Too Romantic?

     I thought I could never get this poem published. It's hard to know if a poem is too emotional or sentimental or overly romantic. In a book on poetry by poet Ted Kooser, there is a poem by another contemporary poet which Kooser said was dangerously close to being too romantic. I thought, "Well, then I must be a downright sap, because I actually think it's somewhat restrained." Compared to Barrett Browning, Byron, and Shakespeare, in fact, I thought it was pretty darn tame! This is why I think many of my poems are unpublishable; but I've discussed (whined about) this at length in earlier posts.

     So I'm very grateful indeed to the editor of Decanto not only for accepting this poem, but for accepting it with alacrity. There are still a few editors out there who embrace the romantic.

     The Falling

     There was something in your soul
     that wrapped around my reason—
     lyrical, warm, and lovely.

     My mind stood still, so it might
     fathom the fugitive light
     that spoke to me through your eyes,

     so it might plumb the shadows
     that softened the sharp corners
     of your uncompromising

     yet humble intelligence.
     My restless hands stretched, yearning,
     to learn the complex texture

     of your deep simplicity;
     the once insensate days pulsed
     with the rhythms of your voice.

     I rejoiced in the rapture
     of knowing that on this earth
     burned the splendor of your soul.

© Leticia Austria 2011
First published in Decanto

From My Big Orange Book

In my Big Orange Book I have copied down several poems by American lyric poet Sara Teasdale. Her poems have resonated with me since college, when I found an early edition of her volume Love Songs in an antiquarian bookstore. She's been a major influence on my own poetry. Though her early work can at times be what one might call "sentimental," her best poems are, in my opinion, quite moving. Her language is accessible and also extremely musical, which is why many composers, including most notably John Duke, have chosen her texts to set to music.

 

Teasdale used this sonnet as the introduction to Love Songs. It has no title, but simply bears the dedication "To E." I assume she wrote it for her husband, Ernst Filsinger. It's one of my favorite Teasdale poems.

 

        I have remembered beauty in the night,

           Against black silences I waked to see

           A shower of sunlight over Italy

        And Green Ravello dreaming on her height;

        I have remembered music in the dark,

           The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,

           And running water singing on the rocks

        When once in English woods I heard a lark.

 

        But all remembered beauty is no more

           Than a vague prelude to the thought of you—

           You are the rarest soul I ever knew,

              Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;

        My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,

              And when I think of you, I am at rest.

 

 

source



You Know You're Middle-Aged When ...

... your shoe size increases. For decades, I wore a 7B. Reliable. Foolproof. When ordered through a catalogue or QVC, I never had to return them. But now ... ! I'm up to 7 and a half, uh, C, sometimes 8, depending on the shoe. Yes, ladies, let's face it, the feet spread along with the hips and thighs. Also, there's menopause and its lovely symptoms, one of which is the waning and waxing (and I'm not referring to hair removal) of various parts of the body, including feet. One never knows on any given day just how much one's feet will swell.

 

... your shoe wardrobe shrinks. Granted, I was never the shoe fanatic so many women seem to be. I don't think I ever owned more than twenty pairs of shoes at once. Ever, honest. Then as a religious, I was allowed only one pair of closed shoes (black), one pair of sandals (black), one pair of gardening shoes (preferably black), and one pair of slippers (any color). Of course, wearing the same outfit every day helped. Ever wonder why nuns' shoes are so—orthopedic? It's because nuns spend so much time on their feet, working, walking, cleaning; and the floors of modern monasteries are often linoleum tile over concrete. Ouch. That'll give you heel spurs, for sure. But even before I entered, my foot health began to decline and I had to give up wearing heels. My shoe wardrobe eventually consisted mainly of Clarks clogs and sandals. I think I had eight pairs of Clarks clogs. Great shoes, those. Did wonders toward relieving my heel spurs and plantar fasciitis. And now I have also discovered crocs, the shoe choice of surgeons and nurses and other people who spend much of their time on their feet. Not that I spend a lot of time on my feet now. But they are great for grocery shopping and other activities that involve much walking/standing on unforgiving concrete floors.

 

... your life is "their" nostalgia. I look at what young people are wearing these past five or ten years, and I think, "I should have saved all my clothes from junior high and high school and sold them on eBay; I'd have made a fortune." Low-riders? We called them "hip-huggers." Boot cut? We called them "flares." (No, not "bell bottoms"; those were a different shape altogether.) Those clingy knit tops they wear over collared shirts? We wore that look in the eighth grade. Those wide leather belts with the metal-rimmed holes? Ditto. Platform shoes and big wedgies? Double ditto. A fortune, I tell you, I coulda made. Coulda-woulda-shoulda!

 

And that's just fashion. Don't get me started on the other stuff. But you know the ultimate sure-fire way to know you're middle-aged? When you start writing stuff like this.

Then and Now

Then: 17 August 2009

     It has been over a year since I started this volume, and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. I've all but abandoned you, and the poetry hasn't been all that forthcoming either. My last poem was over a month ago. If it weren't for my reading—which isn't much, admittedly—my brain would surely atrophy. I lead the life of my mother and father and have none of my own. Or should I say rather, that I have no life outside that of my mother and father? I have devoted myself completely to them.

     I try not to think of the future—too frightening—and when I do feel frightened, I try to submit myself to Providence.

     Too many memories haunt me. Part of me wants to cleave to them as some sort of confirmation of I'm not sure what, and part of me thinks it's perhaps better if I try to put my past lives in a drawer, close it firmly, and never consciously think of those lives again. What pleasure does it give me to think of them? None. Only pain and regret.

     All the regrets I have about my two and a half years in the monastery have yet to be sorted and clarified, and finally—hopefully—converted into a more tranquil, philosophical vein. Right now, I'm still torn between resentment of not being completely understood by the sisters, not having been given enough of a chance, and guilt that I just didn't try hard enough to overcome my need to be the authority in all matters musical and linguistic. Sometimes I think that I wasted the gift of my vocation through sheer pride and obstinacy; and in those moments when that thought torments my peace, I long to have a wise and holy confessor to whom I can pour out my soul. Then again, if I hadn't left, I wouldn't be here to relieve my mother of some of the heavy burden of caring for my father, nor would I have the gift of healing the rift, at least in part, that has long existed between my father and me.

     If I hadn't left opera, I would have spiraled rapidly down the shaft of frustration and dissatisfaction that I had already begun to descend. My friends, dear as they were to me, most likely would not have offered enough to sustain me through my increasing restlessness. My success as a coach would have continued to fuel my pride and my intolerance of what I perceived to be mediocrity. In short, I would have become hateful to myself and undeserving as ever to remain in God's grace.

     No, I am better off where I am, living a humble, hidden, and hopefully useful life. My demons continue to taunt and tempt me, but I try my best to stay close to Jesus and Mary. If my writing never gives any pleasure to anyone except a very small handful of people, I will be satisfied, and not seek anything more.

 

Now: 28 October 2012

     It's a perfectly gorgeous day, one that sets your heart rejoicing the second you go out the door and into the refreshing, golden crispness of autumn. The sky is endlessly brilliant and only the smallest breezes disturb the treetops.

     I'm back in a writing slump after a month of relative productivity, but never mind. I've learned a good deal from that month, received much encouragement and affirmation, and rest in the renewed confidence that I still have it in me to write good poetry. My muse may not be consistent or even reliable, but it isn't dead!

     Mom and I live a very quiet life. The monastery has rid me forever, I think, of the old restlessness that made me jump in my car and wonder where I could go to run away from myself. I was only running away from emptiness. Now I stay at home for contentment. Every night when I hug my mother and wish her a good sleep, I feel grateful and blessed. Life is found inside oneself.

     I no longer feel regret for my time in the cloister. I can now accept peacefully my own shortcomings and my failure to fulfill the vocation God gave me. I look on my present life as his generous gift of a second chance and am happy with that. He has given me back music, too, in a measure I can deal with serenely, without stress or anxiety, just the pure joy.

     My musical past, too, I can now look back on without regret. If my temper and intolerance held me back from accomplishing more than I did, I can only smile ruefully and move on. What have I missed, after all? Nothing at all. I've only been given more than enough, more than I ever deserved.

     I have the peaceful, useful life I have always, at my heart's core, wanted.

Golden Light

John Atkinson Grimshaw
"Golden Light"

 

 

Giuramento (Oath)

 

If autumn's graces never came again,

Its lace no longer glimmered in the lane,

Its leaves no longer wept with cooling rain—

     Still, I would love.

 

Should autumn's music sing its last refrain

And summer ever glisten on the plain,

The memory of autumn will remain—

     So, too, my love.

 

© Leticia Austria 2009
First published in Decanto



"Organized" Is in the Eye of the Beholder

     The other evening, my mother came into my room, looked at my shelves, and murmured, "How do you find anything in here?" To which I gave the inevitable reply: "I know exactly where everything is."

     How many times have we heard this short exchange? And which are you: the ask-er, or the answerer? Whichever you are may tell in the proverbial nutshell a great deal about your character. So you might correctly conclude that, being the answerer, I am somewhat less than neat, maybe even downright messy; but does it follow that I am also unorganized? Are all messy people unorganized, or are there degrees of messiness? And if there are, do these degrees somehow correspond to one's mental processes? Or is one's neatness or messiness an unconscious rebellion, if you will, against those processes? For instance, if one has difficulty organizing ideas into some cohesive whole, does one therefore make up for it by keeping shelves in admirable order, each object in its logical, prescribed place? Conversely, if one "lives" much inside one's own head, amusing oneself by making ordered sense out of random thoughts, does his physical environment pay the price by being neglected and, over time, disordered?

     There may be no easy, formulaic answers to any of these questions; I just put them out there in an effort to defend my own messiness.

     It is perfectly true, however, that I know exactly where everything is in my room, even though, to others' eyes, my shelves are a choked and hopeless jungle of books, file folders, journals, and binders. If you were to ask me to show you how my poem "Elegy" developed from initial concept, through all drafts and revisions, to the final product, I would be able to supply promptly all the relevant information; first, the file containing the rejected poem from which I culled the first line, then the notebook in which I drafted the first versions of "Elegy," then the file that contains typed copies with minor revisions, and finally the binder in which I keep the final version. And you would probably be agape that I could produce all that so quickly and efficiently from my so-called "mess."

     Were I more technologically oriented, all of the aforesaid would be in my hard drive and I would just open the pertinent files. Honestly, though—where's the challenge in that? Where's the fun?  Moreover, where would be the satisfaction in proving that I indeed do know where everything is? I submit that being messy has definite advantages—if nothing else, the mind is made sharper by the sheer exercise of keeping track of one's own mess. Organization begins and ends in the mind. Whether or not it manifests itself in one's surroundings is, IMHO, completely irrelevant.

    
    

Whassup?

     As I headed out the door to go to Mass this morning, I suddenly realized that I hadn't been anywhere at all since I went to Mass last Sunday! A whole week at home. It's amazing how tempus indeed fugit , even when one never sets foot outside the door, if one makes use of imagination, thought, and curiosity. To satisfy any and all of these, there are books and music, both reliable and inexhaustible sources, and both of which I possess enough to keep me happily engrossed for the remainder of my earthly life.

     I've been dipping into two brilliant essay collections these past two weeks: In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G. K. Chesterton,  and Christopher Morley's Philadelphia. The first covers a wide and astonishingly diverse variety of topics from pocket knives to the Book of Job; the second, being focused on the city of Philadelphia, is narrower in scope; nevertheless, Morley often takes us on delightful tangents: a mere slice of sunlight on the side of a building inspires him to write an extended and rather lovely version of the "stop and smell the roses" idea. I look forward to receiving Morley's collection of essays on New York, which I ordered a few days ago.

     In an earlier post I wrote that I also ordered a score of Schubert's piano sonatas so that I could study them in depth while I listened. It arrived yesterday, and I look forward to beginning my study this week. Just glancing through the score, I realized I was imagining my hands playing the notes—inevitable, I suppose. Still, I have no real desire to play. For one thing, though I still have a baby grand, it's in an appalling enough state to discourage anything but the most casual "noodling." Serious practice is completely out of the question, and a very good thing it is so, for me.

     On the poetry front, I've had an extremely fertile month—five new ones and one major revision. This is indeed "fertile" compared to the utter barrenness of previous months. I wrote somewhere in my journal that I would be happy to write one good poem per month, and I still mean that. I'd settle for one good one over four or five mediocre ones, which the Lord knows I've written in many a month in the past several years. No, my reject file is plump enough.

     So that, in a few short paragraphs, is "whassup." I do have definite plans to get out of the house this week, but even if I didn't, there is plenty on my shelves to keep my brain from turning into total mush. Thank the great God for the written word of brilliant men and women, and for glorious music.