La bella luna

Having been rebuked by Mega for my critical comment about poetry (though truth be told it was more about missing the regular non-poetry fare on her blog than a dig at the month long poetry contest), I pulled out some poetry the other night. I'd been feeling quite negative all day--everything seemed the color of brown shit. And that feeling hadn't gone away, a kind of funk I knew would interfere with my sleep. Instead of seeking a sleep I wouldn't fine, I took out Billy Collins Picnic, Lightning.

It's not that I do not like poetry at all. I've actually had some wonderful experiences with poetry: Robert Browning's bickering priests, Shakespeare's sonnets, Tom Andrew's Random Symmetries. But these encounters with poetry have been forced--an undergrad English class, someone else's book club pick. Because it's not my strength--I'm always better when engaging the big stuff where details take a less central role--I don't gravitate towards it and I often feel I should "get it" better than I do. I mean I am an English Major.

So, I read Collin's "Moon"--and I found a glimmer of hope on both accounts, particularly in the last three stanzas:

"And if you wanted to follow the example,
tonight would be the night
to carry some tiny creature outside
and introduce him to the moon.

And if your house has no child,
you can always gather into your arms
the sleeping infant of yourself,
as I have done tonight,
and carry him outdoors,
all limp in his tattered blanket,
making sure to steady his lolling head
with the palm of your hand.

And while the wind ruffles the pear trees
in the corner of the orchard
and dark roses wave against a stone wall,
you can turn him on your shoulder
and walk in circle on the lawn
drunk with the light.
You can lift him up into the sky,
your eyes nearly as wide as his,
as the moon climbs high into the night."

Of course I wanted to be that "sleeping infant of yourself" carried out to see the moon, to take our own infant selves, these "limp" and wrapped in "tattered blanket" selves. I felt limp and tattered and wanted what the moon could bring: wonder. I winced a tear back and decided to read some more. Just maybe I could develop a connection to such stanzad, syllabic, stuff.

The next night, still trying to resurrect my now not-as-glum spirits, we finished Moonstruck. And for the second time in so many days the moon figured brightly in saving me a trip and 50 bucks. The old grandfather with all his dogs: "La bella luna! The moon brings the woman to the man. Capice?" And Ronny's speech outside his house after the opera:

"Everything seems like nothing to me now, 'cause I want you in my bed. I don't care if I burn in hell. I don't care if you burn in hell. The past and the future is a joke to me now. I see that they're nothing. I see they ain't here. The only thing that's here is you - and me...Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are *bullshit*. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!"

A bit of peace with myself and poetry I gained. Maybe both work on each other.