ODE TO A POET AND POETS

I write these words somewhat in honor of

          my favorite poet of recent years—

                   Billy Collins.

I know him, but he doesn’t know me and he does just fine with

that arrangement I’m sure.

But it leaves me without the opportunity to tell someone

“I had lunch with Billy Collins yesterday. 

He liked my latest poem and wants me to write more.”

I did have morning coffee with him this morning, though,

so to speak, sitting at the round glass table in the yard

          reading to myself from his book

                   The Trouble With Poetry and other poems.

I’m telling you this for no particular reason other than to drop his name in the only way I know how.

Once I was shown the room where Longfellow penned his famous “Tales of the Wayside Inn” at, no less, the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Mass.

I stood reverently in the doorway

          and stared at the very desk he used

                   and thought to myself

                             I wonder if I sat there in that very chair

                                      at that very desk, I could write something

                                                as intriguing and profound as did he?

Once I stood at the foot of Robert Frost’s grave in Bennington, VT.

 

I tried to imagine him sitting in some quaint setting, maybe staring out a window with pen in hand, trying to think of the next line after

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth…

I wondered if I had lived in New England and perhaps even grew up there, picking apples, mending stone fences, and stopping by a woods on a snowy evening, could I have been a poet with such great lines pouring out of my soul?

What I have concluded is that we are all the poets and writers of our own lives, 

just as fascinating

just as colorful

just as profound

just as musical as any we have read about

but we are always looking beyond ourselves

to find the true life we think we are not living

but have had all along.

I will forever continue to read my favorite poets and appreciate the artistry of their words, but I will also try to remain aware of the fact that what they are mostly telling us is to look around us and see that we are living literary-worthy lives too.

AT THE BEACH, Part 2

Some of you may remember that the causeway bridge to LBI wasn’t as “smooth sailing” as it is today (when the traffic is moving, of course). There was a time when there was a series of clippity, cloppity wooden bridges coming out of Manahawkin over to the island. I remember riding in the backseat of the family car (a 1946 two-tone green Plymouth sedan—a used car—our family always had used cars) and being awakened by the sound of crossing the bridges and getting excited about what lie just ahead.

      I would stare out the car window at all the fascinating sights like old rundown shacks in the marsh areas around the bay, and imagine what it must be like to live there and wake up every morning to the wonderful aroma of swampy salt air. I would start telling my parents what I wanted to do on the beach that day, and ask if we could get ice cream from the Good Humor truck when it came around ringing its child-beckoning bell (they were noncommittal about that). I would think about what new kind of tin bucket and shovel I might get at the extravagant cost of 25 cents. (I saw a couple of those in an antique store on the island a few years back going for the price of $350 each.)

        All in all, a beach day on LBI was as if there was no other place in the world for a day.  There have been many times that I have wished I could travel back in time and experience that feeling of excitement and anticipation that was so mind and heart-filling—a sense of joy that only children know because they’re not caught up with everything else going on in the world or thinking about some responsibility to be met that weights heavy on a person’s heart.

        Too bad, really. I know that it would be weird for us adults to act like children or to think of ourselves or the world as innocent. We know better than that. On the other hand, I have a feeling that sometimes we are too adult-like in the sense that we deny the importance allowing ourselves childlike moments.

        I have vowed to myself in these retirement years, after 44 years of being in the ministry that I’m going try to regain that sense of wonder that I once knew, staring out the back window of our 46 Plymouth, in spite of the fact that I am quite aware of how imperfect I am and the world is. Most certainly I do not intend to totally enter a world of make believe, but I do think that I think that it's possible to let go of our preoccupation with the grown-up world of worries and woes, and even if just for a moment or a day, allow ourselves the healing privilege of childllike joy.

     I'll let you know how I make out with that, but maybe you could let me know how you're doing with it too.

     

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

       I’m almost fully retired after 44 years as a church professional—4 as a Director of Christian Education/Youth Pastor and the rest as a pastor. The strange thing is that I don’t know how to feel about it. It’s what I’ve known and the only thing that I feel some sense of competence in—though others may be of a different opinion regarding the competence thing. But now I will be entering a world that, though is not totally unfamiliar to me since I’ve been only part-time for the last 9 years, is nonetheless a little unimaginable in its fullness.

       I’ve been making plans, creating a kind of bucket list, and attempting to figure out how to make the most of this next stage of my life. I’m trying not to try too hard, though. I don’t want it to be a frantic transition, but rather, an easy, smooth passage into a new form of personal freedom. Of course, that may be asking too much since my personal identity has been so deeply immersed in being a pastor.

       At the age of 75, I sometimes feel as though I need to be guarded against giving in to a stereotypical mindset of being elderly, even though that’s the category to which my age automatically assigns me. In general, I’ve always been rather youthful in the way I think and in my overall demeanor, wrinkles notwithstanding. Naturally there are some physiological issues that have placed some limitations on things that I can no longer do.

       For instance, when I turned 60, I celebrated my birthday by going snowshoeing in the Adirondacks. It was a great time— invigorating and fun. That’s probably not going to happen anymore, but I’m okay with that. However, though I won’t be putting that on my bucket list, I’ll not give up on the idea entirely. I used to do a lot of tent camping, lying on the ground and easily getting up the next day, limber and ready to go. “Limber and ready to go” is not a reality these days, and sleeping on the ground is far from being within my comfort zone. However, a good sleeping bag, a pillow, and an LL Bean cot is just fine.

       The point is that changes in life are unavoidable, whether you’re talking about getting older or a change in life circumstances. In his letter to the Church in Philippi, the Apostle Paul wrote “I have learned to be content with whatever I have.” Maybe that’s the secret to a really joyful life. I suppose it’s easier said than done—or maybe not. Maybe it depends on whether we choose to be victims or passionate participants.