I will be posting here mostly about religion, politics, and culture, but sometimes I will also about literature, and especially poetry. I am one of those who believe that, sometimes, literature reveals more truth--and truth of a different sort--than any number of philosophical or theological treatises, data analyses, or anything else. So you got that going for you. Which is nice.
Today, for some reason, I am thinking about my old teacher, Roland Flint, a professor of poetry at Georgetown University. He was an important person in my education, and to me a very kind man. He died in early 2001, and so seems from a world long ago. But I return to his poems from time to time, and always find them more than worth the re-reading. (Most poetry is like this--it gives more the more you re-read it. That's true about a lot of things, of course.)
One of my favorite of his poems is the one below. It speaks, mostly indirectly, of the sheer difficulty of life, and, mostly directly, of the manifold blessings of the ordinary. It frames itself in terms of one dinner in a marriage, but I think it actually is even wider than that condition; the way this life is "simple" at "times like this" speaks to the many ways that life can make difficulties for us. Another poem like this, but one that frames the discussion in terms of parenting, is Mark Strand's "The Continuous Life," but for some reason, the ominiousness of the final line of this poem stays with me. Is it a taste I have for melodrama? I don't think so. It is sufficiently reserved to not indulge in that. Anyway, here it is. When you read it, give a thought to the blessings of the everyday, when you can sense them; and if you don't mind, give a thought to the blessed life of Roland Flint, whose life, like all of ours, wasn't always this way.
EASY
he sets the table and peels the garlic.
She cuts up brocolli, strips snow peas, readies fish-
he presses the garlic, fixes her a kir and him a gin
she sautés the vegetables while he grates cheese,
She puts pasta in the boiling water and fixes salad.
which he takes to the table with the cheese.
She mixes a salad dressing, he opens the wine
and takes it to the table where everything is ready,
except for the pasta. so he lights the candles
and puts salad from a big walnut bowl into small ones.
Now she or he brings the pasta, greens and fish
mixed in, and they sit to talk, drink wine and eat.
Though October, they sit on a small screened porch
in the back of the house, where they have lived
for twelve years of their twenty together,
the last six, the children gone, alone.
Once, during dinner, if they stop talking
and listen to the music, they may, without drama,
hold hands a moment, almost like a handshake
by now, most friendly, confirming the contract,
and more. She is a pretty woman of 51, who has
kept herself trim and fit. He is 56 and hasn't.
Later, they will clear the dishes and clean up,
and she will bring tea and fresh fruit to bed,
where they will watch a little television or not,
with herbal tea and the fruit. After that, if
they make love or not, they will talk a long time,
her work or his, the budget, the middle east,
this child or that, how good dinner was, how
easy it is, the times like this, when it's simple.