Love Your Brother

The unemployment rate continues to dominate the news with everybody being frustrated at its persistently high level.  Friday’s report of an unwelcome disruption in what had been a downward trend for several months is distressing as we head into the holiday season. 

This news is especially ironic in light of another recent news story:  that after only one year of relatively modest payouts, wall street firms and banks are poised to issue bonuses that equal or exceed the breathtaking levels we read about a few years back. ‘We’ve worked hard and we’ve earned it’ is the sentiment I’ve heard expressed by more than one wall streeter. 

Really?  Decision making,  risk taking, deal-making, clever business maneuvering –it’s a bunch of electronic transactions that result in a daily re-allocation of money from here to there.  I 'm far from a Wall Street mover and shaker but that’s pretty much how I spend my days too: sitting in front of a computer, answering and issuing emails,  talking on the phone, and sipping coffee while a space heater blows warm air on my feet.   I’m doing something from 8 to 5, but is it truly work?

Often, when I’m  in the throes of some corporate anxiety,  I receive a phone call from my husband.  He works as a machinist in a warehouse-type setting.  It’s unheated and he stands all day on a cold concrete floor.  “It’s freezing here today” he’ll say, and I picture him hunched over the phone, blowing on fingers chilled from dealing with the machines’ coolant lines.  The machines are loud, there’s heavy lifting involved, and there is no coffee machine, but at the end of the day, they have produced components that are used in cancer treatment apparatus.  His calls spark my daily pang of shame over referring to what I do as ‘work.’ 

Here’s a poem that reminds me to keep all that corporate anxiety in perspective.

What Work Is

        by Philip Levine

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.


Go to this web site to hear Philip Levine read this poem.

Picasso Surprises

Today's announcement of the discovery of 271 works of art by Pablo Picasso is astounding. That these pieces have been languishing in a storage trunk at an older couple's home, and that the couple practically had to beg art authorities to take them seriously is even more astounding. And just when I thought I could be surprised no more, I learned that Pablo Picasso was a poet as well as a visual artist. Who knew? Certainly I didn't!

Apparently, Picasso took to the pen in his later years. In the small sampling I've read, his poems have the same collage-type quality that we see in many of his paintings.

Here's a sample:

15.5.43
the flute the grapes the umbrella the armor the tree and the accordion the
butterfly wings of the sugar of the blue fan of the lake and the azure waves
of the silks of the strings hanging from the bouquets of roses of the
ladders one and incalculable outsized flood of doves released drunk on the
cutting festoons of prisms fixed to the bells decomposing with its thousand
lit candles the green flocks of wool illuminated by the gentle acrobatics of
the lanterns hanging from each arc string and the definitive dawn

               — Pablo Picasso
               — Translation from French by Pierre Joris

Shopping Mania

It was disturbing, but not altogether surprising, to hear that Black Friday actually began this year on Thursday.  Desperate retailers opened late on Thanksgiving night enticing shoppers with coffee and donuts, as if anyone really needed a pick-me-up to sustain himself following an afternoon of turkey, potatoes and pie.   Reports of stampedes and retail tugs of war belied those expressions of gratitude for good health that had been uttered around Thanksgiving tables only hours before.

 

Still, there is a certain conviviality in participating in this most American of rites.  It’s no fun feeling left out, and it’s hard to resist the promise of a one-time-only bargain.  By Friday afternoon, I found myself heading to the mall just to see what I was missing.   

Funny how a person can be in a crowd, and outside of it, at the same time. 

At the Galleria Shopping Mall

by Tony Hoagland

Just past the bin of pastel baby socks and underwear,

there are some 49-dollar Chinese-made TVs;

one of them singing news about a far-off war,

one comparing the breast size of an actress from Hollywood

to the breast size of an actress from Bollywood.

And here is my niece Lucinda,

who is nine and a true daughter of Texas,

who has developed the flounce of a pedigreed blonde

and declares that her favorite sport is shopping.

Today is the day she embarks upon her journey,

swinging a credit card like a scythe

through the meadows of golden merchandise.

Today is the day she stops looking at faces,

and starts assessing the labels of purses;

So let it begin. Let her be dipped in the dazzling bounty

and raised and wrung out again and again.

And let us watch.

As the gods in olden stories

turned mortals into laurel trees and crows

                   to teach them some kind of lesson,

so we were turned into Americans

to learn something about loneliness.

 

Classroom Muse

Early September is back to school time - a curious mix of anticipation and weariness.  On one hand, those new shoes and fresh notebooks foster a sense of beginning - the chance to erase last year's embarrassments, make new friends, and yes, learn something interesting.  Yet, the tide of classroom tedium all too often erodes that initial enthusiam.

Here's a poem that expresses the push of tedium against the pull of possibility.












M. Degas Teaches Art And Science At Durfee Intermediate School -- Detroit, 1942

by Philip Levine

He made a line on the blackboard,
one bold stroke from right to left
diagonally downward and stood back
to ask, looking as always at no one
in particular, "What have I done?"
From the back of the room Freddie
shouted, "You've broken a piece
of chalk." M. Degas did not smile.
"What have I done?" he repeated.
The most intellectual students
looked down to study their desks
except for Gertrude Bimmler, who raised
her hand before she spoke. "M. Degas,
you have created the hypotenuse
of an isosceles triangle." Degas mused.
Everyone knew that Gertrude could not
be incorrect. "It is possible,"
Louis Warshowsky added precisely,
"that you have begun to represent
the roof of a barn." I remember
that it was exactly twenty minutes
past eleven, and I thought at worst
this would go on another forty
minutes. It was early April,
the snow had all but melted on
the playgrounds, the elms and maples
bordering the cracked walks shivered
in the new winds, and I believed
that before I knew it I'd be
swaggering to the candy store
for a Milky Way. M. Degas
pursed his lips, and the room
stilled until the long hand
of the clock moved to twenty one
as though in complicity with Gertrude,
who added confidently, "You've begun
to separate the dark from the dark."
I looked back for help, but now
the trees bucked and quaked, and I
knew this could go on forever.  


http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/philip_levine/poems/19056.html
 

Common Ground

The level of vitriol and one-sided commentary encircling us these days is truly disturbing.  It would be comical if political and social ranting appeared on an Archie Bunker episode or a Saturday Night Live skit where it would be presented as absurdity for humor's sake.   That it appears on news stations and other serious outlets implies that the absurd has somehow become legitimate.

It is even more disturbing that some of this extremism  - despite protestations to the contrary - appears rooted in prejudice.  In fact, it may have been Archie Bunker who drove overt bigotry underground; post Archie, it became socially unacceptable to be explicit about one's prejudices.  Thus, they emerge cloaked in some outlandish 'logic' leading to conclusions that would otherwise be socially questionable.  In my view, many folks unknowingly practice this dynamic, being unable to consider that they might harbor distasteful leanings. 

I think this dynamic has played out about President Obama, as people weave tenuous threads into fabrications that allow them to challenge his legitimacy without mentioning race.  And now, I see it playing out with the mis-characterized "Ground Zero Mosque" which will mainly be a Muslim community center.   Some have said the center would be an insult to 9-11 victims, but I think this masks an unthinking bias.   If we drive the community center away because of its religious affiliation, the greater insult is to our American values.

Here's a poem by Islamic poet, Lena Winfrey Seder.

Society's Disease

Racism, the great crime of humanity.
Why does one's race always claim superiority?
We are all the same; there is no inferiority.
When we look at each other we see a resembling face.
We all have a body and a soul of grace.
As individuals, we do have differences.
Some of us may take risks and chances.
Others of us may be shy and give few glances.
We should find common ground and make peace.
The hatred and killing should desist and cease.
We are all the children of Adam and in life have a lease.
We should lend a helping hand to each other.
We should remember that Eve is our common mother.
We should love our human sisters and brothers.

                                                                                                - Lena Winfrey Seder

Love Bears It Out

The ongoing tug of war over same sex marriage again reversed favor this week with Judge Walker's ruling on California's Proposition 8.   SSM opponents got their toes muddied when a mighty leftward yank of the rope pulled them unwillingly toward the quicksand of  - as they see it - social decline. 

The contention continues, however, as stays and appeals run their courses. While the rope inches back and forth, everyday life continues for couples of all gender combinations.  We're all doing the same things – tending house, raising children, and loving partners.  Yet some couples earn approval while others suffer reproach.  I realize that same sex couples have little choice but to maneuver in such an atmosphere but still, I admire their perseverance.

Here's a poem that speaks to the persistence of love.  Written long ago (obviously), it nevertheless casts a familiar light in today's climate. 

--------------------

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
(Sonnet 116)

William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love ’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.     http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19398

Two Gulfs

I'm sure I'm not the first to compare our current disasters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf.  Both are dominated by oil, and the average American has been little affected by either.

Certainly, there are many families with loved ones serving in the Middle East.  Somehow, they withstand heat, tedium, sandstorms, gunfire, bombs and insurgents.  Survival is their common denominator.   But most Americans have no direct connection to service members;  instead, we pledge our support by pasting yellow ribbon stickers on our minivan bumpers, visible mainly to the car behind us in the Starbucks drive-thru lane.

Likewise, Gulf Coasters have had their livelihoods destroyed, just as suddenly and irrevocably as a soldier maimed by an IED.   We ache for them, and for the oil drenched wildlife we see on TV.  But it's easy for us to bury our distress when the only immediate consequence is a minor increase in the prices of fish and gas.

I've no doubt that ripples from both events will reach the rest of us in years to come.  What forms they'll take, I can't say, but I bet we'll contend with repercussions that finally, cause us to look back on our inaction now and think "If only we had . . . "


Wingspan

Brown pelicans
shrouded in sheeted oil
squat helplessly, their feathers
gummed together,
straight jacketed by pasted wings.
Each sea dive yields
only a blackened beak-pouch
of slicked fish
quieted by oil clogged gills.
They blink through muck
trusting that somehow,
they'll spread their wings again.
I murmur my regret
as I click my seat belt
and gun the engine, bound
on some urgent errand
for lawn chairs
and summer shoes.

         ----Linda Collins