When I taught, most students learned a quote of mine that, for many, made a real difference. "You don't have to like everybody, but you have to get along."
I am getting older. As a matter of fact, just scrolling Facebook and watching or reading the news had made me realize I could have 30 seconds or 30 years left - obviously, I don't know, but I am thankful for each new day. Every day is what I call an icing day, icing on the cake. A good day is when nothing gets worse - the status quo is fine.
Whether times have indeed changed or communication has exposed us to news and events much more quickly (and incessantly), the world isn't what I once thought it was. The concepts of good manners, respect, shame, and class are missing. Everyone has a voice now, and most aren't afraid to use it. While people have differences of opinion, the rudeness and name calling has gone over the top. I think because I was raised to be polite and have manners, I expect others to be the same. They're not.
That said (and it barely scratches the surface), most people, animals, property and ideas deserve respect. The following poem shows what happens when someone realizes it, understands, and acts accordingly.
The Fish - Poem by Elizabeth Bishop
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
- the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly-
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
- It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
- if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels- until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.
No comments:
Post a Comment