I was just outside
standing on the grass
looking at the stars,
clouds drifting invisibly over them
making empty shapes in the air. I was
looking around
and thinking, as I do, and I realized
a couple things that came together
in an alignment that made me wonder at life,
and how great it is. Because
it really is, though
some complain
(though we must accept
the possibility there's something
wrong with my brain
chemistry). I turned
faster,
trying to look around all at once,
and I found I was making these
motions with my hands, as if
encouraging everyone
to stand up in the stands.
And I was happy, but with
no way to share it, really.
Which didn't remotely matter.
9 comments:
I'm going to turn to the words of Vonnegut here because he says this better than I ever could: "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"
Doggone it! I misread that. I thought it was
"Isn't this nice? I don't know what it is."
Wait until I'm old and senile, and my comments will probably sound more like that. ;)
I thought Kurt was channeling me!
This quote has a rather avuncular origin. If I remember right, it comes from advice that Vonnegut's uncle gave him, and then Vonnegut repeated it in speeches from time to time. It's one of my favorite Vonnegut quotes, and I think your poem shares a similar sentiment to what the quote gets at.
I would say that as I misread it, it expressed a sentiment precisely similar (to what I felt in the poem). However, while as a rhetorical question "Isn't this nice?" feels easy and pleasant, I don't think I could have conceived it in terms that began, "If this isn't nice..."
"I don't know what is," is also problematic.
Put them together and the implication is obvious: this is nice. If nice is meaningful, knowable...then this be it. An example of.
Getting the gist is a snap, instantaneous, but it's still very far from me ever being able to put it that way. Too much ironic distance for me, to be able to say, or think to say, or conceive it that way, but I can readily see, enjoy, and understand what Vonnegut or his uncle are getting at. It's the same thing, put in a way comfortable to them: a playfully skeptic pose, as if to admit we may not know what nice is - but at the same time, to submit a powerful experience, with one's observation: this is so convincingly nice that it either IS nice, or we have a semantics problem.
There's no problem with either approach. It's a question of what's natural to the one who's moved to say. For me, in that moment, to pretend I may not know what nice is would be disingenuous, with no powerful effect to justify the contortion.
Vonnegut is another matter. He expresses himself casually, wonderfully, with a degree of detachment that's hard to describe - almost miraculous. He is perfectly engaged with the human motives and emotions of his characters always, yet with a distance (which involves or creates irony, but does not necessarily proceed from it) on all the complexes of notional consequence so usually presumed inherent, at least, by those stuck in them. All of humanity's tragic assumptions and assertions of heritage, convention, respect and necessity. How this distance can be comic when what's observed is so often tragic is one of the deep little mysteries of literature.
I believe it's partly because, as Vonnegut himself observed, he is a benevolent creator. And it could be wholly.
What you get at here is precisely why I love this Vonnegut quote, and I think you hit on an important distinction between his words and your poem. I like that your poem called to mind this favorite quote of mine, and it makes me happy to think of the many ways to express the sentiment.
I agree with what you say about Vonnegut. I also think too often he is seen as cynical, but I sometimes find that even when he is that way, there is a certain amount of hope (not sure that's the right word, but you get my meaning, right?) to be found in what he writes. I think it's why I really like this one from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies--"God damn it, you've got to be kind.” There's just something wonderful about that phrasing.
If this comment thread isn’t nice, I don’t know what is. :)
I think hope is the right word. Vonnegut's is a tart, not to say astringent optimism. People who call him cynical do so because they're accustomed to thinking that someone who is continuously pointing out the selfish, the venal, the vain, the often nasty and disgraceful streak that runs through us pretty much all, is some kind of cynic.
They misunderstand cynicism. Cynicism doesn't just point out all of that where it is, it sneers and implies it wherever it isn't.
Vonnegut is a clear-eyed observer of humanity, with a gift for sharp, sometimes painfully sharp, but always vivid and pungent description. A lot of people flinch from the pungency, and assume anyone who could lay it out so matter-of-fact must be a cynic. I don't blame them, really: who else renders such a loving description of humanity's negative attributes? And rarely leavened by heroic virtues; courage, self-sacrifice. Vonnegut humanizes his characters not in spite of all their flaws, but making use of them - and with only a handful of virtues: kindness. Pity, often self-pity. A helpless and aching longing for beauty. And integrity - often, the integrity of the turned worm, that comes with self-realization too late to redeem one's tragic fall, but leaving one at least with an understanding of what never, never should be done - and acceptance of culpability of one's own part.
The pathetic virtues have had no greater poet, or one less poetic about his business.
I like everything you say here as I find we are generally on the same page about Vonnegut; therefore, I have very little to add to this. I just want to say that I love that last line in your comment. I need some time to think about it, and perhaps I'll have more to say. I really feel it sums up Vonnegut so well.
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