i am a fan

i am a big fan of this poem and of this person. weeks ago i got to hear him recite this and i’ve been thinking about it ever since. i love youtube for things like this. ladies and gentlemen: Mark Scandrette.

 

on my mind…

This poem has been on my mind a lot lately. I blogged it a few months ago, I think. I found it while browsing through a bookstore in Alexandria.

I realized why it matters so much to me. I’m a bit of an epicure. An epicure on a budget, to be sure (and to be doubly sure, that topic will soon show up in blog form), but an epicure none the less. For those who speak Enneagram (my condolences if you do), I’m a 4 and a 7. So basically, I’m doomed to a lifelong tension of loving the finer things of life but longing for simplicity so as to free myself to give and love without limit.

I recently met a fellow self-proclaimed 4 and 7, and to be honest, I learned a great deal from simply observing his demeanor and how he carried himself–just for an evening.

Also, I got to hear him read poetry, which was almost paralyzing in its beauty.

I’d like to hear him read this poem, which to me, provides an answer to my plight…my lot in life. And also silences me:

A Brief for the Defense

by Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.