Want To Be

If there is one person I would like to be writing like, it's Donald Hall. I suppose I am writing like him, but I want to be doing it as well, with as much vigor, and such that it was more than enough to keep my family and I afloat. I just finished A Carnival Of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety and it was good, good, good. (Though I revere Ann Patchett, I disagree with her assessment on the back cover that it is one of a very few perfect books. The book is good, Ann, but it is not perfect and is equaled by your own This Is The Story Of A Happy Marriage.) I should say that I want to be able to write prose the way Hall did, the way E. B. White did, the way David Sedaris, Anne Lamott, Annie Dillard, Kurt Vonnegut, George Saunders, and Mary Karr all do. I've never been big for Hall's poetry, mostly I think because I don't understand.

For poetry, I'll take David Shumate who wrote this most beautiful of things called "The Long Road":

It’s one of those highways you come across late at night. No signs. No arrows. Just a road running north and south. You pause. You look one way. Then the other. Nothing. Only the hum of the engine, the chirping of crickets confirm you are here. You can’t remember where you’ve been. Where you are going. If it weren’t for the lines drawn through the middle, you’d think you were drifting down a river. Or stumbling upon a path through the sky. Remember, it is a moonless night. You are tired. Hungry. No one to talk to. Afraid that what you were thinking might have come true. You look to your left again. Perhaps you see a mountain. An ocean. A lover you wish you hadn’t lost. Spirits that seem so familiar, drifting in from the dark. You wait in that silence. It may be years before it is safe to proceed.

Perhaps it helps that Shumate writes prose poetry, which ought to be a bastard child but comes out instead as a an otherworldly thing, perhaps angelic.

If I were to want to be a different poet it would be Mark Strand in "Man And Camel":

On the eve of my fortieth birthday I sat on the porch having a smoke when out of the blue a man and a camel happened by. Neither uttered a sound at first, but as they drifted up the street and out of town the two of them began to sing. Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me— the words were indistinct and the tune too ornamental to recall. Into the desert they went and as they went their voices rose as one above the sifting sound of windblown sand. The wonder of their singing, its elusive blend of man and camel, seemed an ideal image for all uncommon couples. Was this the night that I had waited for so long? I wanted to believe it was, but just as they were vanishing, the man and camel ceased to sing, and galloped back to town. They stood before my porch, staring up at me with beady eyes, and said: “You ruined it. You ruined it forever.”

Then again, two of those guys are dead and one is alive in the Midwest. I've no inclination to die anywhere right away or to live in the Midwest, so I might as well go on being me, leaving odd things on the page (screen) and wondering how they connect.

Buddha Morning

“A thousand Buddhas populate this house. The Buddha of pepper. The Buddha of brooms. The chimney Buddha and the dustpan Buddha. While we are away the Buddha of bowties stands in front of the mirror and marvels at how handsome he can become. The landscape Buddha snips at the hedges with his scissors. The wildlife Buddha tends to the tranquility of birds. The Buddha of good tidings greets us upon our return and the Buddha of raincoats and galoshes assists us with our wraps. The Buddahs of yet unspecified destinies wait in the hallway. One will become the Buddha of smoothed over domestic squabbles. Another the Buddha of unrealized dreams. Each morning a thin, old Buddha rakes a pattern into the sand of the Zen garden. When he is finished he looks over his shoulder at me standing behind the picture window. He knows this should be enough to lead me to the end of the Great Path. If only I were ready. ”

— David Shumate, "Household Buddhas" in High Water Mark

This is about all I need in a poem. It may be pretty much all I need. It's like an incredibly well-tooled joke with a strong set-up complete with dustpan, bowties, and galoshes. Two thirds of the way through everything picks up pace just a touch and a thin, old Buddha materializes raking answers into the Zen garden. I look out and largely past, not yet able to see well. The joke leaves me smiling but also a little sad. It gets me to thinking.

I consider the thousand Buddhas in my own house. The Buddha of the ink bottle. The Buddha of the dictionary and calendar who does both jobs needing money to pay of his student loans. The Buddha of shaving admires his smooth skin continually touching his face with one hand gently, gently. Outside, the Buddha of dogs accepts the neighbor's untrained beast barking at every passerby and most cars, but looks strained from the lack of sleep. The Buddha of grey skies and rain holds the door open for the Buddha of first flurries. There is a Buddha of our porch lights who appears earlier every evening. The Buddha of desire sleeps in each of our beds with cold feet and sharp toenails. I would tell you about the Buddha of cats, but each cat is Buddha. We have no Zen garden to rake, but a young child Buddha sits at the kitchen table under the light holding a pencil in her hand. She writes a single word on a blank page. This is the whole story but I take it as a prompt and fill the rest of the page and two more with all my thinking. Though if you ask I can only just recall the word she wrote there and couldn't possibly pronounce it.