Angelina’s fool

I am not much for poetry. When in seventh grade, the principal of our school, Sister Angelina, assigned my class of 30 and others too the task of writing some verse, which I think was going to be used in some larger project. I surely I did my part, and probably scribbled some indecipherable nonsense. Later our teacher, also a nun, relayed Angelina’s disappointment that not one useful line had been generated by the brain power of the seventh grade class of Little Flower School, Billings, Montana, in the year of our Lord 1963. We didn’t have much of that.

I don’t get poetry. I’ve read it, but for the most part it does not register. It bounces. I know to ignore the end of a line and read the next as if the two were not disjointed. I was singled out for praise in high school for reading a poem in that manner when called on in class. And I once saw an advertisement, probably for some airline, about the White Cliffs of Dover, read by someone with a deep resonant voice, talking about “this land, this England”. (sic) Just reading words in such a manner often passes for greater intelligence than exists in the reader.  Thus do we honor Morgan Freeman as we do. He could read The Da Vinci Code and make it sound like Shakespeare.

But not all of poetry is lost on me. I have on my bulletin board two poems that moved me, If, by Rudyard Kipling, and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost. The first is just singularly powerful, so much so that even I caught wind and was moved by it in high school … “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it in you…” We all like to think like that at times, that we are more than ordinary. Frost’s words also resonated with me … “And miles to go before I sleep”. He repeated this line twice at the end of that poem, and in so doing conveyed to me the idea that he was talking about death.

See? I can do this stuff. There, for a brief instant, I grasped the essence of poetry, to convey ideas beyond the words used. That is what they call a “fleeting instant.” In all of poetry I have had but one of those. I am a cement block, as Angelina knew.

But then, Sister Angelina conveyed other messages too, that she had a higher understanding of life and looked down on us mere mortals as fools. I see that in poetry and poetry readings. Such arrogance is not becoming of that wheezing old nun! She was not much for humanity as we are, huddled masses … what does it say in that statue? I forget.

But let’s get down to real poetry, real insight conveyed in verse. We all know the opening line of “There once was a man from Nantucket”. We know that it is, by itself, the unstated punchline of a verse that is going to end with the words “fuck it.” So it conveys more than it says. But there is more to it, and it is not at all a dirty verse.

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket

See? Clean and clever! We can, all of us, aspire to Angelinan heights. I do not know the origin of the this profound verse, but I do sense that if Morgan Freeman read it, it would resonate on me like “this land, this England” above. As it happens, we do have two more verses, both supplied by newspaper journalists, which tells me they have abilities that far exceed their more trivial job about getting quotes from two sources.

But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,
The man and the girl with the bucket;
And he said to the man,
He was welcome to Nan,
But as for the bucket, Pawtucket.
— (Pawtucket Times)

Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset,
Where he still held the cash as an asset,
But Nan and the man
Stole the money and ran,
And as for the bucket, Manhasset.
— (Chicago Tribune)

There you have it, the completion of some of the finest verse ever written. In my view.

The other morning when I awoke I was thinking of a Latin phrase, “sic transit gloria …” … I could not remember the last word of that phrase … later it came back to me. “Mundi”. “Sic transit gloria mundi”, which means, AI tells me, “Thus passes the glory of the world.” I like a different translation better … “Fleeting are the joys of life”.

You might think that a profound statement, and indeed it carries weight. But I am not profound like that. I am just “a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour on the stage, and then is heard no more.” You might take from this that I have read Shakespeare. That says more than is true by quoting those words, from MacBeth’s “Tomorrow” speech, which is uttered on the king’s learning of his wife’s death. I was required to memorize that passage as a sophomore in high school by an excellent teacher, Mrs. Hudson. It stuck with me. It ends by saying that life is “… a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Yikes!

But no, I thought, more down to earth, that “sic transit…” would be a good ending to a limerick, and so want to give it a go. Let’s get down to my essence.

There once was a man name of Bundy
Who took delight with his girl on a Sunday.
So quickly it passed
His tears said “Alas!”
Sic transit gloria mundi.

OK. Gave it my best shot, and I’ll step aside for any who want to give it a better try. I am still Angelina’s fool.