I could be spending my time working on papers and assignments due before the semester is over. Instead, it would seem that I argue the finer points of feminist theory and paint in between classes.
My head is a funny place to be these days. Things are mostly well, and sometimes not well, and sometimes great.
Here, have a Sue Goyette poem:
"The True Name of Birds"
There are more ways to abandon a child
than to leave them at the mouth of the woods.
Sometimes by the time you find them, they’ve made up names
for all the birds and constellations, and they’ve broken
their reflections in the lake with sticks.
With my daughter came promises and vows
that unfolded through time like a roadmap and led me
to myself as a child, filled with wonder for my father
who could make sound from a wide blade of grass
and his breath. Here in the stillness of forest,
the sun columning before me temple-ancient,
that wonder is what I regret losing most; that wonder
and the true name of birds.
That is wonderful poem.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely agree with it.
I think it's great though, and it fits. Sometimes in our attempts to "grow up" (aka doing work all the time) we neglect the beautiful things that make us ourselves, the things we loved as children, the true name of birds.
So paint pictures and argue feminist theory, if only to keep yourself sane.
Maybe somewhere in it you will remember the true names of the birds you have forgotten in an attempt to "grow up".
Because being truly grown up is knowing yourself.
Susie, I'm glad we're friends.
ReplyDeleteThere was a girl in my seminar who was presenting on Sue Goyette, and she read this poem. And then she read it again. And she read it again. Because we asked her to because it is just...so perfect.
I feel like I'm getting lost in the shuffle sometime. Maybe it's just the time of year, but I feel as though I'm just scraping by some days. I think part of it is losing that sense of self you're talking about, the little things that make a person. We're more than the sum of our parts.
"Know Thyself," right?