bleeding-heart
By Mary Oliver
I know a bleeding-heart plant that has thrived
for sixty years if not more, and has never
missed a spring without rising and spreading
itself into a glossy bush, with many small red
hearts dangling. Don't you think that deserves
a little thought? The woman who planted it
has been gone for a long time, and everyone
who saw it in that time has also died or moved
away and so,like so many stories,this one can't
get finished properly. Most things that are
important, have you noticed, lack a certain
neatness. More delicious, anyway, is to
remember my grandmother's pleasure when
the dissolve of winter was over and the green
knobs appeared and began to rise, and to cre-
ate their many hearts. One would say she was
a simple woman, made happy by simple
things. I think this was true. And more than
once, in my long life,I have wished to be her.
Leafing through a magazine tonight while I nursed Evelyn to sleep I saw a paint advertisement with the headliner, "Potential is the most beautiful thing," as it showed the pale, blank walls of a living room and then the lovely after-photo of the finished room, painted and decorated in light greens and blues. Looking down at my daughter I couldn't help but make the connection. Seeing the analogy I thought of her powerful innocence and the fragility of her emerging self with its future hopes and dreams. It is almost too much for one to bear; thinking of how we seem to lose our enthusiasm as we grow up. We have too many answers and not enough questions. We make more and more assumptions instead of pausing with curiosity when we meet another or listen to a conversation. Boredom and despair creep in to take the edge off our pleasures and inspirations. I have discovered that what I fear isn't death itself, but rather the realization that I am letting my life slip through my fingers with petty grudges and fears, excuses and love and joy witheld from those to whom I most wish to express them.
Finley at two and a half years old.
With this realization I have been making more of an effort to see my life with childlike awe and wonder. Cliche, perhaps, but it is truly a turning point in my life. I see my relationships with my siblings, as much as I love them, blemished with my own judgements and insecurities. Forgive me! I see my days marred by my worry and passive aggressiveness, my urge to blame everyone else for my problems or inconveniences. My marriage, thank goodness, is a solid one, but one that has lost its luster and focus at times, due in large part to these insidious discouragements in my life. Forgive me Love!
Spring is coming and Finley and I have been in the garden and yard together, him happily clipping and cutting whatever I point out as okay to cut or dig out, and me thinking of the absurd subjectivity in deciding between weeds and desirable plants. To Finley they are all the same. And now, with everything brown and dead all winter, it is a fascinating thing for him to see that these sticks are still alive. The bare black branches of the smoke bush have buds, there are purple peony tips pushing their way up through the soil and tiny, curls of new ferns emerge next to the blooming Lenten Rose. Upon closer examination, the lesson I am hoping Finley absorbs is,is that things are not as they first appear. Perhaps, too, the lesson that even in death there is life.
Potential is the most beautiful thing. And I am beginning to understand, the most omnipresent and available, no matter our age...
