4 x 4 - Farmers, Ferries, Fools, and Faithless Chihuahua Dogs

Sandwiched between two Walts are William and Wendell. Here are four lots of four lines for the weekend.

When I’m lost for words, I can always find inspiration from the words that came before me.

Walt Whitman, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” from Leaves of Grass
It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hense,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd.

Me: On my first trip to NYC, I only had 8 hours. Still, I managed to buy a copy of Leaves of Grass from the Strand and find a bench in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge that replaced the Brooklyn Ferry Walt took. I read the poem aloud to my friends, and surprised us all by weeping toward the end. If you’re a writer, remember. It avails not–time nor place. I am with you. Just as you feel, I felt. Our words carry a bit of the eternal in them.

Billy Collins, “Fool Me Good” from The Trouble with Poetry
Just pour the tea,
Just look into the eye of the flower,
Just sing the song—
One thing at a time.

Me: It’s not fair to call him William, really. Billy is so much friendlier. “One thing at a time” is a good reminder for writing. Inspiration sometimes falls like a fog–we’d be fools not to break the craft down into individual tasks. One thing at a time.

Wendell Berry, “The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer” from Collected Poems
I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my
Inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission
To go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it.
I have planted by the stars in defiance of the experts.

Me: I apologize a lot. Sorry. Someday I hope I can be like Wendell. Or at least Wendell’s Mad Farmer. Except I won’t be mad. When writing, it’s easier to pretend defiance and write out destiny like a sequence of scenes building through to the climax.

Walt McDonald, “Boys with Chihuahua Dogs” from Faith Is a Radical Master
too dumb to read stop signs
too slow for cars in a speed zone,
too small for a shoebox,
too hopeless for a cross.

Me: Walt and I had coffee in Lubbock one Christmas. He’s one of the greatest Texas poets. Maybe the greatest. We quoted poetry to each other at the coffee shop. He’d start a Hopkins sonnet, I’d finish it. He’s still there in Lubbock, I think. I would have visited him last week maybe if I hadn’t gotten stuck in California when Dallas closed for two days. And you can tell I’m not talking about the lines here. What’s to say? Sometimes the images are too intimate, too desperate, too honest. Sometimes reading is like a little death. Sometimes writing is too.

(Special thanks to Joanna Young and Robert Hruzek for bringing this meme to my attention.)