breaking the girl...

It is already November and I am due for a new blog entry. I can’t believe October has somehow slipped through my fingers and I only have two months left! At the moment though, I have more pressing concerns. I have a meeting with the field managers in 30 minutes and I just spilled tea on my white shirt. Classy, as usual!
That aside, my latest inspiration in thinking and writing has been a volume of poetry Dr. Zinck gave me before I left. I’ve been reading the novel “Hungry Tide” lately because its all about the Sundarban region that I recently explored, but last night instead of picking it up to polish off the last few chapters I found myself going for poetry instead. There is something so very different about handling a book of poetry rather than a novel. I could have easily picked up my book and jumped right in, remembering the story as I went along plunging deeper into it, but poetry takes preparation. I usually do something a little like this:
I pick up the volume and just hold it for a moment, letting myself feel its weight. Then I turn it over and admire its color and texture (this book just so happens to be a lemon yellow with blue edging). Next I open it up and run my thumb across the pages and – you heard it here first – I lean in real close to smell them as they fly past my nose. Only then am I able to decide on a poem to read. Now, I am of the adamant opinion that poetry is not a quiet activity. All poetry must be read aloud. (My roommates are all too aware of my opinion on this!) I read it first once…quietly…slowly, trying to feel the flow rather than the meaning. Then I read it louder once I’ve gotten into it. Then, once I’ve read it like that several times, I sit back for a moment or two and let my favorite lines run through my head…letting them be stored in my memory. And before I close the book, no matter how many poem’s I’ve read, I always return to my favorite and read it again.
My favorite today is one by Don Marquis called:

the lesson of the moth

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been and uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude towards life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself