|
~ Alan ~
Dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware
Has swiftly vanish'd without trace.
His heroic tones into thin air
Were Silenc'd by the mourners there.
Wherefore art thou, Amazing Grace?
Still ofttimes feeling that all was lost,
Let us bury those scribbling planes.
Our memories now that are emboss'd,
Passéd on by Him who was crossed.
But can the sun extinguish the rains?
O, indeed. And death shall be no more.
We still want those stars- every one-
Which shineth through coffin's swinging door.
All debts have been paid, such a chore;
So nothing, no thing, will be undone.
He hearest the bell that tolls in these
Bright skies; thus Auden had it wrong.
Points on thy compass are what He sees,
And God bless he who disagrees.
So long lives the love. 'Tis never gone.
This poem I wrote is to initially be read in tandem with W. H. Auden's "Funeral Blues," the piece that you, Gloria, read aloud at Alan's memorial.
It is therefore a response to Auden's remarks, but also a tribute to Alan, of course. As I think you're both well aware, Alan had a special influence on me. I may have only known him face-to-face for a short period of time, but still, it was long enough for him to affect and inspire me. I think the little note attached to the poem I sent sums up my sentiments best.
I wrote that Alan was the only person I know who wouldn't have laughed at me for reading Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam for fun. I think that says a lot. Alan also deeply amused me, particularly with his keen, hyperbolic wit. I will never forget, years back, when he gave me a large amount of used books to read and add to my meager collection at the time. Included in this were many books of letters, prose and poetry, anthologies of English literature, several writing style guides, books of geography, architecture, cooking, and numerous novels.
Alan strongly recommended, however, that I read first a novel by Kingsley Amis called, "The Green Man." Having not been introduced to this writer before, I half expected something fairly academic. It turned out to be a story about a money-grubbing owner of a quaint British bed-and-breakfast who wants little more than to bed every eligible woman in the region. I must say, that too says a lot.
Now, without getting too technical regarding the versification of the poem, I will at least say that I had in mind one of my favorite contemporary poems when writing this, Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken." This short piece, in my opinion, is one of the best modern-day English poems written by an American poet. I strongly encourage both of you to read it. Having read it countless times, it still continues to have an emotional impact on me.
"Alan" is structured similarly with regards to its rhyme scheme, which goes a, b, a, a, b. I think I'll leave it at that.
Lines #1) "Dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware"
This is a direct line I took from Rupert Brooke's, "The Soldier," a poem that expresses deeply his feelings towards death and the afterlife; particularly, Brooke was expressing sympathies for those who served in World War One. His belief was that bad memories can in due course be restored to good ones. "England," of course, is where Alan was born, and thus with this first line the poem itself is born. The "dust," in turn, represents Alan before and after his life here on earth, while the soldier is
indicative of his persistent work ethic and his capacity to turn his eventual disability into ability. Furthermore, in the Bible it is said that "dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Genesis 3:19). It seems as though this is fact rather than fiction, regrettably.
#2) "Has swiftly vanish'd without trace."
This is how most of us feel when someone we care so deeply about leaves us, whether intentionally or inadvertently. Death frequently happens so "swiftly" that it feels as though the person has just "vanished," I think it's safe to say.
#3 & 4) "His heroic tones into thin air / Were Silenc'd by the mourners there."
I felt as though Alan's "heroic tones," or his continual words of
insight to us all, were "silenced by the mourners" at his memorial. This is the line, in fact, that first ushers in W. H. Auden's "Funeral Blues," one of Alan's favorites that you, Gloria, read aloud at his memorial. Auden suggests silencing the pianos in light of death. This poem of mine, however, advises we do otherwise, which becomes apparent as it progresses. He also puts forth that "the mourners come," as they did for Alan. This is, moreover, what in the end solidified for me the feeling that Alan was indeed gone.
To be sure, we all have had such a moment. Never before had I walked into that apartment and not seen Alan, so the mood was undeniably saddening, to say the least. I am also alluding to the "heroic tones" of Ludwig Van Beethoven in this line. Alan, as most of us know, was an aficionado of classical music.
It's interesting to note that by the middle of Beethoven's life he was almost entirely deaf, or "silenc'd" in a sense, yet produced his most profound works in what is referred to as the "middle period." I specifically had in mind his Symphony Number Five, also known as "Fate Knocking at the Door." In this piece, Beethoven was clearly alluding to death, and how it is a reality for us all. His disability, like Alan's, was never truly an impediment
#5) "Wherefore art thou, Amazing Grace?"
One might recognize "wherefore art thou" from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." What is very important to note, however, is that in the Bard's poem Juliet is asking 'why' art thou Romeo- this is what the word "wherefore" means; she is lamenting Romeo's name as she alludes to the feud between their two families. In other words, 'why do you have to be from such a family?' 'If only you were from another family we could be together,' and so on.
In this line- the first of two questions in the poem- I am asking God, the "Amazing Grace," the seemingly universal question: If you are an omnipotent, omniscient god, why do you allow death and grief? Or, why are you the "Amazing Grace" when it seems as though you fail to intervene in times of grief? The answer comes later on in the poem.
Furthermore, I am humorously calling Alan, "Amazing Grace." If we are to examine this line as an untrained reader of poetry, the "wherefore," as previously mentioned, is then read as "where." Simply put, it can be read as though I am asking Alan where he is after swiftly vanishing from our lives. The word "Grace" is also a title and form of address for a duke, duchess, or archbishop. I felt the lingo was both appropriate and somewhat comical seeing that Alan was from England.
What's more, my mother's favorite hymn was amazing grace, and it was played at her funeral. Death, therefore, can be seen in a positive light. Alan's passing conjured up memories of my mother. In effect, this line invokes death, memory, the all-powerful and the feeble, along with some hilarity and word play. "Grace" has endless interpretations, including: a characteristic of pleasing qualities; a sense of fitness or propriety; a disposition to be generous or helpful; goodwill; the state of being protected or sanctified by the favor of God, et cetera.
And one more thing to add here- as mentioned, there are two questions asked in this poem When I wrote them I had in mind, amongst other things, the idea of student asking teacher. The notion of the inquisitive mind. Being a teacher myself, I know what it's like to be asked a plethora of questions. Alan, as a professor for many years, was certainly responsive to this as well. In fact, we all have questions about so many things yet, truth be told, we don't always have the answers. I think a major question so many of us have is, what happens to us after we die? Do we truly pass away? forever?
#6) "Still ofttimes feeling that all was lost,"
The central idea here is that we generally feel a great sense of loss for quite some time after someone dear to our hearts leaves us. But there is more to this line. When I was young- only eleven years old- and my mother passed away, I remember not being able to precisely articulate my feelings.
Then, years later as a student of literature, I came upon a magnificent quote from John Milton's "Paradise Lost" that I believe best describes my feelings then- when someone so close to us has abruptly and unexpectedly departed. Such a mood can be found in Book IX. Here is the summary:
Satan,in the form of the serpent, searches for the couple (Adam and Eve). He is delighted to find Eve alone. Coiling up, he gets her attention, and begins flattering her beauty, grace, and godliness. Eve is amazed to see a creature of the Garden speak. He tells her in enticing language that he gained the gifts of speech and intellect by eating the savory fruit of one of the trees in the garden.
He flatters Eve by saying that eating the apple also made him seek her out in order to worship her beauty. Eve is amazed by the power that this fruit supposedly gives the snake. Curious to know which tree holds this fruit, Eve follows Satan until he brings her to the Tree of Knowledge. She recoils, telling him that God has forbidden them to eat from this tree, but Satan persists, arguing that God actually wants them to eat from the tree.
Satan says that God forbids it only because he wants them to show their independence. Eve is now seriously tempted. The flattery has made her desire to know more. She reasons that God claimed that eating from this tree meant death, but the serpent ate (or so he claims) and not only does he still live, but can speak and think.
God would have no reason to forbid the fruit unless it were powerful, Eve thinks, and seeing it right before her eyes makes all of the warnings seem exaggerated. It looks so perfect to Eve. She reaches for an apple, plucks it from the tree, and takes a bite. The Earth then feels wounded and nature sighs in woe, for with this act, humankind has fallen. The exact quote is as follows:
"So saying her rash hand in evil hour / Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate: / Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat / Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe, / That all was lost" (780-784, my emphasis).
When my mother died, I was sure "earth felt the wound" and "that all was lost." A key point to remember also is that John Milton went blind shortly after embarking on "Paradise Lost," yet this served only to stimulate his writing. Like Beethoven, and like Alan, disabilities are not always so incapacitating.
#7, 8 & 9) "Let us bury those scribbling planes. / Our memories now that are emboss'd, / Passéd on by Him who was crossed."
In this line I am trying to offer advice to those who knew Alan. And yet another piece from Auden's poem is brought forth here: "Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead / Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead," says the poet. My opinion is that we not do this, which is why I recommend burying "those scribbling planes" instead of a truly wonderful man and all ensuing memories. After all, as I point out, it's too late anyway. Our memories of him are already "emboss'd," or imprinted forever, in our minds and in our hearts.
Moreover, I consider memory to be a gift, one that was"passed on by Him"- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit- "who was crossed." Jesus was crossed, or betrayed, by Judas Iscariot, as written in Matthew 26: 14-16, and He was also nailed to a cross. The deceased also pass on memories, inevitably. The idea here, in addition, is that those with faith sometimes feel betrayed by their higher power when a loved one istaken away.
#10) "But can the sun extinguish the rains?"
Here is the second of two questions asked in this poem. Again, I had in mind both the student asking the teacher an excess amount of questions, and also those here on earth that are left behind to remember and suffer from loss. The question is straightforward: can good come from bad? Auden suggests that we "dismantle the sun" when a loved one dies. I advocate doing the opposite.
As well, one could take the word "sun" as being the son of Christ, or anyone who can help us heal, for that matter. I see the "rains" as being our tears, or anything that can bring us down. This question, along with the previous one, is answered in the following two stanzas.
11) "O, indeed. And death shall be no more."
This is the turning point in the poem in that the first two stanzas highlight the confusion, bitterness, anger, and sadness that accompany loss. Just as the poem progresses and changes, so do we in life. It is indeed true, only time heals. This line begins by assertively answering the previous question. Yes, good can come from bad; yes, faith, for some, does mend wounds; yes, the heart will heal as time passes by. "And death shall be no more" is a line taken from John Donne's "Holy Sonnets X" where he continues by saying that "Death? mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so? Death, thou shalt not die." This line also pulls religion into the picture again.
According to the Bible, "there shall be no more death" in the future (Revelation 21:4). And, as already stated, it can often feel as though we are close to death in the midst of misery, both physically and spiritually. On the cross, Jesus also experienced both spiritual death when He cried "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Matthew 27:46), and physical death, but He showed His power over death and sin by eventually rising from the dead. I am suggesting here that, although we don't possess such extreme abilities, we all have the capacity to at least move beyond our feelings of despair. This, of course, is in sharp contrast to Auden, who basically says that death and pain are forever.
#12) "We still want those stars- every one-"
The stars I am referring to here are those that Auden mentions: "The stars are not wanted now," he says. I took "stars" to mean memories. We want all of our memories, hopefully. This also reminded me of a very powerful quote from one of my favorite writers, Oscar Wilde, who said in notably his most potent piece of literature, "De Profundis," that "we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." In other words, while we are all down at some point or other, some of us are striving for the better in this world.
#13) "Which shineth through coffin's swinging door."
Either we can keep the coffin closed, keep our memories buried or forget them altogether, or we can set our feelings of hopelessness and sorrow free. We can allow the light from those stars to "shineth through coffin's swinging door." I call it a swinging door because I feel as though we have a choice that can go one way or the other. What will it be? For Auden, he states that we "bring out the coffin" and "let the mourners come." That's fine, but let's not leave it at that.
#14) "All debts have been paid, such a chore;"
Shakespeare said, "he that dies pays all debts." How true indeed. We also spend our entire lifetime feverishly working to pay off our obligations, which I why I refer to it as "a chore."
#15) "So nothing, no thing, will be undone."
Again, Auden says that when a loved one of ours dies we should "dismantle the sun," for example. I believe that "nothing, no thing" needs to be taken apart. The word "nothing" is broken down to "no thing" as a way of slowing down and placing stress on the statement.
#16 & 17) "He hearest the bell that tolls in these / Bright skies; thus Auden had it wrong."
"For whom the bell tolls, / It tolls for thee," said Donne, in "No Man is an Island." The bell, as Donne saw it, was the total awareness of human mortality, which was an unavoidable concern in the Renaissance. The "He" in this line is both God and Alan. The idea is that they are very much cognizant of us, of what we do and how we feel.
The skies are "bright"- which is dropped down a line for emphasis- because the sun can in fact extinguish the rains. I continue by, for the first time, stating straight out that "Auden had it wrong" in his poem, "Funeral Blues." Well, not entirely; it seems to me that Auden probably does not feel that such dampening sentiments last forever. He is simply implying that we feel colossally miserable after someone close to us dies. Still, his poem leaves us with no reconciliation for such emotions.
This poem of mine, in essence, is a continuation of "Funeral Blues." By the way, the story behind Auden writing this specific poem is rather amusing. You should check it out.
#18 & 19) "Points on thy compass are what He sees, / And God bless he who disagrees."
So, I've settled now who "He" is in this poem, but who is the "thy" I refer to? It's you, Gloria. One of the lines from Auden's poem that you read aloud at Alan's memorial was, "he was my North, my South, my East and West." He was? I am suggesting he is, and will forever be, and that he is still with you and with all of us, just as the Lord is, especially in times of heartache.
Still, not everyone has faith, and subsequently not all believe that those who are no longer with us here on earth have the ability to be with us afterwards, which is why I state, "And God bless he who disagrees. Everyone deserves God's blessing. So long as we are breathing, I believe, we are all God's children and worthy of His love. "he," in turn, is not capitalized, as in the past, because I am obviously referring to everyone other than God and Alan.
#20) "So long lives the love. 'Tis never gone."
This last line brings a strong closure to the poem, just as we all need finality to our pain- though not to our memories- as has been stressed throughout. The teacher figure I have brought up is, in effect, giving his/her final answer, or thoughts, here.
The love between Alan and his family and close friends will always be. It's that simple. "' Tis never gone." Auden, on the other hand, writes this: "I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong." I am also taking, indirectly, a line from Shakespeare's "Sonnet XVIII: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?"
Shakespeare was noted for often driving home his point in the last two sentences of his poems, the rhyming couplet. In this particular poem of his, he concludes with the following, which I see as being both extraordinarily beautiful and commanding: "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
Recipes Alan ‘homepage’ Tributes
Alan’s page Mad as a hatter..?!
Top
|
