PLEASE

A year ago, Hajnalka and I were trekking through Golden Gate Park, eyeing the yachts off in the distance, as they raced mightily for "The Cup". We gave them barely a side-long glance; we were there for the hills to climb, to revisit the Haights, so to speak. We are packing now to spend some downtime with them crawfish and po'boys "'way down yonder in N'Orleans". We don't expect to see many hills there, save those of steamin' hot rice and red beans that We Shall Overcome.

While completing a writing assignment for Penn U.'s ModPo (a Coursera program), distant voices came back to me, spanning across years, carrying their precious cargo. One of those voices was from the "Minstrel of the Dawn", Gordon Lightfoot. The year was 1968...On the back of his album, "Back Here on Earth", were the capped-words below, words to all, or any, of us who have never heard what it is exactly, that is "Blowing in the Wind".

Bob Dylan, like myself, a Lightfoot fan, called him one of his favorite songwriters, and observed that "when he heard a Gordon Lightfoot song he wished it would last forever."

Here's why:

PLEASE

I SEE MYSELF AS A CHILD
STILL EAGER TO LEARN BUT LOATHE TO ACCEPT
WHAT PASSES FOR REASON
I SEE MY FELLOW MAN
AS A CREATURE OF INFINITE GRACE
BOUND BY NATURAL LAW TO CREATE
YET CONTROLLED BY HIS OWN CREATIONS
I SEE THE WILD BEAST OF THE FOREST
AS NATURE'S OFFSPRING
SURROUNDED BY MYSTERIOUS BEAUTY
SEEKING COMFORT AT THE BREAST
OF MOTHER EARTH
VIOLENT YET INNOCENT
LIVING UPON THE REMAINS OF THE WEAKER ANIMALS
WHICH HE HAS STALKED AND KILLED
I SEE THE POET AS A WORD PROPHET
A DEALER IN SONGS AND PHRASES
OF WISTFUL MELODIES AND SUBTLE WARNINGS
PASSING HIS NIGHTS IN LONELINESS
TORMENTED BY BLANK PAGES
WHICH CRY OUT WITH DYING BREATH
TO BE FILLED WITH THE
SECRETS OF HIS HEART
I SEE HIM STANDING THIN AND RAGGED
IN THE DOORWAY OF HIS EMPORIUM
FACING EAST ACROSS THE BUSY MARKETPLACE
PAST THE TEEMING CROWDS
ACROSS THE BLAZING CONTINENT
TO THE MOUNTAINS BEYOND
TO WHERE THE MORNING SUN
SHOOTS ARROWS OF ENERGY
AT THE HOLLOWS OF HIS SLEEPLESS EYES
I SEE HIM WALKING
QUIETLY UNNOTICED
THROUGH THE GHETTOS OF OUR CITIES
ACROSS THE ROLLING COUNTRYSIDE
BESIDE THE SWOLLEN RIVERS OF SPRINGTIME
ALONG TRAIN TRACKS AND HIGHWAYS
I SEE HIM TAKING HIS REST
AT TRUCKSTOPS AND SLEAZY HOTELS
IN WORKSHEDS AND WAREHOUSES
LOADING DOCKS AND SHIPYARDS
AND CABINS UPON MOUNTAINSIDES
I WATCH HIM PLUNGE HEADLONG
INTO A RIVER TURNED RED
WITH THE BLOOD OF SLAIN ARMIES
BESIDE BATTLEFIELDS WHERE
PRIDE OUTWEIGHED THE VALUE OF LIFE ITSELF
I SEE HIM WALKING NAKED
THROUGH BUSY UPTOWN STREETS
FILLED WITH PEOPLE AT CHRISTMAS TIME
A SIGN ABOUT HIS NECK
UPON WHICH HE HAS PASTED
IN BOLD TYPE FOR ALL TO SEE
HIS LIFE'S WORK AND EPIC POEM
CONCEIVED BY HIS LONGING AND
FILLED WITH THE PERCEPTION OF HUMANITY
WHICH THE BUSY CROWDS IGNORE
AS THE WIND IGNORES THE TREES
THE ONE WORD                                  PLEASE

(c) 1968 Callee Music Corp
    

Windows on the World

ModPo friends and—


To all those who dwell in Possibility—
To all those who Sing Themselves—This—

 ____________________________________________________

1.

As strikes Thirteen—This Eleventh of September—Morn—

As Dreaded midnight hour flees—This—Our Dreaded Dawn—

I awoke just past midnight restless of mind. Thoughts meandering. Thinking a lot about Dickinson’s and Whitman’s poetry. The place of it in my life. Why should I invest of myself digging for their meaning, I wondered, when I’ve been spending a lifetime—happily—creating large and small meaning for Myself.

I got out of bed and heated up a cup of coffee. I went downstairs to my study and glanced at the volcano, an eruption of books that I’m reading and referencing, piled like lava rocks alongside my easy chair. A biography of T.S. Eliot, and another of his Collected Poems and Plays, Pete Hamill’s Forever, (the one book that I never want to finish reading. It will take me, well, forever,) The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, a collection of Wallace Stevens, The Complete Works of William Blake, The Complete Works of Walt Whitman, The Great Modern Poets of England and America, The Making of a Poem, A Handbook to Literature, Eighteenth Century Poetry and Prose, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, An Anthology of French Poetry (from Nerval to Valery), Dictionaries of English, French, German, and Latin…and these are just the titles that I can make out without restarting the lava flow.Why should I bother? I am just restless and wondering, I think. The coffee is old and strong…it begins to settle me. I need to go back to the future to find the answer. Cup in hand I scan the seeming acres of my often thrice-filled shelves. There, behind J. Barzun and his Decadence and scolding N. Ferguson, almost hidden by good-hearted Lewis' Clash of Civilizations I find what I’ve been searching for. All is calm. All is bright. The coffee has done its job, now I must do mine.

I slide out the autographed copy that I got from him at Barnes & Noble two decades ago. The neat signature--Harold Bloom--under the title, The Western Canon. (Subtitled on the cover, The Books and School of the Ages)—From Dawn to Decadence tumbles to the floor and down again crashes Civilization: The West and The Rest, sorry Niall, but I think I can pick them both up afterwards. But, right now I've got work to do.

I tune to WQXR, adjusting down the volume (so as not to disturb my wife who’s asleep upstairs—I have to wake her at 5:00 a.m.—she'll be off to the Presbytery to prepare breakfast for the hungry mob)—I plop into my Lay-Z-Boy Recliner and turn to those two chapters that expound upon Whitman and Dickinson, and after the closest of close readings place them at the very core of the Western Canon. He’s undecided who’s the better. Not between these two poets, O no, not Professor Bloom. He’s weighing them against Dante and Shakespeare for bragging rights. He slants slightly toward Walt, but is convinced that there has never been, nor will there ever be, a smarter poet than Emily, even if he is never absolutely sure what she means. He complains that she is so difficult that she gave him headaches. So armed now, with that knowledge, I can lay me down to sleep, restfully. At peace with Myself and My Songs.