I steal this title, slightly, from a Robert Frost poem. Part of this blog will be the act of sharing things that I like, from other writers, with my friends.
I have recently experienced things that have been hard for me to put into words for all the words they would require–my experience of L’Arche, the experience of meeting two of my favorite living poets in Dublin right before I left for California. It is easier for me to get at things through poetry or fiction, or better yet, for me to write about other people’s lives, as I could in journalism (to be clear, I don’t find this blog to be journalistic. But it is certainly not artistic either.)
So rather than saying things mediocrely or inadequately, thus doing the experiences and myself an injustice, I would currently like to share a poem that I have been thinking of while my REI three-day pack calls to me to be packed, four days before I am to leave for Europe. I will find a way to write about the things previously mentioned–more immediately, I have been asked to write a reflection for L’Arche Belfast’s blog, so that will be here shortly.
Some of my friends have, over the course of our friendship, asked to read things that I have written. I don’t intentionally hide things away for fear that you will suddenly discover that I am not yet writing anything worth of a Pulitzer or National Book Award. Rather, I need quite a lot of mental solitude to write, a lot of reflection and more formal practice. I would however, benefit from a few people willing to discuss drafts with me, with the understanding that drafts are an important, and incomplete, part of a process.
I used to paint, so I used to have the confidence that the initial sketches of a painting–or any other work of art–needn’t look like the final product. That did not bother me because much is gained in the process of painting, in taking the 5-foot test, in experimenting with different methods of applying paint. But for some reason, in my mind, that insight did not previously hold true with the process of writing. That is changing, and I think that once I am more settled at one address for at least a year, I would like to seek out a writing group.
For the time being though, Frost and Roethke.
TREE AT MY WINDOW
Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.
Vague dream head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.
But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.
That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.
Robert Frost.
I would also like to share a musical interpretation of one of my favorite Roethke poems, ‘In a Dark Time,’ by Irish singer and songwriter Susan McKeown, who was introduced to me (musically, not personally) by a good friend.
