A RITUAL TO READ TO EACH OTHER--William Stafford
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
What it makes me think of after the third read, is how much we have lost by replacing actually TALKING to each other (face-to-face)-- because that is reading of a type; body language, storytelling-- with online social networking tools-- We can all hide in the web and can revel in that we may never be revealed for who we really are... because the person on the other side of the "conversation"/network is predisposed to creating a visual/iconic picture of us, and thus creates only an IDEA of who we are-- which is not to suggest that the stories we tell are TRUE, or unchangeable-- to the point where I am hearing people now suggest "send fewer emails and have a meeting or call on the phone" because we are losing the ability to communicate.
ReplyDeleteWhat this poem is saying to me is that IF we don't take the time to get to know ourselves and our own voices than we will forever be living the "lives" of someone else. (We miss our star) The small betrayals in the mind are when we "let things go" that we truly believe in. (Don't say what we really want to in that meeting, don't show our true feelings to our friends, say yes when we want to say no, etc) They are just "small betrayals", but they are a way of betraying our souls and in effect teaching others around us by example to silence their own souls in order to keep the status quo. I don't quite get the verse about the elephants. In the end I feel that he's urging me, as a favor to him and all other humans to be CLEAR about what I want, feel, believe and to express that clearly. I love that he ends with "the darkness around us is deep" where he points out that most of us are living in a muddled reality where things are NOT clear and it is easy to go to sleep and just allow the dominant paradigm to reign on. In truth I do find it hard to stay alert and awake and to always speak my truth and even always listen to myself enough to KNOW my truth. I really loooove this poem!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post, Kim. I see the elephants another image for following the wrong god home--they hold onto the tail in front and just go where that elephant goes, and if the one in the front does not know where to go, they will "miss the park". Yes, it IS really hard to stay awake because the darkness around us IS deep.
ReplyDeleteThe poem takes us under. Into a damp, uncertain time, when trust is not assured, and the nerves are white with exposure to too much. The only medicine is to think through it and appeal, try to remain human.
ReplyDeleteWell put... The nerves are white...
DeleteHaving just recently been in a relationship that ended, what the poem brings up in me are the awful and pathetic recurrences of old patterned behaviors in us both --- old, unconscious, and damaging --- that brought us down without sufficient understanding or determination to become conscious of them and thereby be released from their powers.
ReplyDeleteCraig
So true, Craig, and so tragic. Over and over we fail to understand the unconscious patterns. My own heart has broken many times over this, especially because I KNOW this is true, and try so hard to bring them to awareness.
DeleteI just needed to find an answer for my essay
ReplyDelete