So Sweet and So Cold

Plums, So Sweet And So Cold

Good morning, patient readers. I’ve been preoccupied—some wonderful travel to be with our kids and grandkids, some other writing on my long-promised online course, a short, nasty battle with Covid, and oh, well, just dealing with the ever-expanding complexities of life. But here are some new thoughts I want to share that have been rumbling in my head.

I’ve been thinking a lot—aren’t we all these days?—about how to get our bearings in this dark time through which our world is traveling. We seem always waiting for some news to squeeze out into a little more clarity and hope. And we’re disappointed. We’re left with the same muddle. Where is our world headed? Where is our nation headed? There’s a lot to be afraid of here.

Maybe, we finally admit, we’re looking for real news in the wrong places. Maybe we just need to simplify things. Maybe complexity really is out of control, close to breaking us apart, or breaking us down. Sometimes frightening, isn’t it? And so I’ve looking for those sources of simplicity.

This is not a new thought for me. A portion of my dissertation is on the work of the nineteenth century American writer Henry Thoreau, at one time an influential voice. He saw the damage of  complexity coming and sent out his announcement from Walden Pond:  

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.

And then there is the towering William Wordsworth who was writing, as Charles Taylor presents in his extraordinary new book Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment, a poetry of resistance for an age grown flat and disenchanted and way to complex.

 Here’s Wordsworth:

The world is too much with us; late and soon. . . .

We have given our hearts away. . . .

For this, for everything, we are out of tune.

I find myself turning to these kinds of poets for what I need right now. Am I being naïve? Is this indulging in escape? Too simple? Can poetry really bring much needed relief?

I’ve been reflecting on a poem that has rewarded me for many years. It’s called “This Is Just To Say” and was written by William Carlos Williams in 1934. Somehow it has met some need for me as I’ve revived my attention to such poetry. This is just to say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Wait, maybe you should turn off the news and read it again. Such a simple moment captured so simply. The final focus is on those plums, “so sweet / and so cold.” The little drama is personal, between the one who took the plums, with just a slight bit of guilt, and the one who was keeping those plums for breakfast. The drama is about a little confession and a small plea for forgiveness. But the plums, “so sweet / and so cold,” shine out with small pleasure.  

Somehow this poem lifts me out of so much unsolvable complexity. It grounds me in something utterly concrete. It is a release into the extraordinary. It offers a surprise of joy. No need for some elaborate solution. Just let the little things shine out. “So sweet / and so cold”—that’s sort of where I am turning these days, at least in part. These poets refresh my vision.

This view of life appears so much in the poetry of the Bible.

Acclaim the LORD, all the earth;

Break into songs of joy, sing psalms. . . .

Acclaim the presence of the LORD our King. Psalm 98

Is it too much of a leap to “acclaim the presence of the LORD” in those plums, “so sweet / and so cold”? Well, read the Psalms, you’ll find it everywhere. Read Williams and so many other poets who find this presence in the little things. What we need are fresh eyes to see again.  The Psalmist is always showing us the way.

“Let the rivers clap their hands,” the Psalmist continues, “let the mountains sing aloud together.” I’m thinking, if I can just reorient my looking, and my listening, I too just might “break into to songs of joy.”