Through the Prism: Diversions; Or, I'm Librarian, Not Human

A miscellany of items that have pleased and amused me lately.

Though I'll start with this little thing I wrote a couple of weeks ago, attempting to capture a vague feeling. It's an unfinished fragment.

I don't dwell much on the past. My memories, such as they are, are not usually sense memories of the [fleshy] experience of events; they are the ideas of what happened. The gist of events layered over with the associated emotions and insights and impressions I took away. I hold onto the ideas and don't bother with trying to record the details in storage. My memories are not the substance of stories, they are more an accumulation of lessons and, I hope, wisdom. And, even so, I don't spend much time dwelling them. Instead, I let them organically and associatively inform my current moment so I can focus on the present as much as possible.

I've been told many times--by many people in many circumstances--that I'm naturally reflective. So I guess I do think about the past. Just not as memories.

I've always wanted to be a storyteller, but I never feel I have any stories to tell.

I have analysis to share.

I don't think in stories.

I've also never remembered my dreams. There have been times that sleep has felt like anesthesia--I go dark, I wake up, with no sense of any passage of time in between. If I dreamt, I didn't know it. As I've aged, as I've come closer to accumulating a life's worth of issues and grief, my dreams have gotten more vivid. I know because now I'm at least aware that dreaming is happening. The vague impressions I'm left with of them, my dreams dwell on the past and subconsciously process the old memories I ignore during waking times.

I know what the solution is, of course, to becoming a storyteller: to apply myself and learn the skill.

I think that bit of writing might have been a reaction to reading the book Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye. Or maybe the Rattle poem On the Poverty of My Imagination by Tiffany Beechy. I'm not sure anymore. But I think it's relevant to both. And to the book I just finished this morning, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. I'll share more about all three in a bit.

But, first, some less serious diversions.

Recently, our oldest, age eight, took his clothes off and headed into the shower with the bedroom door open. From the other end of the hall, we heard the voice of his six-year-old brother saying something he didn't learn at home: "[Older], you have a beautiful booty, but please tuck it in!"

Aside from his clear attempt to amuse, l was impressed by his ability to couch a critique within a compliment so it didn't feel so negative.

Speaking of [Younger], this morning I took a look at one of the pieces of paper he brought home from school and was inspired to write this as a caption for sharing on Facebook:

It's the little things. A cursory glance and you miss them, but if you slow down enough, take your time to pay attention and really absorb, you can have all kinds of delightful discoveries--like your six-year-old working on his beginning handwriting taking the time to add the word "vampire" for a bit of flair, personality, and agency. And now you know him that much better.

Also, recently his class celebrated the 100th day of school with a party, which he'd been looking forward to. I guess we didn't notice that he snuck some favorite stuffies into his backpack that morning, because he posted these pictures to his school app* in the middle of the day:

(*Which is how he submits work during remote learning and shares work with parents during regular.)

I've found diversions particularly necessary lately. Two years of pandemic life plus other difficulties, and I'm instinctively doing my best to avoid reality. I can't seem to keep my thoughts focused on the moment, to be mindful. All I do is fantasize about creative pursuits and other escapes. This meme captures it nicely.

So far 2022 is a void. Bobby Hill knows.

For example, I found this little guy on FB Marketplace a couple of months ago billed as a gargoyle, but he's always seemed a bit more of a dragon to me. I recently got a new set of acrylics for painting D&D miniatures (and maybe pictures?), so I decided to change his look. He makes a perfect guardian for my treasure hoard. Now I just need to name him.

Plus a bonus shot of the three goats (plus a few other things) that were the first thing I painted with my new paints:

I want more escape than reality at the moment.

Stoneware mugs I've painted with glaze during the pandemic:

It helps, I think, that I'm not human but librarian. Mutually exclusive categories, I believe.

From When Friendship Followed Me Home by Paul Griffin.

This was presented as humor, but I find it quite true, relevant, and helpful.

49% of library science is saying, “I don’t know, but I can find out.” I don't know . . . I think the percentage is actually much higher than that. And it's an essential skill for all the humans, not just librarians.

Did you know that cats can get special dispensation to become librarians?

Ah, but I teased more serious fare in the opening. Let's shift gears a bit to those things I mentioned earlier. First, the poem from Rattle.

Tiffany Beechy

ON THE POVERTY OF MY IMAGINATION

The problem is, nothing happens in the world. There is
distance: vast stretches, wide dun-colored vistas, jungles,
lava flows, river deltas, ice fields. But I can walk out my
door and run, literally run into the utterly fixed and frozen.
I feel confident these dummies multiply ad infinitum, filling
space. The doorman to my apartment—his eyes never
leave me. I whack him with the same phrase day after
day. He never changes his uniform. His smile is the same.
My mother never changes her position on the couch, never
cleans her braces. Dad never talks. I have no siblings.
It is not that there is nowhere to get to. I could fly far
away, in fact I have been all over. The farthest
was Prague. People were just standing around.

—from Rattle #30, Winter 2008

Yes, I think maybe that inspired the fragment I wrote, thinking about my own impoverished imagination.

Next, the book Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye. My review:

Lovely.

This is my first time reading one of Nye's books of poetry--I've read isolated poems here and there, but not one of her books; so I believe this is a bit of a "greatest hits" compilation that might be repetitive to those who know her work better, but for those (like me) who don't it's a really nice collection. A wide variety of styles and topics with shared themes. It inspires me to try my hand at crafting some pieces of my own.

Nye generally writes for kids and the book is fully accessible to younger readers, but there is nothing about her poetry that excludes teens or adults, and older readers will enjoy these poems as much as younger ones will.

This is an excellent representation of why she has the reputation she does--as one of our best.

And the poems I flagged as most moving and resonant:

Yellow Glove

What can a yellow glove mean in a world of motorcars and governments?

I was small, like everyone. Life was a string of precautions: Don’t kiss the squirrel before you bury him, don’t suck candy, pop balloons, drop watermelons, watch TV. When the new gloves appeared one Christmas, tucked in soft tissue, I heard it trailing me: Don’t lose the yellow gloves.

I was small, there was too much to remember. One day, waving at a stream—the ice had cracked, winter chipping down, soon we would sail boats and roll into ditches—I let a glove go. Into the stream, sucked under the street. Since when did streets have mouths? I walked home on a desperate road. Gloves cost money. We didn’t have much. I would tell no one. I would wear the yellow glove that was left and keep the other hand in a pocket. I knew my mother’s eyes had tears they had not cried yet, I didn’t want to be the one to make them flow. It was the prayer I spoke secretly, folding socks, lining up donkeys in windowsills. To be good, a promise made to the roaches who scouted my closet at night. If you don’t get in my bed, I will be good. And they listened. I had a lot to fulfill.

The months rolled down like towels out of a machine. I sang and drew and fattened the cat. Don’t scream, don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t fight—you could hear it anywhere. A pebble could show you how to be smooth, tell the truth. A field could show how to sleep without walls. A stream could remember how to drift and change—next June I was stirring the stream like a soup, telling my brother dinner would be ready if he’d only hurry up with the bread, when I saw it. The yellow glove draped on a twig. A muddy survivor. A quiet flag.

Where had it been in the three gone months? I could wash it, fold it in my winter drawer with its sister, no one in that world would ever know. There were miracles on Harvey Street. Children walked home in yellow light. Trees were reborn and gloves traveled far, but returned. A thousand miles later, what can a yellow glove mean in a world of bankbooks and stereos?

Part of the difference between floating and going down.

-----

Sometimes I Pretend

I'm not me,
I only work for me.

This feels like
a secret motor
chirring inside my mind.

I think, She will be so glad
when she sees the homework
neatly written.

She will be relieved
someone sharpened pencils,
folded clothes.

-----

Famous

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

-----

United

When sleepless, it’s helpful to meditate on mottoes of the states.
South Carolina, “While I breathe I hope.” Perhaps this could be
the new flag on the empty flagpole.
Or “I Direct” from Maine—why?
Because Maine gets the first sunrise? How bossy, Maine!
Kansas, “To the Stars through Difficulties”—
clackety wagon wheels, long, long land
and the droning press of heat—cool stars, relief.
In Arkansas, “The People Rule”—lucky you.
Idaho, “Let It Be Perpetual”—now this is strange.
Idaho, what is your “it”?
Who chose these lines?
How many contenders?
What would my motto be tonight, in tangled sheets?
Texas—“Friendship”—now boasts the Open Carry law.
Wisconsin, where my mother’s parents are buried,
chose “Forward.”
New Mexico, “It Grows As It Goes”—now this is scary.
Two dangling its. This does not represent that glorious place.
West Virginia, “Mountaineers Are Always Free”—really?
Washington, you’re wise.
What could be better than “By and By”?
Oklahoma must be tired—“Labor Conquers all Things.”
Oklahoma, get together with Nevada, who chose only
“Industry” as motto. I think of Nevada as a playground
or mostly empty. How wrong we are about one another.
For Alaska to pick “North to the Future”
seems odd. Where else are they going?

-----

Valentine for Ernest Mann

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

-----

Gate A-4

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
"If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately."

Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. "Help,"
said the flight agent. "Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this."

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
"Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?" The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, "No, we're fine, you'll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let's call him."

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I
thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they
were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

Finally, what I suspect is semi-autobiographical, the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.

Such writing!

To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.

The narrator explores his life through the lens of his relationships with those he loves: his mother, grandmother, and first love primarily; to a lesser extent his grandfather and a few others. He presents the story as a letter to his mother, reflecting on his memories. They include war, trauma, abuse--violent and drug--immigration, poverty, sex, and more. His language is beautiful and fluid, flowing from moment to moment, theme to theme, reality to dream, metaphor, and figurative imagery.

I'm not telling you a story so much as a shipwreck--the pieces floating, finally legible.

It is personal, intimate, painful, powerful, and (yes, it must be said) gorgeous. Such gorgeous, amazing writing.

"Hey," he said, half-asleep, "what were you before you met me?"

"I think I was drowning."

A pause.

"And what are you now?" he whispered, sinking.

I thought for a second. "Water."

-----

"Where am I?" you say. "Where is this?"

Not knowing what else to say, I say your name.

"Rose," I say. The flower, the color, the shade. "Hong," I repeat. A flower is seen only toward the end of its life, just-bloomed and already on its way to being brown paper. And maybe all names are illusions. How often do we name something after its briefest form? Rose bush, rain, butterfly, snapping turtle, firing squad, childhood, death, mother tongue, me, you.

Only when I utter the word do I realize that rose is also the past tense of rise. That in calling your name I am also telling you to get up. I say it as if it is the only answer to your question--as if a name is also a sound we can be found in. Where am I? Where am I? You're Rose, Ma. You have risen.

-----

Yes, there was a war. Yes, we came from its epicenter. In that war, a woman gifted herself a new name--Lan--in that naming claimed herself beautiful, then made that beauty into something worth keeping. From that, a daughter was born, and from that daughter, a son.

All this time I told myself we were born from war--but I was wrong, Ma. We were born from beauty.

Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence--but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it.

I want to tack on a couple more pieces of literature I haven't mentioned yet, starting with my review of Ain't Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin.

Marvelous!

If the word "marvelous" can be used to describe how superbly the author and illustrator have managed to capture, to evoke an experience that is horrible.

Reynolds has written a poem that Griffin has broken into bits and generously illustrated--the pages are not numbered, but I'd estimate between 100 and 200 spreads for a poem that that would be just a few pages of text by itself. The combination is powerful.

The year is 2020. A Black family is trapped in quarantine in their apartment. The protagonist's dad is sequestered to his bedroom with Covid-19. He sits and watches as his sister won't get off her phone, his brother won't stop playing video games, and his mom won't change the channel on the TV, which constantly reports a world on fire with pandemic and racial violence. All he wants to do is be able to breath. Just breath.

That's the story, the book, the experience. It might not seem enough to fill all these pages, but it is. That, and the protagonist's ability to find just enough brightness in that setting to continue to breath.

It is marvelous in its power.

And another poem from Rattle.

Nancy Miller Gomez

HOW ARE WE DOING?

The man working window eleven
at the DMV wears his name around his neck
like a medal won in a war
he never signed up for. Even from here,

three people back, I can see
Frank is having a bad day.
He keeps tapping the same key, hoping
the computer will do something different.

Poor Frank tapping harder and harder,
pausing sometimes to stare owl-eyed
at a young woman waving her paperwork
as if she’s trying to reignite

a dying fire. Her pretty face has grown ugly
in her anger. She smacks the counter, demanding
to know the problem. Roused from a desk,
a grenade-shaped woman drifts over

to hover above Frank and watch him struggle.
She gives directions in a tight, managerial voice
(so unmusical you’d call it noise) while Frank
continues to tap and tap until finally,

she commandeers his keyboard, fixes the issue
and walks off, leaving the stamping
and stapling to Frank, who hustles
with a deference that hurts to watch. Meanwhile,

the man waiting in front of me has fallen
victim to time and huffed out of the building.
But Frank, I want to lean over the counter
into your small, personal space and straighten

your reading glasses that have gone askew.
Their broken frames hang cockeyed
off the thin bridge of your nose like pipe cleaners
in a preschool project. I want to batten down

that piece of your hair sticking up. Except
I’m still in a line that isn’t moving,
and I fear the office will close
before I’ve had a chance to tell you

how sorry I am that life has brought you here
to this place where all these people
unwind like a frayed rope
into the unhappy well of your work days.

But finally, it’s my turn, Frank,
to look you in the eyes and ask you
to process my papers. How hard is it, really,
to notice the way you bunch

one corner of your mouth
into a half-smile, or blink
at the mention of your name,
a name I have carried in my heart

for all of these twenty minutes.
So when you hand me back
my temporary license, along with a form
that asks, How are we doing?

I want to believe there is someone
watching over us to whom I can respond,
Please, we’re not doing well here.
We have so little

time for kindness. We are lonely
and hurting. The doors to the building
have been locked. The office is empty.
And night has just begun.

—from Rattle #74, Winter 2021

Okay, that's enough of that.

Do you know why the sun rises into the sky every morning? Did you know the sun is a giant cycloptopus eye? Here's the science.

MANY THOUSANDS OF WINTERS AGO, THE WORLD WAS TOTALLY DARK. A BEAUTIFUL BUT EVIL PRINCESS NAMED ZIZZELLA RULED OVER THE ENTIRE LAND.

A GREAT WARRIOR NAMED STONEBACK THE SOLID ASKED ZIZZELLA TO MARRY HIM. SHE AGREED, BUT ONLY IF HE COULD BRING HER THE EYE OF THE CYCLOPTOPUS.

FOR YEARS, STONEBACK SEARCHED FOR THE FEARSOME CYCLOPTOPUS, WHICH WAS HARD TO FIND IN A WORLD THAT WAS TOTALLY DARK. FINALLY HE FOUND IT, SLAYED IT, AND RETURNED WITH THE EYE.

BUT ZIZZELLA NEVER WANTED TO MARRY STONEBACK. SHE THOUGHT THAT THE CYCLOPTOPUS WOULD EAT HIM AND HE WOULD NEVER RETURN. WHEN HE SHOWED UP FOR THE WEDDING, SHE AND HER SUBJECTS WERE GONE.

STONEBACK WAS FURIOUS! HE VOWED TO FIND HER. BUT IT WAS EASY TO HIDE IN A WORLD THAT WAS ALWAYS DARK. IN A RAGE, STONEBACK SET THE CYCLOPTOPUS EYE ON FIRE AND KICKED IT INTO THE SKY.

THE EYE LIT UP THE LAND, AND DAY WAS CREATED.

EVERY DAY, STONEBACK THE SOLID KICKS THE BURNING EYE INTO THE SKY AND SEARCHES FOR ZIZZELLA!

We must hope that Stoneback never finds Zizzella, or the cycle will be broken.

From Fangbone! Third-Grade Barbarian by Michael Rex.

A dialogue in the comments when I shared on Facebook recently:

Her: Man harasses woman, woman dodges man, lots of people help her hide, man hunts woman. Or, taken at face value, why does he want to marry her if she's evil?

Me: And aren't most of our famous histories and legends the story of an obsessive man unwelcomingly harassing a woman? It's part of how we learn to be "men." (Or, if not a woman, then an obsessive pursuit of power or fame or immortality or etc.)

Her: And women are deemed evil temptresses for existing attractively.

Finally, a few observations I've made lately.

Abandoned glove says, "Live long and prosper."