Guest Blog
I spent Columbus Day on the ridges of Mount Hood. I had been planning on spending the federal holiday at work, as if it were not a holiday, working in an empty office. Just to add one tiny, silent protest to the many and several states that refuse to recognize the holiday. But, really, the irony of working all day for free for the very government against whom you're protesting was just too much. And besides, it was a long summer with not nearly enough hiking, thanks in part to a bum knee that took MUCH longer to heal that expected (O vieillesse enemie!). So, with my companion Mary, I headed for the hills...I was pleasantly surprised that, at the first turn, I learned the story of Tecumseh. How when he and his army were finally defeated, no one could find his body. The theories abound, and I was particularly intrigued by her insistence that he might return one day, and: if we ever meet him, we'll know it / he will still be / so angry. I hoped that if today, this Now, was the moment, that he wouldn't choose an early deserted trail on the slopes of Mt. Hood.
And though I did spend some time lifting my eyes to the God of the mountains, I spent much of the time slowly and deliberately learning by heart a Fall Song. It seems that the idea of making children memorize parts of plays, poems, etc., was ejected from American public schools sometime around our parents' generation. In many parts of Europe, the practice is still quite common. In this, I'm with the Old World. Memorization brings such a familiar intimacy with a known and loved work: How many times have you heard the Fall Song? Have you ever considered just where to place the emphasis on that tricky phrase "that now is nowhere / except underfoot"? Have you ever noticed that there are two lists of three items and the first time she uses no connectors at all, just commas; the second time she uses "and" between all three? Do you have a least favorite part? (Mine is "in the shadows" - so ordinary and adds nothing. Do you think she just needed to fill that space with something, for the rhythm?). In the end, it takes little time at all and I was able to recite the Song much of the way down the mountain. If they were impressed, my audience did not show it - the boulders did not move, and the trees did not stir from their misty naps.
But the best part for me is that the whole memorization experience itself ingrains the time and place and moment - the particular island of time - in my mind. I can happily add a new entry to my slowly growing list:
Fall Song - Mary Oliver - Ridges of Mount Hood - Columbus Day
No Man is an Island - John Donne - Lake South America, California mountains - Full moon near the solstice
Dam Hetch Hetchy! - John Muir - Suburbia near Washington, DC - Fall
Don Diegue's soliloquy in Act I scene 4 of Le Cid - Corneille - Place Pie, Avignon - Fall
Le Corbeau et le Renard - Jean de la Fontaine - Pond in Bow, NH - Spring
Star Spangled Banner - Key - Bicycling around my house at age 8 - near Richmond, VA
posted by tortaluga @ 9:07 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home