My Soul Shelf: A Tribute

The professor that had the most impact on my faith and vocation is a dynamite American lit professor named Christina Bieber Lake. I could rave endlessly about how the way she teaches and lives shaped me, but that's not the purpose of this post. Suffice it to say that when I saw this scrawled on a bulletin board in a dorm my junior year I thought that the Bieber was referring to Dr. Bieber, as her students call her. 

Alas - most people are as untouched by her influence as I am untouched by the Justin Bieber fandom. Their loss. One of my best friends and I have declared that Dr. Bieber and Dr. Mazzarella (one of the other professors in the English department) are our spirit animals and we will be a dynamic duo like them when we grow up and achieve our professorial dreams. 

Anyway. Dr. Bieber wrote a book that just came out this month: The Flourishing Teacher: Vocational Renewal for a Sacred Profession. I preordered it, squealed when it arrived in the mail, and read it in four days. It's a mix of wit and wisdom - practical and spiritual - for the teaching life. Though, to be honest, I would give it to just about anybody because it's basically just a good perspective on life in general. I laughed and nodded and underlined and cried and wrote notes in the margins that only I or friends who actually took her classes would understand. 

That was the huge gift of this book - I got to see how Dr. Bieber approaches teaching very deliberately and that the impact that she had on me and my friends was not by chance. I got to marvel anew at the privilege I had of sitting under her as a college student - and of being able to learn from her again as a new teacher, since she is one of the main reasons I figured out I was supposed to teach in the first place.

One of the many life-giving tips Dr. Bieber gives in her book is to build what she calls a soul shelf - a shelf of the books that you can always count on to rejuvenate, inspire, and give your soul rest.

Being the good student that I am (and also being someone who never needs to be told twice to rearrange a bookshelf as a good pastime), I went and built my soul shelf this afternoon. It only took me about 10 minutes, because I know the books that speak to me like that - I just had to collect them on one shelf.  It makes me happy just looking at it. 

Dr. Bieber ordered her soul shelf according to three categories:

Beauty -"What makes me remember that my life here is a gift of immeasurable beauty?"

Simplicity - "What helps me recognize that it is possible to live in the present moment in peace and the fullness of joy?"

Love - "What inspires me to come out of myself and cultivate a healthy love for others?"

Now. These are lovely and very helpful categories. I fully intended to order this list according to them as a handy reference for anyone who stumbles across it. However. Most of the books on my soul shelf fall into at least two of them, and there are many that belong in all three categories.

So here they are. In an order that makes sense to me. Some of them are already on The Bookshelf, while others are new to me in the two years since I created that list. I'll add those to The Bookshelf soon.

BEAUTY * SIMPLICITY * LOVE

A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz - I found this at a used bookstore in January and bought it because I loved the title, I know Milosz, and most of the poets were unfamiliar to me (highly unusual when I pick up a poetry anthology), and most of them did not originally write in English. This book is truly luminous. I read it from cover to cover, which is actually unusual for me when it comes to poetry anthologies. In case you're curious, and these names mean something to you, some poets included who I was previously familiar with are Denise Levertov, Mary Oliver, Walt Whitman, Raymond Carver, and Robert Frost.

Milosz says this in the introduction to one section:

Epiphany is an unveiling of reality. What in Greek was called epiphaneia meant the appearance, the arrival, of a divinity among mortals or its recognition under a familiar shape of man or woman. Epiphany thus interrupts the everyday flow of time and enters as one privileged moment when we intuitively grasp a deeper, more essential reality hidden in things or persons. 

A Thousand Mornings, by Mary Oliver  - This is the only volume of Oliver's poetry that I own (hopefully that will change soon), but it's a good one. Her poems are exquisite, humorous, and bracing by turns. I am always refreshed when I turn to them.

The Stream and the Sapphire, by Denise Levertov - I actually first encountered Levertov through Dr. Bieber, who gave me this slim little volume when I graduated. This is a collection of her poetry engaging with ideas of faith. I particularly love "Annunciation," which is too long to include here, and "Avowal":

As swimmers dare

to lie face to the sky

and water bears them,

as hawks rest upon air

and air sustains them,

so would I learn to attain

freefall, and float

into Creator Spirit's deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.

Come and Eat, by Bri McKoy - I wrote about this book in this post. Bri winsomely and with great joy makes the case that if we want to share the love of Jesus with the world, we need to start by inviting others to share meals at our tables.

"Too often I notice how I can become hardened by the seemingly insurmountable evil in this world. But here's the thing: we know who ultimately wins the battle. We know our Rescuer's name. He is not calling us to rescue anyone; he is calling us to pull out a chair and sit amongst the broken. He is the Rescuer. We are simply an extension of his great love and peace. And he calls us to continue stepping into brokenness and gives us the strength to face the unimaginable under the banner of his love. So we must show up."

Adorning the Dark, by Andrew Peterson - This book. It's a Christian creative manifesto. Peterson started the Rabbit Room, a collective of Christian creatives inspired by the Inklings and Wendell Berry, among others. I underlined and starred and annotated the heck out of this book.

"Righteousness means more than pious obedience; it means letting a strong, humble mercy mark your path, even when - especially when - you don't know where it is taking you. . .Your heart is so full it must be must be poured out. You see the world as a dark, messy place that needs rearranging, and with all that light shooting out of your pores your just the person to do it."

The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom – every Christian should read this at some point. As much the story of a family living faithfully in ordinary life as the story of how they handled the extraordinary circumstances of occupied Holland in WWII. 

“When He tells us to love our enemies He gives, along with the command, the love itself.” 

A Circle of Quiet, by Madeline L’Engle – lyrical memoir by the author of A Wrinkle in Time about faith, life, and creativity.

“An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers...To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.”

Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and Women’s Work by Kathleen Norris - very short, practically a pamphlet, on how important small, ordinary things are in developing the rhythms of life that give us space to walk with God. Dr. Bieber assigned it in the first class I took with her. 

“The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry. ” 

“My goal is to allow readers their own experience of whatever discovery I have made, so that it feels new to them, but also familiar, in that it is a piece with their own experience. It is a form of serious play.” 

One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp – beautifully crafted piece about gratitude, trust, faith, and living in the present. A long-time favorite of mine. 

“...the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is.” 

“A life contemplating the blessings of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ.”

Surprised by Oxford, by Carolyn Weber – riffing off Surprised by Joy, the author’s story of questioning and faith during her time as a masters’ student in Literature at Oxford University. Oozing with literary references and a delightful read. 

“He quickened his stride: 'The truth is in the paradox, Miss Drake. Anything not done in submission to God, anything not done to the glory of God, is doomed to failure, frailty, and futility. This is the unholy trinity we humans fear most. And we should, for we entertain it all the time at the pain and expense of not knowing the real one.” 

The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis - beautiful, funny, poignant, and quick to read, these books provide better imaginative and intuitively graspable illustrations of the life of faith than a lot of theology I've read. (Which is why they so often crop up in sermon illustrations.) And they are simply good stories. The world is a different place with the Pevensie children and the people of Narnia in it. 

The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien - I reread this trilogy every few years, and it gets better every time. Tolkien creates a world where evil is so palpable and powerful that there is only the slightest thread of irrational hope that good will win. The journey of the members of the unlikely fellowship to overcome evil and restore good is moving, funny, imaginative, and profound. It is a reminder that courage and beauty and hope and friendship can be found in the most unlikely of places - even when the forces of evil seem insurmountable. 

"There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."

(To be completely honest, I'm not 100% sure if the above quote is from the book or the movie, but it's a great quote all the same.)

The Tale of Desperaux, by Kate DiCamello – I love this book about a very small mouse with very large ears, a kingdom in desperate need of soup, and a princess named Pea. Is it choice or lineage that makes someone what they are?

“Once upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.” 

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo – this book. Detective story, redemption story, love story, revolution story, with a good dose of random background information on the battle of Waterloo, the sewers of Paris, street slang, and obscure convents thrown in. Stunning on every level. 

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.” 

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee – a classic for a reason. It’s so much more than a story of racial injustice in the Jim Crowe South. It’s a story about childhood and growing up, family, community, and walking around in someone else’s shoes. And who doesn’t love Scout Finch?

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”

Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis – widely considered to be Lewis' best fictional work, this one blows my mind every time I read it. Reimagining of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, with profound things to say about love, integrity, the longing for home, and knowing oneself.

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.” 

Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry - This novel is the ruminations of a man who didn't go many places or do much, but who led a whole, good life. It's a book about inward change even when externals haven't changed much. It's like the river which plays a prominent role in the story: it doesn't go anywhere, but it's always changing. It's a book about calling, about valuing what is, about quiet doubts and quiet faith, with a lot of dry humor thrown in. It's about letting go of the need to "make something of yourself."

"You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out - perhaps a little at a time."

"Faith is not necessarily, or not soon, a resting place. Faith puts you out on a wide river in a little boat, in the fog, in the dark. Even a man of faith knows that (as Burley Coulter used to say) we've all got to go through enough to kill us."

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson – a stunningly beautiful book. One of my top 5 favorite books ever. A letter from a dying father to his young son, it’s a meditation on grace, fathers and sons, forgiveness, faith, and the beauty of this earthly life. People tend to either absolutely love it (that’s me) or be bored to tears because not a ton happens. I love the sequel, Home, too (it’s a kind of prodigal son retelling), but I may just be partial because it touches on themes near and dear to me. 

“This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.”

The Elegance of a Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery – pensive, funny, mildly crass and decidedly European book about a concierge in Paris who is actually a brilliant autodidact. A treasury of small and beautiful things. Originally written in French.

“When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?” 

Little, Big, by John Crowley – I read this for a Christianity and Fantasy class in college, and I’m not sure whether I would have fallen in love with it as much as I did if I hadn’t had the guidance of a fabulous professor. That said, the poetry of the dense prose, the multigenerational narrative, the themes of faith, doubt, love, longing, home, and narrative make this a fantasy I’m confident I’ll return to throughout the years. Be alert to skip some bedroom scenes.

“The further in you go, the bigger it gets.”

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck – extremely dark at times but also at times exquisite, this book is well worth the 600 pages. Set in California around the turn of the 20th century, it’s a multi-generational story about individual choice, the consequences of familial love and lack thereof, and asking questions about what determines someone’s character. I love this book for the secondary characters. Like Les Mis, exceptionally well-done on every level. Lyrical description, powerful exploration of themes, excellent characterization. 

“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?”

Poetry Corner | Dogs and Weather

This is a poem that I associate with my mom and my childhood. It was in one of her favorite collections to read aloud from. 

I'd like a different dog
For every kind of weather —
A narrow greyhound for a fog,
A wolfhound strange and white,
With a tail like a silver feather
To run with in the night,
When snow is still, and winter stars are bright.

In the fall I'd like to see
In answer to my whistle,
A golden spaniel look at me.
But best of all for rain
A terrier, hairy as a thistle,
To trot with fine disdain
Beside me down the soaked, sweet-smelling lane.

~ Winifred Welles

Write 100 | Conclusion

99 days ago I posted about jumping on board with my friend Rebecca's Write 100 project - a crazy challenge to write every day for 100 days in a row.

It was a leap way out of my comfort zone, between my not writing long form and being horrible at any kind of do-something-x-number-of-days-in-a-row endeavor.

For those of you who are curious about how it actually went, here's a report.

I haven't looked at the handy dandy calendar for the challenge in weeks. Since day 67, to be precise. As of day 67, I had missed two days. I'm guessing that out of the last 99 days, I wrote on 94 of them. Which puts me at a 95% success rate, assuming I write tomorrow.

But that's just a guess, due to the many different places I write and my record-keeping failures. It's good for the perfectionist in me to know that I didn't reach my goal and that's ok.

The point never really was to be able to pat myself on the back and say that I successfully checked off one more box.

The point was to write.

And boy, have I written a lot.

During a conference that involved lots of fun things but not nearly enough sleep, I propped my eyelids open each night to journal about the experience.

I wrote pages and pages of letters to pen pals scattered throughout the world.

I wrote twelve blog posts - more than I've written some years.

I even wrote a poem. Well, a poem and a half. Considering that I have not voluntarily written a poem since middle school, that is quite an accomplishment.

In the last 99 days I've had some big decisions to make, some challenging news to process, and so many experiences that come with the territory of living in Germany. Having the specific accountability of the Write 100 challenge in the midst of the crazy has helped me incorporate writing into my life in a way that I've always wanted to.

Now, instead of thinking, "I should write about that sometime," I am much more likely to pick up a pen and actually write. And for that, I'm grateful.

So Rebecca and the Write 100 team, if you ever end up seeing this, thanks for the challenge - it's been a blast. And the writing adventure will most surely continue.

including happy deer with waggly tails and a delightful trip to England

I am a hard-core anglophile.

"Why?" you ask?

Well...the Beatles, Harry Potter, Downton Abbey...

The books, the music, the acting, the tea, the humor, the charm, the stiff upper lip. The Queen. I could keep going, but I'll keep it at that.

Never mind. I have to add one more thing: the food. 

People never have anything good to say about British food.

They are crazy.

Tea and scones, people! And the Brits have honed the savory pie to perfection. It even comes in to-go style as a pasty. Not to mention fish 'n' chips, eaton mess, the English breakfast, and tarts. And all the cool ethnic food that worked its way to England from all over the former empire.

But I've gotten totally derailed.

What I started out to say is that, being an anglophile, my li'l anglophile heart was in high heaven over Memorial Day weekend. Dad's holiday lined up with my school holidays, so my parents took me to England. We spent three days in London and one wonderfully glorious day in Oxford.

This post is not going to be a play-by-play of the trip. It's simply a photographic record of some (not remotely all) of the moments we enjoyed during four ridiculously non-rainy days in England.

OXFORD

I forgot how much Oxford felt like my native environment. 

I don't even care that this line isn't in the book. Of course it needs to be up in The Eagle and Child. It just does.

If you zoom way into the first picture you'll two specks in the middle of the field of gold. Which specks are happy deer with waggly tails.

Our friend the gargoyle. We didn't think to name him. If we had, he would have been Bob evermore.

I was intrigued by this one word on a paving stone in Merton College.

All sorts of things came to mind.

Well, then.

Oh well.

Well...

All shall be well.

And then I asked the porter who informed me that the stone marks the location of the well so that should there be plumbing issues they would know exactly what part of the courtyard to tear up.

Ah, well.

Colors and neutrals coinciding.

The Divinity School.

Apparently collegiate croquet players are exempt from the mandate to 

PLEASE

KEEP

OFF THE 

GRASS

.

.

.

LONDON

Hello, Portobello Road.

Who knew a black house could be so charming and inviting?

The sign requests visitors to please keep to the path. I love the fact that the "path" is a mowed strip of lawn while the rest has been allowed to run wild. This is Kensington Palace Gardens, y'all. And in the middle of this grand spot we have a meadow.

We went to the Victoria and Albert Museum solely to partake of their scones. Because the scones at the V&A are the best in the world. And the museum cafe's decor is a dazzling combination of Arts & Crafts style and modern snowball chandeliers. It's pretty much my favorite.

This takes the idea of gutting a building to a whole new level. I mean, the facade is left but EVERYTHING else is gone. Respect.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have some really futuristic stuff going on here... I would never have guessed that this was London. It feels more like Seoul. But it's just down the river from Westminster. Who knew?

We went to Motown the musical, which was super fun. The sign below was posted all over the theater and definitely gives a sense of the mood of the show:

I was definitely dancing in my seat. (How can you not dance in your seat to "I Want You Back" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"?) But no one asked me to moderate my enthusiasm. So maybe I wasn't enthusiastic enough?

The South Bank of the Thames:

Covent Garden:

There was a random magnet board on a wall in a secluded square in Covent Garden. So Mama and I collaborated on a poem.

dazzle away

shadow

with 

light

We were quite satisfied with ourselves.

A new way of seeing the Underground icon.

The whole time we were there, I kept thinking: I want to live here! 

Who knows? Maybe I will again. If I could make it back to Germany I can make it back to the UK. One can always dream.

Poetry Corner: two wintery poems by Robert Frost

"Good Hours"

I had for my winter evening walk -
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.

And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.

I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.

Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o'clock of a winter eve.



"Dust of Snow"

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Poetry Corner: The Children's Hour

Last night, I got back to my (temporary) apartment at that elusive time when the day is done but it's not quite night. And the opening line from The Children's Hour came to me: "Between the dark and the daylight / When the night is beginning to lower..." This poem is one of the poems that I inadvertently memorized during my childhood because my mom read it aloud to us so often. Here it is. 

"The Children's Hour"
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight,
   When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
   That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
   The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
   And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
   Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
   And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
   Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
   To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
   A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
   They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
   O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
   They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
   Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
   In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
   Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
   Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
   And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
   In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
   Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
   And moulder in dust away!

6 Things I Learned in August

Taking Emily Freeman's lead to share things I learned this month - from the silly to the strange to the sometimes profound. I was surprised how much I missed doing this last month, and I've been looking forward to this all of August. Yes, I look forward to strange things.

1. Minions make me really happy.

I don't know if this is true in the states, but over here minions are everywhere. After I pointed them out in advertising for the umpteenth time, Mom said "I had no idea you loved minions so much."  Not sure if I love them or not, but they certainly make me grin whenever I see them. I think it's the yellow + the crazy + the happy.

2. apple cider vinegar + dish soap + water = fruit fly trap. 

Part of the cultural adjustment in moving to Germany is separating out trash - Germans are masters of recycling. I actually really enjoy having a separate bin for kitchen waste, but it attracts fruit flies like nothing else. I did some googling and found this simple recipe for a fly trap. It hasn't totally solved the problem, but we've gotten rid of quite a few of the nuisances this way.

3. The iPhone activity pedometer is totally unreliable.

I finally jumped on the iPhone bandwagon after four years of resistance. (A Target associate was flabbergasted right before I went to college when my dad explained his problem: he wanted to buy me an iPhone and I absolutely refused to get one.) So of course now I'm trying out all the new gadgets. The pedometer? It informed me after a 90 minute walk that I had gone just under 1 mile. Ha. No.

4. Pocahontas quotes the Greek philosopher Heraclitus.

I've been reading a survey of philosophy and discovered to my surprise that the line "you can't step in the same river twice" is actually not original to Disney songwriters but rather to Heraclitus. Somehow I missed this fact in previous philosophy surveys. You learn something new every day if you're lucky. (For the remainder of that particular day I had Just Around the Riverbend stuck in my head.)

5. Speaking of songs that get stuck in your head, there's a German term for that: Ohrwurm. 

Literally, "ear worm." How's that for a vivid image of that aggravating song that you can't get off your mind?

6. Project Gutenberg is a goldmine.

My kindle usage has skyrocketed since the move, and I've rediscovered Project Gutenberg. The newest gem I discovered on it is that they have all of the Anne of Green Gables books! (All, that is, except Windy Poplars. What's with that?) So many classics.

7. If you want to strike up a friendship, compliment the person's haircut. 

Bonus: Here's a picture of when we moved to Germany 11 years ago. We thought we were so old. And now I look back at my 11-year-old self and mentally pat myself on the head.

What unexpected things did you learn this month?

Poetry Corner: "Poetics of Faith"

I found this poem during a rainy-day perusal of a new volume of poetry - Denise Levertov's collection The Stream & the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes. I love how she uses the form of the poem to make waves with her words. It's also a good one to read aloud. 

Poetics of Faith
by Denise Levertov

'Straight to the point'
             can ricochet,
                      unconvincing.
Circumlocution, analogy,
             parable's ambiguities, provide
                       context, stepping-stones.

Most of the time. And then

the lightning power
             amidst these indirections,
                       of plain
unheralded miracle!
              For example,
                        as if forgetting
to prepare them, He simply
             walks on water
                       toward them, casually -
and impetuous Peter, empowered,
             jumps from the boat and rushes
                        on wave-tip to meet Him -
a few steps, anyway -
              (till it occurs to him,
                        'I can't, this is preposterous'
and Jesus has to grab him,
            tumble his weight
                        back over the gunwale).
Sustaining those light and swift
              steps was more than Peter
                         could manage. Still,
years later,
              his toes and insteps, just before sleep,
                         would remember their passage.

Poetry Corner: "Questions of Travel"

Sharing poetry is a deeply-ingrained habit in my day-to-day life that has occasionally spilled over onto the blog. As of today, I'm planning to share some of my favorite poems more frequently on this platform. As I live in limbo between places and ponder an itinerant lifestyle, this one has been on my mind. I love it for the questions and the imagery. Enjoy! 






Questions of Travel

by Elizabeth Bishop

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
- For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.

Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
- Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
- A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.

- Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages
- Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
- And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:

'Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?

Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there... No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be? '